Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: theory on December 07, 2012, 12:41:21 pm
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We're going to post an interview with Donald X. on the main blog. Of course, the man is friendly and active enough (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?action=profile;u=19) in this community already, but we thought this would be a nice thing to post on the main blog in time for all those people getting Dominion as a gift this holiday season.
Post your questions here and we'll pick out some of the most popular to collate into a formal interview.
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You've said many times before that Guilds is the last of the "standard" Dominion expansions. Have you given any thought to what you want to do with Dominion after Guilds?
What lessons have you learned about the game design process in general from making Dominion? How has it informed your subsequent games?
What is your personal favorite Dominion card and why?
At what point during the process of making Dominion did you realize that it was not just any other board game, but one that was going to be a really special game?
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Are you still leaning towards Dominion 2 over more expansions?
What kind of things would you want in Dominion 2 that couldn't be incorporated with the rules as they stand?
Any hints or tastes of what we can expect in Guilds?
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What problems found in other games are you most happy to have avoided in Dominion?
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What is your favorite board game that you designed?
What is your favorite board game that you didn't design?
How did you decide on the theme for Dominion?
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What is your favorite Pokemon?
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How have isotropic and the online forum community affected the development of Dominion expansions?
Besides specific card changes, is there anything you would have done differently in Dominion development if you had it all to do over again?
What goals do you have for yourself as a game designer (if you haven't reached them all already)?
What are your favorite games to play that you did not design?
What are your interests besides board games?
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How often does the community come up with something that you never thought of?
What's the most inventive/unusual deck you've seen work out?
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Was Dominion always Medieval Europe themed, or did you try other/no themes at some point, like space or zombies or the stock market?
What do you think of the anime girls Japanese version of Dominion?
Would you say that, with Guilds, you've explored all the game space available for Dominion without resorting to mechanics that would change the game inherently?
If Dominion had been computerized from the start, are there mechanics you would have liked to have tried that would only work on a computer? (random numbers, etc)
Do you have any favorite wacky translations of card names or card text into other languages?
If you could go back and edit any Dominion cards, knowing what you do now, which would you and why?
What's your favorite color?
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As a community, we've explored quite a lot of the possibilities of cards and their combinations. Is there anything we haven't hit upon yet that you're surprised we haven't?
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Similar to the above -- do you ever look at fan cards? If so, do you have a favourite?
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What is your favorite combo, or engine?
Do you still play a lot of Dominion, or has that tapered off so you can concentrate on other projects?
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What is your personal favorite Dominion card and why?
We already know the answer to this, it's Rats (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3909.msg81228#msg81228).
Have you played any of the various other deckbuilder games (e.g. Ascension, Thunderstone, Legendary etc.) and if so, do you enjoy (m)any of them? Do any have mechanics that you'd have liked to use?
Suppose a new player just got the base game for Christmas, but wants to get an expansion immediately because they love the game. Which expansions would you recommend?
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Adding on to other fan cards questions...Agricola Gamers Deck was designed by fans. Is there any chance of something similar happening with Dominion, perhaps using the Mini-Set Design Contest hosted by rinkworks as a starting point?
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You've mentioned before that if you had the KC/Masquerade pin in playtesting you would have nerfed it a bit. Can you share any other powerful combos that got destroyed in playtesting?
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Will we ever see another purpose for the "while this is in play" (on cards like Goons and Haggler) clause apart from limiting a card's power with King's Court/Throne Room (or seriously nerfing it with Procession)?
(I guess Lighthouse already is an example, but that's still limited to Duration cards, I'm looking for something more general)
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If you play on isotropic competitively how high do you expect your level to be?
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What brought me to dominion was that I realized right away that there was a fantastic community discussing dominion strategy. Thanks to this community, dominion is IMO played at a higher level than any other recently invented board game (i.e., any game other than the classics chess, go, bridge). Are you worried at all that this community will no longer thrive once the free dominion online implementations will shut down?
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When did you first become interested in making board games?
Do you have any advice for ambitious game designers?
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Did you design Dominion with any particular type of person in mind?
When was the first time you realized, "Wow, this is going to be a big hit!"?
How do you pick the kingdom cards when you play Dominion with your friends?
How has your life changed now that you are rich and famous?
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Why did you cap the number of turns you can take via Outpost but not via Possession?
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Have simulators helped shape some of the cards? For example, you obviously knew about BMU as a strategy before the game was clearly released, but maybe were not aware of how potent BM + Courtyard is. Have any cards been nerfed, buffed, or scrapped because of their BM play and have simulators influenced this?
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Of the many people you've met (both irl and online) through the making of this wondrous game we call Dominion, who do you think has had the biggest effect on how the game has evolved over time? Who has had the biggest effect on how the community has evolved over time?
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Have you ever ragequit a game of Dominion, and why?
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Why did you cap the number of turns you can take via Outpost but not via Possession?
I'm not Donald X., but isn't this obvious? Imagine having a deck of Village-Monument-Outpost-Outpost. Possession doesn't lead to infinite turns.
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Why did you cap the number of turns you can take via Outpost but not via Possession?
I'm not Donald X., but isn't this obvious? Imagine having a deck of Village-Monument-Outpost-Outpost. Possession doesn't lead to infinite turns.
I think philosophyguy is more asking "Why isn't Possession limited, like Outpost?" rather than "Why isn't Outpost unlimited, like Possession?"
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You've been very generous with your time in this community, especially in light of how busy you must be. How do you decide what merits you taking the time to post here (or at BGG)?
If you were a blue dog, what breed would you be?
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Has competitive Dominion gone further than you originally expected, with both live and internet tournaments worldwide and a healthy community of serious players discussing and writing about Dominion here on Dominion Strategy?
Do you think Dominion's primary audience is somewhat to seriously competitive players who mainly play online, or more of the "family game" audience who will pick it up occasionally but never know what Big Money means? Does this influence the game's design, as well as its presentation both in real life as well as the official online implementation?
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Have you ever considered participating in forum mafia?
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Have you looked at the Dominion memes thread? If so, do you have a favorite?
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Do you open double Ambassador or Ambassador/Silver?
What is your favorite beer? If you don't drink beer, favorite alcoholic drink? If you don't drink alcohol, favorite drink?
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What game do you consider a guilty pleasure? That is, you think it's poorly designed or has serious flaws in some way, but you enjoy it anyways.
Can you give an example of when you had to make a game design decision due to business factors (like cards per expansion, or cost or something), and it turned out better than you expected? How about (heresy!) worse?
If there were such thing as a perfectly designed game, which player skills do you think it would emphasize, and which skills would be secondary concerns?
What is your best source of inspiration for new cards? What is your best source of feedback?
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I'm just going to start answering questions, because, what, I don't need to skip a question that wasn't good enough for the front page, and this way you can post follow-up questions. Theory can pick what stuff to use based on how interesting the answer was, and no-one who doesn't look at the forums will ever be the wiser.
You've said many times before that Guilds is the last of the "standard" Dominion expansions. Have you given any thought to what you want to do with Dominion after Guilds?
I would like to do spin-offs that have "Dominion" in the title. Not unrelated stuff like Cardcassonne, but clearly related games which nevertheless are different enough to not just be expansions.
For Dominion itself, probably there will be a promo or two, I think Jay would be interested if I handed him one now. Also probably an online-only promo that couldn't exist irl. Some kind of "treasure chest" small expansion in the future, with 1-2 cards for each existing expansion, sounds more doable than any other new Dominion expansion, but has the issue that it would appeal to a smaller audience than a more normal expansion. Also it has the issue that Jay would note this. At one point I was considering doing a Seaside expansion in place of Guilds (not having come up with Guilds yet). And Jay was like, isn't a new thing better than more of an old thing? And it was, it was better.
What lessons have you learned about the game design process in general from making Dominion? How has it informed your subsequent games?
I've learned some stuff about interacting with publishers and playtesters and interviewers. Dominion was the direct inspiration for Kingdom Builder - Kingdom Builder started out with deckbuilding. I'm not sure it's done so much other than that. I started seriously working on games in 1995. Dominion had years of lessons learned from other games to draw on, and is full of stuff that I had already learned. For example I had been doing "attacks hurt everyone but you" since 1997. I guess I have gotten a little better at wording cards through Dominion.
What is your personal favorite Dominion card and why?
In Magic psychograph terms I am a Johnny; I like to have unique experiences in games, to be creative. A lot of my favorite Dominion cards involve exotic experiences and combos. Overall my favorite is Rats, from Dark Ages. You give your kingdom a Rat problem and then somehow this works out for you. Dark Ages is my favorite expansion, and it's because of all the various ways it gives you an exotic deck or crazy combo.
At what point during the process of making Dominion did you realize that it was not just any other board game, but one that was going to be a really special game?
It was clear immediately that it worked, that it would be a good game. For a week or two it was just that, it could go in the pile with my other good games. When I made Dominion I had a game night and a Magic night. Dominion took over the game night immediately and the Magic night within a few weeks. Then we got in more nights of Dominion because how was that enough. I made some new games a month or so later and no-one wanted to try them, they just wanted more Dominion. And more people got to play it and they would just play for however long we had. So, gradually over a couple months, it became clear that here was the game, and why wasn't I trying to get anything published. The first game of Dominion was on Oct 30 2006; I email'd RGG Jan 22 2007.
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Are you still leaning towards Dominion 2 over more expansions?
Yes.
What kind of things would you want in Dominion 2 that couldn't be incorporated with the rules as they stand?
Well I would either add something significant, or change the basic game in some way. I don't really want to give anything away, so like, consider say A Few Acres of Snow or Mage Knight (I have not played these games). Why can't those games just be Dominion expansions? Man, the question doesn't even make sense; they are clearly separate games. Whereas, the various Dominion clones that could actually be Dominion expansions, which I don't like naming, those are not what I am looking to make.
Any hints or tastes of what we can expect in Guilds?
It's a small expansion (150 cards). It's the most complex expansion, and is more skill-based than the other expansions. Jay has the files and art is being made, so it's on track for getting pushed back from early spring to late spring.
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Dominion is popular both in real life (as designed) and on computer (isotropic and other sites). Me, I enjoy both platforms, in different ways.
Have you considered or dabbled with designing a game specifically for computer or some other electronic doodad (iPad, etc.)?
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What problems found in other games are you most happy to have avoided in Dominion?
The most ubiquitous problem of other games that Dominion solves is politics. You generally can't get rid of politics in interactive decision-based games, but you can dial it down, and Dominion does a good job of that. That's just something normal for me though, I am always looking at that, and so Dominion doesn't stand out in that way for me.
A way that Dominion does stand out is, it has a good solution to the tableau problem. You have a game where each turn you play a card, and they have abilities that do things for you. There are four players. After six turns there are 24 cards in play and it's impossible to make sure everything happens that's supposed to. Dominion solves this by hiding your abilities in a deck, so we only have to worry about a few things at a time. I am not sure if too many games are affected by this problem, but I have faced it a bunch, being fond of games where you get lots of abilities.
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What is your favorite board game that you designed?
Dominion! If you mean "no really, that has a board, a real board" then Kingdom Builder. In both cases I am including expansions okay.
What is your favorite board game that you didn't design?
Magic: The Gathering, by a mile. If again it has to really have a board, then I'm not sure I have a clear favorite. I have more games by Knizia than anyone else, and like to single out Clash of Gladiators as a favorite that people don't seem to know about, although probably I played Medici more, but that doesn't count because I made an expansion for it to give it variety.
How did you decide on the theme for Dominion?
Right around then, I had been meaning to make a game with a medieval kingdom-building theme. I did not know that this theme had like, been done; I was not too up on such things. It was flavor I liked and I hadn't done it yet, or at least not in a game that worked out. My most common theme is 20's gangsters; Infiltration started out as thugs robbing a bubble gum factory (they are stealing money and valuables though, I don't know why people who hear that think they are stealing bubble gum), and I have contracts for two games that started out gangster-themed, although I rethemed one of them. I've done a bunch of time travel, D&D-ish stuff, and movie stuff. I have more exotic themes too but in general don't want to spoil them; maybe I will do those one day.
Anyway, I had been meaning to do medieval kingdom-building, it looked like a good fit here, I used that flavor, it did not have problems. I had been thinking kingdoms, but the initial batch of cards all involved a castle, so I called it Castle Builder. I moved outside the castle for the second expansion, which I therefore referred to as Abroad. That expansion in the long run got split into Seaside and Hinterlands; Seaside got its flavor from a few cards that were on the shore already, and Hinterlands took over the getting-away-from-the-castle flavor.
I might as well do the other expansions. Intrigue probably comes from, initially I thought I might do like an event deck for an expansion. In the end that seemed pointless; you get plenty of variety from changing what cards are available, and your opponents attacking is like an event already. It ended up with an event theme anyway though, via one-shots, and then when it lost that functional theme it kept the flavor. Which was intrigue, because like, what kinds of events happen in castles?
Alchemy got its theme from the idea of adding a resource, and what would it be. Prosperity gots its theme from its mechanical theme of spendy cards and treasures that do things. That makes it really on-theme, I mean you really feel like the theme matches the functionality. Cornucopia just came from a list of potential themes I made when I needed more themes. It was originally Harvest Festival; they are proper medieval things. Dark Ages was originally War; it was an obvious direction to shift to when war turned out not to be a suitable theme for Hans im Gluck. And War had come from, you know, the Crusades and stuff. Finally Guilds got its theme from a few card names. Those of you speculating as if I started with "guilds" and then tried to make a neat mechanic, no guys, as usual I started with cards and then needed a theme for them.
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What is your favorite Pokemon?
Since I am regularly on the internet, I have seen names of pokemon, and have seen images of them, but I do not really have enough information to make an informed decision here. Is there one that makes copies of itself while destroying things?
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There's Rattata, but I'm not sure it works in the same way.
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How have isotropic and the online forum community affected the development of Dominion expansions?
The big isotropic thing is just, we used it for testing, and it was pretty convenient and easy to use, so we got tons of extra testing in that way. So the later expansions are all better due to having that good way to playtest them.
Intrigue was finalized when Dominion came out, so Seaside is the first time any feedback from fans could have meant anything. I am sure some things have changed due to that feedback. One thing was, it turned out people didn't like the idea of an attack that doesn't produce resources. So I stopped doing those after Sea Hag (well not counting Sir Michael). That was not something I would have known otherwise. Alchemy made it clear that I had to make sure cards weren't too slow to resolve; Wandering Minstrel is an example of a card that got tweaked specifically because of that. Alchemy also made me steer clear of things like a new resource in the future, although probably Guilds is the only place I might have done something like that. Some people don't like cards that make them not draw their good cards (such as Loan), so I pulled back on those, although that kind of thing isn't verboten, I just work more to make sure those cards are worth having.
Besides specific card changes, is there anything you would have done differently in Dominion development if you had it all to do over again?
I would probably change how reactions work, actually to make them how they originally worked, which is, you play them at special times (so, they end up in play). This would have been simpler, and better for like everything but Moat, but Moat was the main set one and so I warped them to make Moat better.
What goals do you have for yourself as a game designer (if you haven't reached them all already)?
The big one is to have a current project I can really get stuff done on; something that we enjoy playing that's far enough along that it's easy to work on. Whenever I don't have such a project, that is the big thing, I need a new one.
Mostly I just want to make games we like to play; if they turn out to be publishable then that's great. Sometimes I specifically work on games for particular companies, and sometimes I am trying to make new German family games. I will work on something skill-heavy and then want to do something light.
I guess also, I want to get as many of my existing good games published as possible, and especially, before other people think of them and get them published. My big regret as a game designer is not getting a Magic-style drafting game published ahead of 7 Wonders. I have several good ones; the first one is from 1998.
What are your favorite games to play that you did not design?
Magic: The Gathering was my favorite game for many years. I gradually stopped playing in 2006-2007 due to Dominion taking over that time.
What are your interests besides board games?
I am a big music fan. 2012 has not been a great year, but the Guided by Voices album Class Clown Spots a UFO and the Amanda Palmer album Theatre Is Evil were stand-outs.
I have written a bunch of very short stories and also some normal-length screenplays. I've written some songs but don't really play an instrument. Wait, did you say board games? I also like video games. I made the best computer game ever, Dudes of Stuff and Things (my take on Heroes of Might and Magic III, which was the best computer game ever in its day).
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How often does the community come up with something that you never thought of?
I think the only real surprise has been King's Court / Masquerade / Goons. You can easily play a set of 10 that I haven't, and maybe see something I haven't, but you know, that's the nature of the game. Probably there are tons of random low-profile combos I haven't played that people have talked about, but you know, not like King's Court / Masquerade.
What's the most inventive/unusual deck you've seen work out?
Back when Trader's reaction was on a $2, Bill Barksdale built a Squire / Pawn / that-Trader / Chapel-or-something deck in one game, vs. Knights, that was immune to them and then suddenly exploded in Silver and bought Provinces.
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Was Dominion always Medieval Europe themed, or did you try other/no themes at some point, like space or zombies or the stock market?
Always medieval Europe.
What do you think of the anime girls Japanese version of Dominion?
If you mean the Hobby Japan one(s), I officially endorse it, it is called Dominion and everything. Best Woodcutter ever.
Would you say that, with Guilds, you've explored all the game space available for Dominion without resorting to mechanics that would change the game inherently?
You are implying false things. In order to make more expansions, the cards necessarily get more complex, and that's the real problem with making more expansions (in addition to, then it's all I do with my life, and don't people have enough variety already, and so on, all the stuff I say over and over when people ask about why I'm not making more expansions). It's okay to change the game and there is more space to explore; it's just, you are pushed into making more and more complex things, while the audience already wants things less complex than they are.
If Dominion had been computerized from the start, are there mechanics you would have liked to have tried that would only work on a computer? (random numbers, etc)
Meh, not really. The big thing you get out of a computer is tracking; you can do more stuff like Pirate Ship and Monument without worrying about it. I did those cards anyway though. If I were really making a computer-only Dominion-like game though, it would probably end up nothing like Dominion. There's no real point in simulating cards on a computer, except you know, when there's a real-life card game you want on your computer.
Do you have any favorite wacky translations of card names or card text into other languages?
I am not up on those things. Mountebank was called Trickster at one point, and I had to rename it because the German version of Swindler was Trickster (only in German). That isn't wacky, that is just about the limit of my interaction with card names in other languages.
If you could go back and edit any Dominion cards, knowing what you do now, which would you and why?
Fortunately there is an essay about this already, which you can see in the dominionstrategy.com forums. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3179.msg56362#msg56362
What's your favorite color?
Green. Since no-one would ask this question without thinking of Monty Python, I will mention that my favorite Monty Python member is Cleese, although, what, most people probably pick Cleese.
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As a community, we've explored quite a lot of the possibilities of cards and their combinations. Is there anything we haven't hit upon yet that you're surprised we haven't?
Man, don't you want to find it yourself?
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Similar to the above -- do you ever look at fan cards? If so, do you have a favourite?
I don't usually look at them, because 1) I don't want people feeling like I'm taking their ideas, which probably I had years ago, not because I am amazing but because the obvious ideas are obvious and I had a big head start; and 2) the cards that aren't in sets already are usually awful, nonstop things I wouldn't do that are boring and redundant or else obviously bad for the game in some way, and if it's not obvious then I already tried them and found out the hard way. At best they are things I'm already doing; none of it is good reading.
Let's do an experiment, I will look at the first four cards of "Books of Magic," the first listed fan expansion at BGG. I am looking at the first four images sorted the default way ("hot"), skipping the big image of a card sheet.
Ghost Town: My first version of this was called Fool's Gold and was "+$2. Put this card into your hand." That turned into a card that gave you +$2 and an extra +$2 for each unused action you had when you played it, then +$1, then I made it into Diadem.
Book of the Dead: Getting something from the trash and saving a card for next turn were the two most suggested card premises ever (prior to those cards being published), followed maybe by a reaction to punish attackers. This card manages to put the card on your deck like Graverobber does, but of course is missing the crucial "provide a way to get stuff into the trash that you'll want" part.
Fairy Gold: The first version of Feast was this only with +1 Action, for $4. It was too strong and turned into the Feast you know. I eventually did a one-shot Gold that you can't buy, with Spoils.
Gravedigger: I haven't actually done giving yourself a Curse in a published card, although Death Cart gets close. I tried multiple cards that gave yourself a Curse; everyone hated them. Death Cart dodges the problem by giving you a use for the Ruins.
So, four-for-four, nothing new or interesting here. Sorry Books of Magic guy, it was just an example.
Sir Bailey made Courtyard, but he managed that because he showed me his homemade cards when I didn't have that many homemade cards of my own yet. Even so I had already done "+2 cards +1 action, put 2 cards from your hand on your deck," but abandoned it because it played so slowly. Dame Josephine similarly managed to get Counting House in relatively early on.
I will cite two favorite fan cards though.
As I said most are awful. The stand-out awful card, the epitome of awful fan cards, was one called Locusts that read "each other player discards a Gardens." First the guy of course must have meant "trashes a Gardens card from his hand" but blew it and ended up with the most useless thing ever. If he had gotten it right then it would still be crazy awful. He started with the flavor of "locusts destroy plants" and did not think of "wait you have to want to play the card though." The old Magic expansions Legends has stuff like this, where they made flavor-based stuff and just did not consider, why would anyone play this.
There has been to date exactly one card I saw where I thought, hey, cool idea. It was something like, "when you gain this put it in the discard pile of the player to your left; at end of game worth 2 VP for the player to your right." I have done hot-potato cards that did not work out and probably this would fail for the same reasons, but still, neat idea.
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What is your favorite combo, or engine?
Do you still play a lot of Dominion, or has that tapered off so you can concentrate on other projects?
I'm not sure I want to try to pick out a favorite combo (he said, after staring at the visual spoilers). I generally like stuff I haven't done over stuff I have, so anything I especially liked, I've done to death and no longer enjoy as much.
I have played very little Dominion irl in the last year. It's all done, so the only times it's come up were when I had just finished something and felt like I needed to offer up something different to play at a game night. I have playtested a bunch on goko, although I haven't done that as much in the last month either, due to it crashing on Chrome.
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Have you played any of the various other deckbuilder games (e.g. Ascension, Thunderstone, Legendary etc.) and if so, do you enjoy (m)any of them? Do any have mechanics that you'd have liked to use?
Suppose a new player just got the base game for Christmas, but wants to get an expansion immediately because they love the game. Which expansions would you recommend?
I have not played any of the various Dominion-based games. I have zero interest in the clones. Of the actual new games, I would try Friday or A Few Acres of Snow sometime, if it came up. The only game that has stuff I might have done, or might still do, is Mage Knight. Dominion started as a solution to a problem in a game of building fantasy heroes and going on quests, and I still feel like I'd like to make that game someday. And the way I would handle hit points is the same as Mage Knight (iirc) - you just get Curses weighing you down, so you don't have to track hit points separately.
I specifically made Intrigue to be the first expansion, and saved Prosperity for 3rd (4th because Alchemy got pushed ahead) so that you had time to get used to not having Colony before getting it. And then the sets get more complex later. So you might think I would just say, go in order, shifting Alchemy to last. However! I feel like I got better at making sets as of Seaside; the main set and Intrigue both have a greater number of uh weak / narrow cards. So I would say, get Seaside.
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Adding on to other fan cards questions...Agricola Gamers Deck was designed by fans. Is there any chance of something similar happening with Dominion, perhaps using the Mini-Set Design Contest hosted by rinkworks as a starting point?
Unlikely. If there was something good enough then maybe a single promo.
The main issue is, aside from me wanting to be the guy and getting to, that I also want to ensure a certain uh level of quality. If there were a fan-made set I would have to playtest it endlessly. Man. I'm busy. And as I've noted I don't expect there will be awesome fan-made stuff to do; if there is any cool stuff it will be complex. If I had to do a complex set I would just make one myself.
You could instead hope for some other famous game designer to make a set sometime. Tom Lehmann had an idea for one although I never heard what it was. Again I would need to playtest any such set and am not keen to, but it's at least more likely than a fan set.
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You've mentioned before that if you had the KC/Masquerade pin in playtesting you would have nerfed it a bit. Can you share any other powerful combos that got destroyed in playtesting?
I don't think that's what I said - I said that if we had found it *and* it had seemed like it came up too often then I would have nerfed it. It's not clear that it's enough of a problem.
Generally when a card is too strong it's not just one combo or deck. Like, Horn of Plenty was part of degenerate decks for a while in different forms, but it was a variety of combos, not a particular one.
There was a Crossroads / Margrave deck that was too strong for a while. There was a lot of focused testing on that one, working out which cards exactly were the problem. In the end I changed Crossroads (it had been +2 actions, rather than +3 once). Margrave was also part of the problem but was more important to keep as is. Another card left that I only knew was too strong because of this deck (it was discard x coppers, gain a card costing up to $3+X).
Throne Room had problem situations with Tactician and Outpost, so that they have text specifically stopping those combos. Madman also has an anti-Throne clause although I'm not sure I ever specifically tested out Throning it.
Graverobber and Rogue have a range of costs they get back because of problematic combos from when they didn't (such as Graverobber / Madman, when Madman went to the trash).
There were things you could do with Haggler and Farmland that weren't necessarily too powerful, but were too confusing, that resulted in them being when-buy (Haggler had been, when-gain other than via Hagglers).
Talisman says "not a Victory card" because it had been too strong with Gardens etc.
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Will we ever see another purpose for the "while this is in play" (on cards like Goons and Haggler) clause apart from limiting a card's power with King's Court/Throne Room (or seriously nerfing it with Procession)?
(I guess Lighthouse already is an example, but that's still limited to Duration cards, I'm looking for something more general)
Well you already have - the purpose is tracking. "While this is in play" is always in play to show off that it's doing something (or isn't in play and so isn't doing anything). "This turn" effects like Coppersmith / Bridge might not be. It's not that I want to screw over Throne/Procession + Highway or whatever, it's that Procession + Bridge makes you have to remember the Bridge effect.
It's fun to Throne a Bridge and so there's that. In general "while this is in play" is just better though.
Similarly Conspirator looks at how many action cards you played this turn, but Peddler counts the action cards in play. Peddler's approach is better; no tracking.
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If you play on isotropic competitively how high do you expect your level to be?
I don't know what actual skill level corresponds to what numerical level. Also you are better at these things when you keep at them. I have not kept at it and so there's that. I imagine when I was playing a ton that I was probably a top player, but there's no reason to think I was ever at the very top.
When Captain Frisk (and Theory and RRenaud) showed up to do a little playtesting, I feel like me and the other playtesters really tried to beat them up - just, forget learning anything this game, let's show these new guys what for. And we did beat them up, although to be fair, we knew the new cards and they didn't, they were in the "can't you make Jack more powerful" phase. Frisk was playing more later and I think was winning his share then.
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What brought me to dominion was that I realized right away that there was a fantastic community discussing dominion strategy. Thanks to this community, dominion is IMO played at a higher level than any other recently invented board game (i.e., any game other than the classics chess, go, bridge). Are you worried at all that this community will no longer thrive once the free dominion online implementations will shut down?
Well I'm not "worried" about it, in that, I don't think it will make my life worse if it happens or anything. It will save me some time reading about Dominion on the internet, there's that. And I'm not sure that no isotropic is a killer; half the people can play for free on Goko, and surely some people will like the game enough to cough up some tiny amount of money for expansions.
As for how long I think this community will survive besides that, uh, I dunno. It happens both ways. The lack of new expansions will make talking about Dominion less compelling, but if people are talking about spin-offs then that could work out. Communities like this can survive for years based on whatever brought them together in the first place; you can go out and find communities of former Magic players for example, people who are not even reading the spoilers for the new sets but still hang out online with the people they used to.
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When did you first become interested in making board games?
Do you have any advice for ambitious game designers?
I made games in my youth, from time to time, but mostly it was my fixed version of someone else's thing. Magic: The Gathering is what got me seriously interested in pursuing game design, in trying to figure out how games worked and make good ones. I started playing Magic in 1994. I was seriously designing games in 1995, and ramped up over the rest of the 90s.
I don't think I have any advice that will change someone from a failed game designer to a successful one, except possibly, you have to go to cons to show your games to publishers. That's what I needed to hear (and didn't). If you want to specifically focus on "ambition" - that is, making something especially successful, rather than having to keep your day job - then it seems clear that there are two big audiences for games: German families and American families. They overlap some, with Dixit being a good example. I am a little ambitious these days, I would like the respect and admiration of my peers, but ultimately I have to make games my friends and I want to play, whether or not that's what will sell.
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Do you sometimes play dominion with more than 4 players ?
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Did you design Dominion with any particular type of person in mind?
I guess it's fair to say that to some degree I designed it for me and the people I was playing games with, like any of my games. However it was also pursuing a particular concept to an extreme, and that was just because that sounded fun to do for me, rather than having any idea if it would work as a game or not.
When was the first time you realized, "Wow, this is going to be a big hit!"?
As explained in more detail in a previous answer, somewhere around 1-2 months after making it. I used to say, my vision is, you will go to the game store, and there will be that shelf of Settlers stuff, and the shelf of Carcassonne stuff, and a similar shelf of Dominion stuff. I did not envision that it would be, a shelf of Dominion stuff, a shelf of Dominion clones, another shelf of Dominion clones.
How do you pick the kingdom cards when you play Dominion with your friends?
I deal out 5 from the set I'm playtesting and 5 from some other set that I brought that evening. After the game I rotate out 2 from each set for 2 new ones, and then keep doing that, gradually changing the set of 10. If there's a specific card I want to focus on then I just put that out at the start and keep it out.
How has your life changed now that you are rich and famous?
I spend a lot more time reading about myself on the internet. I get to make games for a living, so that's nice. I want a nicer house than I might have. It's probably easier to get new games playtested.
The particular degree to which I'm famous is roughly this: a guy can show up to play games at a local game store, be standing in front of me holding his own copy of Dominion, be introduced to me as Donald X., and have no idea I'm anyone. The exception is German gamers, they recognize the name immediately.
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Why did you cap the number of turns you can take via Outpost but not via Possession?
I tried not doing that on Outpost, and took a lot of turns in a row in one game, with no end in sight. Possession did not have that issue and for sure didn't want extra text it didn't need.
It would have been great not to have that clause on Outpost, but I didn't manage to come up with a better fix in time. Another thing is that I would have preferred like "at the start of that turn, discard down to 3" or something, rather than the weird way it makes the next hand smaller. But time did not permit once I realized that.
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Don't worry Donald, we know you're someone.
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Have simulators helped shape some of the cards? For example, you obviously knew about BMU as a strategy before the game was clearly released, but maybe were not aware of how potent BM + Courtyard is. Have any cards been nerfed, buffed, or scrapped because of their BM play and have simulators influenced this?
I have personally written small programs to simulate certain decks. Some cards may have changed as a result, or not changed, you know. I don't remember any specifics.
No cards have been affected by the simulators that other people have made.
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At what point, if any, did you make enough money from games to give up your day job?
And what was that day job?
I'm thinking Zoo Keeper....
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Of the many people you've met (both irl and online) through the making of this wondrous game we call Dominion, who do you think has had the biggest effect on how the game has evolved over time?
The people who have affected the game the most are all in the credits, no surprise there.
In the early days, which mattered the most, Dame Josephine, then Dame Molly, then Sir Destry. I mean they were the ones playing every week (or twice or more a week for the dames). And Dame Josephine had to listen to me talking about the game when we weren't playing. I didn't meet them through making the game though.
During development, we can add Valerie and for all I know Dale, since they did work on the game and the game was changed due to her/their suggestions; plus my original online playtesters (using my own program which did not have internet support - we played over aim), including Sir Michael (especially for later, he didn't play much at first), plus Sir Vander, who did not play so much but chatted about the game. Post-release, some other playtesters have been notable, especially John Vogel and Bill Barksdale (sorry I couldn't knight you guys). The early playtester credits include a bunch of "people who got to play the game before it was released," which is to say, sorry guys, I really did not get much out of you and I am not sufficiently polite not to say it, although at least I'm not naming names. Later credits just have the people who really contributed and well they all did, you had to contribute extra to make the credits. Anyway again, I didn't really meet most of the playtesters through Dominion, I already knew them. Or met them but not through Dominion, just because they were playing games in the same place that I was playtesting.
So, if we stick to "that you met through Dominion," then Valerie, for all I know Dale (I put it like that because stuff came from Valerie), and hey, Jay. Alchemy got pushed forward and smallified because of some mix of Jay, HiG, and Schmidt-Spiele. Intrigue didn't have colored treasure coins because of some mix of partners. And the promos exist because of the people who wanted them, Spielbox etc. I haven't even met those people. Dark Ages isn't War because of HiG.
The game itself had that pile of expansions in various states before being released; there was a lot of balancing for playtesters to work on, but "how the game has evolved over time?" There was no evolution except better testing, so there was no-one to affect that evolution.
Who has had the biggest effect on how the community has evolved over time?
I'm not sure if you mean dominionstrategy or something broader. Man I don't think I can give much of an answer either way. Ask the community! Jay has had tournaments and got the game on BSW; Doug made isotropic. Theory / Frisk / Renaud started this place.
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Have you ever ragequit a game of Dominion, and why?
I don't believe I have. I have seen rage maybe once ever, and that guy didn't quit (it was over Torturers). I think maybe I have seen multiple people concede to the card that said "play all the attacks in your deck;" I'm not sure. I haven't quit except when everyone wanted to, due to the game being fundamentally broken. For example when I appeared to get infinite turns from Outpost, we didn't finish that game. I've seen a bunch of "we are reduced to 5 cards via overpowered Knights or something" games, and some of them were quit while some were played out. A few times I have seen one person quit, and the other people kept playing. I have had a single opponent concede a few times. I don't think I've ever even conceded to a single opponent; maybe it's happened unmemorably due to needing to go or something. I've had to call a game because the place was closing.
I'm in a position to specifically discourage quitting; I want to get the best data I can, and it's not hard to sit it out. If you get my turn one Silver with your turn one Noble Brigand, or whatever, then I would like to see how that plays out, I don't mind being in an unfavorable position. And I struggle to make games that are fun to lose.
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You've been very generous with your time in this community, especially in light of how busy you must be. How do you decide what merits you taking the time to post here (or at BGG)?
There is an xkcd blog entry where he talks about constantly switching activities on the internet, to get some kind of chemical rush you get, and how he decided to reboot whenever he switched activities, in an effort to be more productive. And how it worked, and he would start cleaning his room for a break instead, and had a clean room.
I do not reboot when I switch computer activities. I sit at my computer. I work on what I'm working on. I google something tangentially related and then read a wikipedia article, then click a link and read another. I check BGG, I check DS; they are tabs I always have open. I play a game of Boggle at Wordsplay.net. I try to go back to work but immediately think of another website I could check. I look at a list of songs for a mixed CD and tweak it. I check a file for another game I'm working on, maybe try to get something done on that instead. I remember a card I wanted to reword for a 3rd game and make that image. I go back to the first game. I make a couple cards. I check BGG and DS again.
All for that sweet sweet chemical rush.
I do try to pass up answering rules questions that surely lots of people will immediately answer. And there are some threads that I'm unlikely to check, like storage solution threads. Man, I have had the experience.
There are a few other sites I look at once in a while to see people talking about my games, but I haven't registered at those places. I considered registering at F:AT a few days ago to comment on why Magic was the surviving TCG (you can only play one TCG, due to time/money/finding players, so games that compete with Magic are doomed, which is why the other successful TCG's are ones that don't compete with it, e.g. pokemon), but Ken B. hit on part of what I had to say, and I'm not sure how I'd be received there, so I didn't.
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I love how the genius mastermind of the complex, intricate, always-different Dominion spends his spare time playing Boggle.
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How many requests per day do you get from people wanting to show you their game?
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Has competitive Dominion gone further than you originally expected, with both live and internet tournaments worldwide and a healthy community of serious players discussing and writing about Dominion here on Dominion Strategy?
Well Jay originally did not plan on ever having tournaments - which is why we didn't include a tiebreaker for tournaments. So, sure, it was surprising when he changed his mind. Otherwise, I dunno, it wasn't something I thought about.
Do you think Dominion's primary audience is somewhat to seriously competitive players who mainly play online, or more of the "family game" audience who will pick it up occasionally but never know what Big Money means? Does this influence the game's design, as well as its presentation both in real life as well as the official online implementation?
The family game one. I mean, 32K people on BGG have the main set of Dominion listed as a game they own. That's a small fraction of the number of copies sold.
It does have an effect, mainly to say, you are making things too complex, try to simplify some of these cards over playtester objections, and maybe stop after Guilds.
I don't make online versions and so it's harder to make that call. I think they are trying to please the existing online players while appealing to the broader audience of normal people.
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Have you ever considered participating in forum mafia?
Not on this site. When I first saw mafia I read some of a few threads, and spent a few hours thinking about directions to take the game.
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Have you looked at the Dominion memes thread? If so, do you have a favorite?
I have read that thread. My favorite is easily the Baron one - "I don't always discard an Estate, but when I do, I gain $4." Man it looks just like that guy.
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Any chance we'll get the Secret History of Donald's Mafia Thoughts?
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Do you open double Ambassador or Ambassador/Silver?
What is your favorite beer? If you don't drink beer, favorite alcoholic drink? If you don't drink alcohol, favorite drink?
Depends on the board and also what my opponents do. They are both reasonable openings sometimes.
I don't drink alcohol. I've had champagne at a wedding, a sip of wine to see how easy it was going to be to drink tiny amounts of it when I'm older and it seems beneficial, and once I said, "this ice cream tastes funny," and they said, "there's rum in it." I don't really have any interest in mucking with my brain randomly.
I buy a Lemon Tea Snapple maybe every two weeks, then spend two weeks drinking tap water from the bottle. You want to drink from glass rather than plastic, see, and the bottle has a lid whereas a cup doesn't. Well I could be drinking water from a sippy cup but you know. Anyway that's what I do drink-wise.
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Do you open double Ambassador or Ambassador/Silver?
What is your favorite beer? If you don't drink beer, favorite alcoholic drink? If you don't drink alcohol, favorite drink?
Depends on the board and also what my opponents do. They are both reasonable openings sometimes.
I don't drink alcohol. I've had champagne at a wedding, a sip of wine to see how easy it was going to be to drink tiny amounts of it when I'm older and it seems beneficial, and once I said, "this ice cream tastes funny," and they said, "there's rum in it." I don't really have any interest in mucking with my brain randomly.
I buy a Lemon Tea Snapple maybe every two weeks, then spend two weeks drinking tap water from the bottle. You want to drink from glass rather than plastic, see, and the bottle has a lid whereas a cup doesn't. Well I could be drinking water from a sippy cup but you know. Anyway that's what I do drink-wise.
And that's why he is such a genius, he doesn't fry is brain every night...not to mention his liver ;)
Tell me off if this is too personal, but what does a day in the life of Donald X. consist of? When do you find time to post on the forum or play games online and IRL?
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Who would win in a fight between James Bond and Indiana Jones....?
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What game do you consider a guilty pleasure? That is, you think it's poorly designed or has serious flaws in some way, but you enjoy it anyways.
I am not sure I have one. If I thought the game could be fixed and that I would like that version, I would fix it and play my fixed version. If I'm enjoying it it could still be flawed, but it's all about enjoyment, so hey, it made it.
Magic has two serious flaws: 1) the rules are unlearnable, and 2) sometimes you don't get to play. Despite that it's one of the best games ever; it's certainly not poorly designed or a guilty pleasure.
Can you give an example of when you had to make a game design decision due to business factors (like cards per expansion, or cost or something), and it turned out better than you expected? How about (heresy!) worse?
Well Jay decided to live with the intended size for the main set; business factors caused worry and discussion but no actual change. Business factors meant particular set sizes that resulted in blanks in the main set and Haven in Seaside (taken out then put back in). Partners not liking the idea nixed switching to colored treasure coins in Intrigue. Alchemy exists as a small set for business reasons; it was on a tight schedule - not as tight as they wanted - and I think that hurt it. Guilds got pushed back due to the Base Cards product. War was rethemed and the new theme is probably better anyway. Prosperity is slightly better because it was pushed back for Alchemy.
I guess the existence of all of the promos is business, that would be a significant thing. In general business isn't hanging over me though. If I ask Jay, and I have, what matters business-wise for something, he will just say, every time, "just make the game as good as you can and I'll worry about the rest." Dominion had to be 500 cards so it is. The business part, past deciding to publish it at all, was just, it has to be exactly 500, so there are some blanks.
If there were such thing as a perfectly designed game, which player skills do you think it would emphasize, and which skills would be secondary concerns?
Meh, people get different things from games. There's no perfect game except from a particular narrow perspective we choose in order to get an answer, and since it's so narrow, who cares?
What is your best source of inspiration for new cards?
Years of cards made for many games. In general I am not looking for inspiration when I make cards; I am doing the work. I know how to look at the rules set and find cards to make. Any really inspired cards are going to be exceptions.
What is your best source of feedback?
Seeing if people like the game or not.
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Have you considered or dabbled with designing a game specifically for computer or some other electronic doodad (iPad, etc.)?
I had a text adventure game published in some small sense back in the day (Escape from Planet X). I've programmed a bunch of little computer games. There are two that are especially significant to me. The Little Guy Game was like Lode Runner but with puzzles. Dudes of Stuff and Things is my take on Heroes of Might and Magic III. I made Dudes over a decade ago but have played it within the last month.
I talked some with a friend about making an iPad etc. game. We made a little puzzle game that I got some fun from but decided it wasn't good enough to get art for and try selling. Anyway something could still happen.
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Do you sometimes play dominion with more than 4 players ?
IRL, when I was playing Dominion irl, I would play with 5 sometimes. There are 5 people who want to play, counting me; man, it works well enough. I prefer 3, then 4, then 2, then 5. I don't play with 6. Online I have played with 5 a few times but we usually split into 2/3 when that came up.
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At what point, if any, did you make enough money from games to give up your day job?
And what was that day job?
I'm thinking Zoo Keeper....
My day job was computer programmer. More specifically I was programming dialysis machines.
I am making way more now. I quit my day job way before I made any money from Dominion, but Dominion was making enough to support me immediately.
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I love how the genius mastermind of the complex, intricate, always-different Dominion spends his spare time playing Boggle.
I will beat you up at it dude, I will anagram so fast relative to you and a bunch of other people but not quite everyone playing unless no-one great is on. Not counting the teams, man I just clicked the button to hide those.
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How many requests per day do you get from people wanting to show you their game?
Zero.
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Any chance we'll get the Secret History of Donald's Mafia Thoughts?
I know I wanted to try having the roles be objects that people passed around, and it turned out someone had already tried that. People have been working on the problem for years, so probably I didn't have any ideas they haven't gotten to.
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Tell me off if this is too personal, but what does a day in the life of Donald X. consist of? When do you find time to post on the forum or play games online and IRL?
You can see from my page here that I'm on at all hours. The only thing I have to do at a particular time usually is game nights, which start at 6 PM, and I am not tuned to 24 hours or something, so I gradually stay up later and later until I have to push it to be back to getting up in the mornings again. I am flipping as we speak, having gotten up at 11 PM.
I play games irl two nights a week. I spend a lot of time at my computer, and most of the rest with my family. Sometimes I go for a walk. There is not too much that's interesting to talk about here. I work from home, so, I'm just doing it whenever. I listen to music constantly; currently playing: Mono Rail, by Pugwash.
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How many requests per day do you get from people wanting to show you their game?
Zero.
REALLY?!
Wow, that does surprise me.
Prominent member of the gaming community posts on BGG frequently, I would have thought that you would be a lot of peoples first choice to ask for feedback!
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The only thing I have to do at a particular time usually is game nights
Must be a hard life. ;)
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Who would win in a fight between James Bond and Indiana Jones....?
I don't think I want to open this up to hilarious questions. I would spend too long trying to think of something funny. Humor is work, I mean maybe you get lucky but maybe you spend hours staring at your joke paragraph, with the rest of the rulebook having been done for months. I will stick to just incidentally being hilarious, as is the way of my people.
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Do you have another game in the works that you think will be huge?
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What got you into playing (rather than designing) boardgames in the first place?
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How do you feel about coop games? I can't recall hearing you talk about any (of yours or other people, except for Mage Knight in this thread, but I think you were just talking about the HP mechanics and stuff). I'd have thought you would be all over this because of your feelings on politics. Or is the whole "quarterbacking" issue an even worse form of politics for you that you don't want to touch?
Edit: I guess Infiltration has some coop elements? I haven't gotten to play it yet but I got the impression it was mainly adversarial.
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Great stuff, Donald. I really enjoyed reading your answers during breakfast!
But I almost spit out my cereal here:
Similar to the above -- do you ever look at fan cards? If so, do you have a favourite?
Let's do an experiment, I will look at the first four cards of "Books of Magic," the first listed fan expansion at BGG. I am looking at the first four images sorted the default way ("hot"), skipping the big image of a card sheet.
So, four-for-four, nothing new or interesting here. Sorry Books of Magic guy, it was just an example.
What a terrible experiment. What about this one?: Look at these cards (rinkworks's mini-set design contest winners). (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3521.msg68134#msg68134)
What do you think about the cards the f.ds community voted for?
[I am just waiting for the comment, "Man, that card is in fact horribly broken. I threw a similar card into the trash 5 years ago!" ]
Adding on to other fan cards questions...Agricola Gamers Deck was designed by fans. Is there any chance of something similar happening with Dominion, perhaps using the Mini-Set Design Contest hosted by rinkworks as a starting point?
Unlikely.
:'(
If there was something good enough then maybe a single promo.
There is a sliver of hope!
The main issue is, aside from me wanting to be the guy and getting to, that I also want to ensure a certain uh level of quality.
So true. But, the joy of reading fan cards is that you never know what quality you are going to get. ;)
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I do try to pass up answering rules questions that surely lots of people will immediately answer. And there are some threads that I'm unlikely to check, like storage solution threads. Man, I have had the experience.
Follow up question: Are you planning a Dominion-brand storage solution for all the Dominion expansions, tokens, and mats after Guilds is released? Maybe Dominion-brand game travel bags?
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Other than Chapel are there any cards that, with hindsight, you either regret making completely, or at least regret publishing in their current form?
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Can we have a card name spoiler from Guilds?
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Other than Chapel are there any cards that, with hindsight, you either regret making completely, or at least regret publishing in their current form?
Has Donald ever said he regretted Chapel? I don't recall this.
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Other than Chapel are there any cards that, with hindsight, you either regret making completely, or at least regret publishing in their current form?
Has Donald ever said he regretted Chapel? I don't recall this.
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that he considered it undercosted or something, but I couldn't find the link. I tried to word the question in such a way that if he was happy with Chapel he could still answer the question as-is without questioning the premise.
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Following up your answer to my question (there's still game space, it just gets more complicated) - what if I want more complicated cards? I'm looking forward to Guilds being insanely complex. What if I want expansions to just get more and more insane, until I need a magnifying glass just to see what the cards say?
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Why did you cap the number of turns you can take via Outpost but not via Possession?
I'm not Donald X., but isn't this obvious? Imagine having a deck of Village-Monument-Outpost-Outpost. Possession doesn't lead to infinite turns.
This. Possession turns are already capped. They just aren't capped at 1.
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Any more ideas for promo cards? Maybe one modeled after one of your other games?
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Re: the Possession/Outpost thing. Apparently I asked the question wrongly. I understand why Outpost got a cap—to avoid infinite turns. I am wondering why Possession didn't get a similar cap. Yes, it's not possible to have an infinite number of Possession turns, but it is very easy to be playing more with your opponent's deck than with your own. Given how unfun folks find that experience, I'm wondering why Possession wasn't capped.
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Re: the Possession/Outpost thing. Apparently I asked the question wrongly. I understand why Outpost got a cap—to avoid infinite turns. I am wondering why Possession didn't get a similar cap. Yes, it's not possible to have an infinite number of Possession turns, but it is very easy to be playing more with your opponent's deck than with your own. Given how unfun folks find that experience, I'm wondering why Possession wasn't capped.
Maybe because it's so expensive in the first place? I mean, how likely is it that you're going to King's Court all 10 Possessions?
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Another question - did Alchemy not include a $5+P card specifically so that you couldn't Procession/Upgrade into Possession?
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What a terrible experiment. What about this one?: Look at these cards (rinkworks's mini-set design contest winners). (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3521.msg68134#msg68134)
No, please don't. I agree that Buggy's cards (Books of Magic, etc.) are bad. But if I had to show Donald X. a sample of fan cards to show that they could be worth his time, I wouldn't choose the mini-set contest cards. Don't get me wrong, I participated in the contest, and it was fun and an interesting experiment. But the fact remains that the result is (currently) a big ol' hodgepodge of cards that people had to come up with under time constraints, have had little to no playtesting, and have pretty much no cohesiveness as a set of cards.
As an example, I'm not proud of my winning submission. I'm guessing that playtesting will reveal that it's not sufficiently different from Torturer and certainly not unique enough to justify the amount of text on the card. If I had put the card in a fan expansion that I had complete control over, it probably would have been severely altered or scrapped by now.
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What a terrible experiment. What about this one?: Look at these cards (rinkworks's mini-set design contest winners). (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3521.msg68134#msg68134)
No, please don't. I agree that Buggy's cards (Books of Magic, etc.) are bad. But if I had to show Donald X. a sample of fan cards to show that they could be worth his time, I wouldn't choose the mini-set contest cards. Don't get me wrong, I participated in the contest, and it was fun and an interesting experiment. But the fact remains that the result is (currently) a big ol' hodgepodge of cards that people had to come up with under time constraints, have had little to no playtesting, and have pretty much no cohesiveness as a set of cards.
As an example, I'm not proud of my winning submission. I'm guessing that playtesting will reveal that it's not sufficiently different from Torturer and certainly not unique enough to justify the amount of text on the card. If I had put the card in a fan expansion that I had complete control over, it probably would have been severely altered or scrapped by now.
I agree. The best card I've ever made was never a submission to that contest. It just didn't fit any of the challenges' criteria.
Likewise, I love a lot of LastFootnote's cards, but the one of his that won, wasn't the one I liked the most.
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Other than Chapel are there any cards that, with hindsight, you either regret making completely, or at least regret publishing in their current form?
Has Donald ever said he regretted Chapel? I don't recall this.
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that he considered it undercosted or something, but I couldn't find the link. I tried to word the question in such a way that if he was happy with Chapel he could still answer the question as-is without questioning the premise.
I think you might be thinking of his quote "Chapel is the most powerful card in the game, relative to its cost. I'm unlikely to every create another card that powerful." If so, this is not at all the same as saying that it was undercosted or that he wishes he had done something differently. He's explained at great lengths why Chapel cost $2 even though it is powerful enough to cost $4.
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What a terrible experiment. What about this one?: Look at these cards (rinkworks's mini-set design contest winners). (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3521.msg68134#msg68134)
No, please don't. I agree that Buggy's cards (Books of Magic, etc.) are bad. But if I had to show Donald X. a sample of fan cards to show that they could be worth his time, I wouldn't choose the mini-set contest cards. Don't get me wrong, I participated in the contest, and it was fun and an interesting experiment. But the fact remains that the result is (currently) a big ol' hodgepodge of cards that people had to come up with under time constraints, have had little to no playtesting, and have pretty much no cohesiveness as a set of cards.
As an example, I'm not proud of my winning submission. I'm guessing that playtesting will reveal that it's not sufficiently different from Torturer and certainly not unique enough to justify the amount of text on the card. If I had put the card in a fan expansion that I had complete control over, it probably would have been severely altered or scrapped by now.
I agree. The best card I've ever made was never a submission to that contest. It just didn't fit any of the challenges' criteria.
Likewise, I love a lot of LastFootnote's cards, but the one of his that won, wasn't the one I liked the most.
Fair enough. Mainly, I just thought it was funny the way Donald decided to pick 4 cards to look at given the amount of discussion on the Variant sub forum about various cards. Contest suggestion: Card to show Donald X.? ::)
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Do you have another game in the works that you think will be huge?
Well I have other games I think will be hits. I don't have anything that has taken over gamers like Dominion.
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What got you into playing (rather than designing) boardgames in the first place?
I played games in my youth, but, aside from D&D, nothing that any normal American wouldn't come into contact with. I read about Magic in Games Magazine, and after I started playing it, the other Magic players introduced me to older American gamer's games like Cosmic Encounter, and to the up-and-coming German stuff like Settlers.
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How do you feel about coop games? I can't recall hearing you talk about any (of yours or other people, except for Mage Knight in this thread, but I think you were just talking about the HP mechanics and stuff). I'd have thought you would be all over this because of your feelings on politics. Or is the whole "quarterbacking" issue an even worse form of politics for you that you don't want to touch?
Edit: I guess Infiltration has some coop elements? I haven't gotten to play it yet but I got the impression it was mainly adversarial.
Infiltration isn't a co-op. I liked Knizia's LotR co-op. I think that may be the only pure co-op I've played. I haven't made one. Certainly preventing one player from controlling the game (without switching to a traitor game or what have you) would be a big issue. I'm not especially eager to make one since there are a bunch already.
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What a terrible experiment. What about this one?: Look at these cards (rinkworks's mini-set design contest winners). (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3521.msg68134#msg68134)
Sorry to disappoint you! My experiment had the feature of only making one guy who isn't here feel bad. Probably you guys can do better, but, well.
Have I told the Richard Garfield story? Richard playtested for Seaside. At one point he randomly suggested a few new cards. They were: 1) the treasure throne room, which I had already tried but later abandoned and then even later fixed up as Counterfeit; 2) Bank, again already in a set; and 3) a reaction that punishes the attacker, which I'd already written up an essay on so I could just show that to people who suggested it. Treasure Throne Room and Bank were both good ideas, but they were obvious and I had a big head start. So... Richard Garfield, three for three.
You guys have an edge here; you know not to make cards from Prosperity and so on. I have had even more years to pile stuff up though. So, say, a victory card that varies in value based on whether or not the Provinces sold out, that one I tried in a couple games with a proxy but never bothered printing out.
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Follow up question: Are you planning a Dominion-brand storage solution for all the Dominion expansions, tokens, and mats after Guilds is released? Maybe Dominion-brand game travel bags?
It's possible Jay will do something. I don't have any recent information there.
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Other than Chapel are there any cards that, with hindsight, you either regret making completely, or at least regret publishing in their current form?
I do not regret Chapel. There is an essay where you can see what I'd change: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3179.msg56362#msg56362
Overall the card I most regret printing as-is is Scrying Pool; I'd rather it didn't Spy. The card that I could change for the greatest positive effect through would just be any dud card in the main set, being replaced by anything good that isn't too complex.
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Can we have a card name spoiler from Guilds?
You cannot. Jay will post the hilarious paragraph and serious paragraph whenever he decides to; that will tell you something about what you're in for. Until then you will have to settle for leaks via card selection programs.
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Following up your answer to my question (there's still game space, it just gets more complicated) - what if I want more complicated cards? I'm looking forward to Guilds being insanely complex. What if I want expansions to just get more and more insane, until I need a magnifying glass just to see what the cards say?
Is this a rhetorical question? Not your question, mine. And the answer is yes.
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What a terrible experiment. What about this one?: Look at these cards (rinkworks's mini-set design contest winners). (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3521.msg68134#msg68134)
Sorry to disappoint you! My experiment had the feature of only making one guy who isn't here feel bad. Probably you guys can do better, but, well.
Have I told the Richard Garfield story? Richard playtested for Seaside. At one point he randomly suggested a few new cards. They were: 1) the treasure throne room, which I had already tried but later abandoned and then even later fixed up as Counterfeit; 2) Bank, again already in a set; and 3) a reaction that punishes the attacker, which I'd already written up an essay on so I could just show that to people who suggested it. Treasure Throne Room and Bank were both good ideas, but they were obvious and I had a big head start. So... Richard Garfield, three for three.
You guys have an edge here; you know not to make cards from Prosperity and so on. I have had even more years to pile stuff up though. So, say, a victory card that varies in value based on whether or not the Provinces sold out, that one I tried in a couple games with a proxy but never bothered printing out.
touche!
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Any more ideas for promo cards? Maybe one modeled after one of your other games?
Well, I have a list of ideas from when I thought I might need one, and I could just use an outtake that wasn't awful in a pinch. I have something picked out to try for an online one sometime. I hadn't considered doing one for one of my other games, but I don't imagine Jay would be so excited to promote a game that RGG doesn't publish.
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Re: the Possession/Outpost thing. Apparently I asked the question wrongly. I understand why Outpost got a cap—to avoid infinite turns. I am wondering why Possession didn't get a similar cap. Yes, it's not possible to have an infinite number of Possession turns, but it is very easy to be playing more with your opponent's deck than with your own. Given how unfun folks find that experience, I'm wondering why Possession wasn't capped.
I feel like I answered this the first time. It didn't get a cap because it didn't need it. It sure wasn't getting a cap it didn't need; look at that text box.
I've said it before: I usually do not buy Possession, because I am trying to win. I do not have trouble fighting it.
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Another question - did Alchemy not include a $5+P card specifically so that you couldn't Procession/Upgrade into Possession?
No, there is no significance to that gap.
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Do you open double Ambassador or Ambassador/Silver?
What is your favorite beer? If you don't drink beer, favorite alcoholic drink? If you don't drink alcohol, favorite drink?
Depends on the board...
This made my day. :)
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Overall the card I most regret printing as-is is Scrying Pool; I'd rather it didn't Spy.
I've been meaning to ask, but does this mean it wouldn't even spy your own deck, or just that it wouldn't attack other players?
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Overall the card I most regret printing as-is is Scrying Pool; I'd rather it didn't Spy.
I've been meaning to ask, but does this mean it wouldn't even spy your own deck, or just that it wouldn't attack other players?
No Spying on anybody.
Spying on other players is the slowest part, but besides that I'd like the sleek simple card it once was.
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How do you feel about coop games? I can't recall hearing you talk about any (of yours or other people, except for Mage Knight in this thread, but I think you were just talking about the HP mechanics and stuff). I'd have thought you would be all over this because of your feelings on politics. Or is the whole "quarterbacking" issue an even worse form of politics for you that you don't want to touch?
Edit: I guess Infiltration has some coop elements? I haven't gotten to play it yet but I got the impression it was mainly adversarial.
Infiltration isn't a co-op. I liked Knizia's LotR co-op. I think that may be the only pure co-op I've played. I haven't made one. Certainly preventing one player from controlling the game (without switching to a traitor game or what have you) would be a big issue. I'm not especially eager to make one since there are a bunch already.
have you played or read about Hanabi?
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What a terrible experiment. What about this one?: Look at these cards (rinkworks's mini-set design contest winners). (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3521.msg68134#msg68134)
Sorry to disappoint you! My experiment had the feature of only making one guy who isn't here feel bad.
Actually, I believe he's posted in this very thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg148235#msg148235).
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Who was the hardest/most annoying playtester to work with?
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If you could go back in time and redesign which cards were in which sets, and the order the sets came out (but not changing/adding/removing any cards), what would you move and why?
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How many Dominion cards do you think you have come up with, including different variations on the same card that were at least considered and maybe tested? Do you have a spreadsheet to keep track of them all, so you can record things like "reaction that hurts attacker | bad idea" and ideas for possible future promo cards, etc.?
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In the spirit of this being for a "holiday season" interview, what is your favorite holiday tradition?
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Of all the cards you come up with an idea for, what percentage eventually get tweaked into a printed card?
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Do you have a dog? If so, is it blue, or at least named blue?
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have you played or read about Hanabi?
Only at these forums, when I wondered what was going on in the non-Gauntlet of Fools threads.
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Actually, I believe he's posted in this very thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg148235#msg148235).
Sorry buggy. My other example was Richard Garfield, so you're in good company.
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Who was the hardest/most annoying playtester to work with?
Well John was a star playtester, but he was also the one who would bitch about playing games with Chapel and King's Court.
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If you could go back in time and redesign which cards were in which sets, and the order the sets came out (but not changing/adding/removing any cards), what would you move and why?
Obviously the move is to put all of the worst cards in the last set and then not release it. The sets aren't full of duds so it would be a small set. A few worthwhile cards would be left out but what can you do. This is still the move if it has to be published, I mean I am not here to make people buy awful stuff, and putting it all together is the best I can do to let you dodge it in this scenario. Then of course the main set, well it doesn't want all the best cards, but it wants the best simple cards. It matters more than any of the other sets and for sure could be better via swapping cards. I would replace Chancellor, Woodcutter, Feast, and Spy with more interesting cards, giving the main set more replayability. Lots of cards would be good enough.
For set order I like going Intrigue, Seaside, Prosperity - set trying to be a good first set, generally good set, set that adds Colonies. I would put Alchemy last, where it was; it was there because I knew some people wouldn't like potions, because somebody hadn't. You could swap Hinterlands with Seaside but I wouldn't. After Prosperity then there are Hinterlands and Dark Ages to order and well you have the question from before of whether or not Hinterlands is a standalone. I like having another standalone, and if it is one then I would put it ahead of Dark Ages. Possibly I would anyway. A question is, do you recombine Cornucopia and Alchemy. If people don't like Alchemy then it's nice that they get a tight package of just it, rather than buying it to get Cornucopia or passing on Cornucopia because of it. So possibly it's worth keeping them separate. Large sets are better though, so either expand Cornucopia and Guilds or combine them. That's another decision to make before knowing what order to put them in, but Guilds wants to be near the end due to complexity. If they're not one set then large Cornucopia could go between Prosperity and Hinterlands still, uh depending on how it turned out.
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How many Dominion cards do you think you have come up with, including different variations on the same card that were at least considered and maybe tested? Do you have a spreadsheet to keep track of them all, so you can record things like "reaction that hurts attacker | bad idea" and ideas for possible future promo cards, etc.?
There is an old ideas file, which has lists of ideas sorted by card type. I guess there's an even older file that I turned into this file. Ideas are sometimes marked with a rating, + for good, . for okay, - for bad; this doesn't reflect testing, just, how much do I like this idea. Some things have a comment in brackets after them, sometimes reflecting testing. Let's peek at the first five things on the discard-attacks list.
. att: each other player discards silver
. att: name treasure. each other player discards it [strong at 5]
. reveal top. if not silver, each other player ebbs. gain top silver. [multiplayer cumulativeness]
. if another pl. has < 5 cards, do x. otherwise, they discard.
each pl. looks at left's hand if they have 5+ cards, chooses a discard
As you can see I tested one of those, although I don't think I printed out anything for it. "Ebb" means "put from hand onto deck" - after the Magic card Time Ebb. "Do X" is of course a placeholder to just show off the actual idea; similarly most cards would also make +$2 or something; that isn't the idea part.
There are just 21 things on that particular list, plus a list of general approaches at the top. The file is 58K and also includes lists of general mechanics. These lists have been combed over; there are probably a few things that would be okay in there, but you know, the discard-attacks list, those are the 21 variants I passed over in favor of better ideas.
Then each set has a file, with ideas specifically for that set, and a list of the set as it stands at the top, with some notes on what cards fill what roles. For example for Dark Ages, the original list of ruins ideas is:
junk possibilities
- +1 action / +1 buy / +1 card / +$1 (ruined village / market / library / abandoned mine)
- look at top 2, may discard them (survivors)
- pass this left
- gain a copper / gain a card costing up to $2 / gain a card costing up to $1
- blank / trash this
- draw up to 4
- +1 card, -1 card
- action cards cost $1 less this turn
- worth 1 vp per 5 ruins in your deck
In that list the minuses are just for indenting, not passing judgment. Later I considered a few other things, including "play up to two ruins cards" for Ruined Village, but they aren't on this list. The initial five worked out so there wasn't a lot more work there.
The Dark Ages cards file is 59K (distinct from the file with the secret history and such). It is just an endless sprawl of card ideas, with some to-do list items like "fit in a 3rd spoils card."
Finally there are the image files. Dark Ages has 30 pages of card images to test (9 cards per page), plus full versions of the sets that sometimes include cards not on the other pages, especially the older ones when I wasn't saving everything yet. It is hard to meaningfully count those pages; it's 36 pages, not counting the original 3 page version or the brief 2 page version, but most of that stuff is redundant. And of course most of the images are things in the Dark Ages text file.
I am looking at the 4th page of Cornucopia images, which was the first page without a version of a card from Guilds. It has:
- Three versions of Horn of Plenty, two of them actions.
- Two version of Wandering Minstrel that may appear unrelated to it (it started out +$2, name a type, dig for one and leave it on top).
- Two random cards that didn't make it - "gain 5 silvers minus a silver per card in hand" and a thing that made other players ebb a card if they had any duplicates in hand.
- A precursor of Harvest that drew the non-duplicates in your top 5.
- Horse Traders but called Foreign Traders.
I flirted with posting the image, but man let's save that stuff for after Guilds is out, not have any slip-ups.
Not every version of every card makes it anywhere though. I say, "this game, this card will be different," and explain what I want to test and we test it. Maybe it works out and gets an image and more testing; maybe I'm immediately done with it. Maybe it seems promising and I change the cost and we try that, but the original cost is never in a file. You know.
I do not know how many cards ideas I've had, but there's some of the data I'd be looking at to guess that number. For a normal game I make maybe twice as many cards as end up in the game (distinct cards, rather than slight variations or wordings fixes or what have you). Like, for Nefarious, there were about twice as many twists tested as were used. I pared it down a couple times. There would also be a list of twist ideas I didn't try, however many, I'm not checking. For Dominion the numbers are higher; some cards just have one version, but some have 10 versions, and for any idea there are probably lots of ways you could do it that would be fine, and you can list them and consider them, but once you commit to one then the others aren't so interesting anymore.
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In the spirit of this being for a "holiday season" interview, what is your favorite holiday tradition?
I am going to tentatively go with trick-or-treating.
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Of all the cards you come up with an idea for, what percentage eventually get tweaked into a printed card?
You will have to try to work out something more precise from that other answer. It's changed over time too. A typical idea is just something stupid on a list, like "Each other player discards a silver." That's obvious from Cutpurse and not interesting but who knows it could work out well, why not list it. The best things on the list get tried and some get an image and some of those work out and are published in some form.
I feel like this is all springing from "no I don't look at fan cards." Man, ideas are easy, that's not the hard part.
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Do you have a dog? If so, is it blue, or at least named blue?
No. Boom swish.
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What are the three most important events to happen in your life? Is getting Dominion published one of them?
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What are the three most important events to happen in your life? Is getting Dominion published one of them?
I'm not sure I want to tell my life story, either the boring parts or the interesting parts. There was a time that I asked for band recommendations at Mod Lang that domino'd into significance (they recommended Game Theory / Loud Family, see if it works for you). Buying that issue of Games Magazine with the article on Magic was pretty good. Aside from that issue of Games, I'm not sure what to point to for Dominion; we could start with, I made some games that my friends didn't like and wanted a surefire hit (which was Spirit Warriors; Dominion was a solution to a problem in Spirit Warriors II). There's no great one moment to point at though. I can't see a good domino-starter for the exciting events of my youth.
Dominion has loomed large in the part of my life that postdates it. Here I am getting asked this question for example.
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What game do you consider a guilty pleasure? That is, you think it's poorly designed or has serious flaws in some way, but you enjoy it anyways.
I am not sure I have one. If I thought the game could be fixed and that I would like that version, I would fix it and play my fixed version. If I'm enjoying it it could still be flawed, but it's all about enjoyment, so hey, it made it.
If we open this up to video games then there have been video games I played that weren't so good, not so much as a guilty pleasure as because I wanted to play something and that's what I had that was new. And of course I can't just fix the problems those games have, I am stuck with them.
I am going to cite Skyrim. I enjoyed walking around and to a lesser degree picking flowers. The interface had huge problems, man, like they hated their players. The rest of it was not so compelling, especially when compared to say Fallout 3, their previous game. And I mean, I would play for an hour and then stop because it crashed. I think they could make a good game by sticking to their core strengths - walking and flower-picking - and scrapping the rest of it.
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Of all the cards you come up with an idea for, what percentage eventually get tweaked into a printed card?
You will have to try to work out something more precise from that other answer. It's changed over time too. A typical idea is just something stupid on a list, like "Each other player discards a silver." That's obvious from Cutpurse and not interesting but who knows it could work out well, why not list it. The best things on the list get tried and some get an image and some of those work out and are published in some form.
I feel like this is all springing from "no I don't look at fan cards." Man, ideas are easy, that's not the hard part.
No, it's not from that at all. I just want to see how much "failure" goes into creating such a great game!
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Of the great multitude of questions you have answered throughout the wonderful Adventure Dominion has Tunnel 'd you through, which was your favorite question about Dominion?
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Of the great multitude of questions you have answered throughout the wonderful Adventure Dominion has Tunnel 'd you through, which was your favorite question about Dominion?
Well, the first question in my first interview was "what question do you get asked the most often in interviews."
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When you were arranging the cards into the various expansions, what other themes or sub-themes did you consider but ultimately scrap? Aside from Dark Ages being named War, were there other substantially different expansion names that you considered?
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I believe you once mentioned that in the early days of Dominion you had considered having multiple resources, but ultimately opted for only coin, reserving the alternate resource idea for the final expansion. If this is true, did you always intend on having a single primary resource such as coin, with other resources playing only a secondary role like Potion? Or did you consider having more than one resource in your starting hand, or perhaps a secondary resource which was necessary for purchasing victory cards?
Edit: It was in the Secret History of Alchemy
When I came up with Dominion, I figured it would have multiple resources. When I actually made it, I went with one resource, because it was simpler. I could always add another resource in an expansion. With Alchemy I finally got around to doing that. Originally I was thinking it would be Reagents or Mandrake or something. I didn't find a good enough picture to use for such a card, so I went with Potions. That's how these decisions get made.
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What question do you get aked most often in interviews?
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When you were arranging the cards into the various expansions, what other themes or sub-themes did you consider but ultimately scrap? Aside from Dark Ages being named War, were there other substantially different expansion names that you considered?
I dunno, if there's somehow a 9th expansion, I'll need one of those themes, right? Most of the sets only ever had one theme. I considered coming up with a different theme for Hinterlands, maybe a particular far-off place, but more or less stuck with the original theme, just making the travel go further abroad. I considered a few different themes for Cornucopia and Guilds.
Seaside plus Hinterlands was originally called Abroad; when I split it I temporarily called Seaside "Tomorrow." Cornucopia was originally called Harvest Festival; Jay wanted a different name. Dominion was originally called Castle Builder. Guilds had a placeholder name I cannot reveal at this time.
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I believe you once mentioned that in the early days of Dominion you had considered having multiple resources, but ultimately opted for only coin, reserving the alternate resource idea for the final expansion. If this is true, did you always intend on having a single primary resource such as coin, with other resources playing only a secondary role like Potion? Or did you consider having more than one resource in your starting hand, or perhaps a secondary resource which was necessary for purchasing victory cards?
Edit: It was in the Secret History of Alchemy
When I came up with Dominion, I figured it would have multiple resources. When I actually made it, I went with one resource, because it was simpler. I could always add another resource in an expansion. With Alchemy I finally got around to doing that. Originally I was thinking it would be Reagents or Mandrake or something. I didn't find a good enough picture to use for such a card, so I went with Potions. That's how these decisions get made.
These early days you speak of are just when I typed up the original notes. When I actually made the game I went with just coins. When I typed up the notes I was thinking it would be three things or something, and cards would cost combinations of them, and your deck would start with all of them. But I mean, you are talking about, what did I think one afternoon about something I hadn't thought through.
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Guilds had a placeholder name I cannot reveal at this time.
Dominion: Complexity?
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What a terrible experiment. What about this one?: Look at these cards (rinkworks's mini-set design contest winners). (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3521.msg68134#msg68134)
Sorry to disappoint you! My experiment had the feature of only making one guy who isn't here feel bad. Probably you guys can do better, but, well.
Please make us feel bad. Please!
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What question do you get aked most often in interviews?
This question stopped being good as of the 2nd interview. Early on I got asked a lot "did you expect Dominion to be so successful" and gradually worked out how to say "yes" properly.
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There has been to date exactly one card I saw where I thought, hey, cool idea. It was something like, "when you gain this put it in the discard pile of the player to your left; at end of game worth 2 VP for the player to your right." I have done hot-potato cards that did not work out and probably this would fail for the same reasons, but still, neat idea.
This seems almost identical to a double-curse, that works on-gain, so basically like a way more powerful IGG, with political issues because it only hurts one player.
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There has been to date exactly one card I saw where I thought, hey, cool idea. It was something like, "when you gain this put it in the discard pile of the player to your left; at end of game worth 2 VP for the player to your right." I have done hot-potato cards that did not work out and probably this would fail for the same reasons, but still, neat idea.
This seems almost identical to a double-curse, that works on-gain, so basically like a way more powerful IGG, with political issues because it only hurts one player.
In a 2 player game it is essentially a double curse. It's interesting to me that you can't so effectively Ambassador it in a 2 player game.
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I think the versions of it I've seen allow you to spend an action to pass it left.
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When you were arranging the cards into the various expansions, what other themes or sub-themes did you consider but ultimately scrap? Aside from Dark Ages being named War, were there other substantially different expansion names that you considered?
I dunno, if there's somehow a 9th expansion, I'll need one of those themes, right? Most of the sets only ever had one theme. I considered coming up with a different theme for Hinterlands, maybe a particular far-off place, but more or less stuck with the original theme, just making the travel go further abroad. I considered a few different themes for Cornucopia and Guilds.
Seaside plus Hinterlands was originally called Abroad; when I split it I temporarily called Seaside "Tomorrow." Cornucopia was originally called Harvest Festival; Jay wanted a different name. Dominion was originally called Castle Builder. Guilds had a placeholder name I cannot reveal at this time.
You should consider making an arctic exploration theme....with PENGUINS! Blue ones.
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Actually, I believe he's posted in this very thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg148235#msg148235).
Sorry buggy. My other example was Richard Garfield, so you're in good company.
I'm right here! And I don't feel bad. It is kinda funny that the very next message in the thread after he talked about my cards was him answering my questions...
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Great thread. Here are some other questions.
If you could choose two (famous) people to play in a game of Dominion, who would they be and why?
Follow up: What cards would be in the kingdom?
Have you ever thought about running for political office (Governor, perhaps?)?
What is your favorite card to Throne Room?
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If you play on isotropic competitively how high do you expect your level to be?
I don't know what actual skill level corresponds to what numerical level. Also you are better at these things when you keep at them. I have not kept at it and so there's that. I imagine when I was playing a ton that I was probably a top player, but there's no reason to think I was ever at the very top.
When Captain Frisk (and Theory and RRenaud) showed up to do a little playtesting, I feel like me and the other playtesters really tried to beat them up - just, forget learning anything this game, let's show these new guys what for. And we did beat them up, although to be fair, we knew the new cards and they didn't, they were in the "can't you make Jack more powerful" phase. Frisk was playing more later and I think was winning his share then.
I can confirm that I took a beating. Donald has already robbed my defenses, which were that i naturally wanted to play with the new hotness, and these guys had all seen all of the cards / combos before. I'm personally very much of a "read lots of theory and execute it" rather than an "invent new crazy stuff" type of guy.
I would assume that Donald would be a 40-45 level player. -Stef- would win > 50% games against him.
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Of all the different mechanics, themes, concepts and what have yous out there that you *haven't* explicitly made a game about, what do you most want to try?
Did Kingdom Builder ever have a different name?
Out of all the Dominion cards so far released, what is your favourite interaction - combo or nombo - between two or more of them?
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Any chance we'll get the Secret History of Donald's Mafia Thoughts?
I know I wanted to try having the roles be objects that people passed around, and it turned out someone had already tried that. People have been working on the problem for years, so probably I didn't have any ideas they haven't gotten to.
We do have the advantage of Mafia being more of a group-think development (albeit often starting from a "new" idea which is kept secret for the purposes of SUSPENSE, "playtested" once, and then overreacted to by the losers) compared to one guy teasing out all the "obvious" ideas from a rule set.
If you were to play forum Mafia, do you think you would do better as Mafia or Town? (Would the answer change if it were face-to-face?)
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I assume when you first started testing Dominion, you tried out a lot of different basic game mechanics that ended up getting canned for various reasons. Are there any that, with the benefit of hindsight, you wish you had persevered with as you think they would have made the game better in some way?
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There has been to date exactly one card I saw where I thought, hey, cool idea. It was something like, "when you gain this put it in the discard pile of the player to your left; at end of game worth 2 VP for the player to your right." I have done hot-potato cards that did not work out and probably this would fail for the same reasons, but still, neat idea.
This seems almost identical to a double-curse, that works on-gain, so basically like a way more powerful IGG, with political issues because it only hurts one player.
Well they get the trash-for-benefit instead of you. But yes, that similarity could have killed the card. See, I already thought of everything.
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If you could choose two (famous) people to play in a game of Dominion, who would they be and why?
Follow up: What cards would be in the kingdom?
This is tangential, but in the movie Midnight in Paris, the ostensible premise is that our hero is going back in time to Paris in the 20s. But the real premise is, our hero is going back in time to Paris in the 20s, and all of the famous people of the day are interested in talking to him. I mean he's a writer and some of them are writers, but he isn't a famous writer of the 20s, and he also gets to hang out with non-writers, Dali and uh, well Cole Porter is playing at a party and he sees Picasso at Gertrude Stein's. Anyway in the end, btw spoilers, our hero learns that he should be happy in his own time. But I'm in my own time right now, I've written some screenplays, and I can't chat up Woody Allen. The whole thing makes you want to start a club for clever creative people, try to put a little Algonquin Round Table into your life, but I don't see why any of them would show up.
Anyway I have no special interest in playing Dominion with a particular famous person I might otherwise like to meet. Man, for any given famous person, either you want to talk to them or have sex with them or both; maybe you want to collaborate on something with them. Playing Dominion, it will just be Dominion, I can already play Dominion.
I played my games a bunch of times with Richard Garfield, Mark Rosewater, and other Wizards people back in the late 90s. I had long conversations with Friedemann Friese and Andreas Seyfarth at the Essen I went to; I don't drink, but Andreas Seyfarth, there is a guy to have some beers with. There was business to discuss with Bernd, aka Michael Tummelhofer. I met Knizia but he just appeared to shake hands and smile and was gone. Tom Lehmann is coming over to play games in a few days, with Wei-Hwa, who you will one day know as the Roll for the Galaxy guy. I guess it's not so hard to meet people within your industry.
My favorite band is Game Theory / Loud Family (all other members quit so he changed the name). Since they are obscure and local, I have gotten to chat with the guy a few times, although I was somewhat starstruck. My favorite movie is Brazil; I will probably never meet Terry Gilliam. If he wants to hang out sometime then man I am there, it sounds like good times, but it's not like I think, oh, if only. There would probably be too much of a disconnect to enjoy meeting David Lynch or Robert Pollard. Woody Allen and Stephin Merritt would just be trying to get it over with. My favorite novel is Little, Big; I have no real concept of that guy, I'm not sure what we'd talk about. I'd go for Gene Wolfe for novels I think.
Scarlett Johansson is hot. Why, if I were ten years younger... and she were five years younger...
Have you ever thought about running for political office (Governor, perhaps?)?
I haven't, but I have flirted with trying to get some of my voting reforms to the governments that might use them, e.g. Sweden's. There are basic problems with basic solutions, where cold hard logic is all you need to see that of course you should change things.
What is your favorite card to Throne Room?
I don't know. Cards with choices are good, like Nobles.
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Of all the different mechanics, themes, concepts and what have yous out there that you *haven't* explicitly made a game about, what do you most want to try?
For most of the mechanics I want to try, part of the appeal is not knowing a game that has them, so it's not like I want to list those. I've made several time travel games but no good ones; I'd like to make a good one.
Did Kingdom Builder ever have a different name?
No. I don't work on prototype names much; they need a name to be referred to, before I know if they're any good, and then it's easier to keep calling it that. So the names are usually something like The Spy Game. As you all know, in a surprise twist, Queen decided to stick with the prototype name. Rajive explained that, well, you are building a kingdom.
Out of all the Dominion cards so far released, what is your favourite interaction - combo or nombo - between two or more of them?
I already failed to answer this question. I will list a random interaction for each large set.
Dominion: Thief / Gardens has a certain charm.
Intrigue: I will stick with, Swindler / Silver. You couldn't possibly give me a Swindler, they're so terrifying.
Seaside: I am going to cite Smugglers / Pirate Ship. You open with Smugglers. You draw it and on their turn they buy Pirate Ship. Man. I don't want a Pirate Ship. Man. Urhrhrhr. Smuggle Pirate Ship, buy a Pirate Ship.
Prosperity: I am big on Worker's Village / Peddler.
Hinterlands: I have opened Develop / Spice Merchant so many times.
Dark Ages: Fortress is a pretty fun defense against Knights.
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If you were to play forum Mafia, do you think you would do better as Mafia or Town? (Would the answer change if it were face-to-face?)
I don't know dude. Town sounds easier. As Town I just need to play as Town. As Mafia I have to play as Town but also Mafia.
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I assume when you first started testing Dominion, you tried out a lot of different basic game mechanics that ended up getting canned for various reasons. Are there any that, with the benefit of hindsight, you wish you had persevered with as you think they would have made the game better in some way?
Day one, your starting hand was 5 coppers / 5 estates, and played cards went to the discard pile; it didn't take long to fix those things. And otherwise it was the same game when I showed it to RGG; there are no lost basic game mechanics.
There are plenty of single-card mechanics that didn't work out, and you can read about them in the secret histories. I have no regrets there, I mean the ones that still seem like they have potential also have the time I spent not getting anywhere to dissuade me. Look at Dark Ages especially, since many cards had their last stand there. There's nothing where I think, that would really have improved the game if it had worked; it's just, that would have been a cool card if it had worked.
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What does the X stand for?
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What does the X stand for?
It's a variable. The unknown.
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What does the X stand for?
It's a variable. The unknown.
Don't know whether to believe you or not. :P
I must admit, I'm struggling to think of you as "Donald Xavier", and I can't really think of any other X names.
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Dark Ages: Fortress is a pretty fun defense against Knights.
Another card that lives up to its name.
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I think it's interesting that most of us here seem to think of the Dominion cards as a whole bunch of cards, but Donald seems to think of them more in terms of the sets.
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I think it's interesting that most of us here seem to think of the Dominion cards as a whole bunch of cards, but Donald seems to think of them more in terms of the sets.
I tend to think of them in terms of sets. I remember acquiring them one ~$30 at a time, and how much each new set impacted my gaming group. And still when we play we think in terms of sets. "Let's use Prosperity and Hinterlands" on Thursday. It's never "Let's use King's Court and Jack" on Thursday.
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What does the X stand for?
It's a variable. The unknown.
DXV also reads as 5:15, a great song by The Who.
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Are you in favor of initializing a MTG-like Dominion Pro Tour? Or, in a similar way, do you think it's somehow possible to make taking part at the World Championships more attractive?
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What was your reaction when you first heard fans talk about "the Silver test"? Do you feel that Big Money strategies are too strong in base Dominion, and was that a consideration at all when you put together the flagship set?
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I think it's interesting that most of us here seem to think of the Dominion cards as a whole bunch of cards, but Donald seems to think of them more in terms of the sets.
I tend to think of them in terms of sets. I remember acquiring them one ~$30 at a time, and how much each new set impacted my gaming group. And still when we play we think in terms of sets. "Let's use Prosperity and Hinterlands" on Thursday. It's never "Let's use King's Court and Jack" on Thursday.
I think of it both ways. I'm aware of what comes with which set, but since they're all part of a larger whole, rather than weird sequels to one another, my thoughts on Kingdom setups tend to be cross-expansion.
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Is Seaside your second favorite set?
What was the most enjoyable set to work on and playtest?
Don't know why this comes to mind, but what is your wife's favorite card?
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Are you in favor of initializing a MTG-like Dominion Pro Tour? Or, in a similar way, do you think it's somehow possible to make taking part at the World Championships more attractive?
Well MtG has a constant flow of new products. Like, should Puerto Rico have a Pro Tour? It feels like the WBC is good enough for most games.
Giving people plane tickets to the championships would require thinking that that promotion was paying off. I'm not sure it would and it's not my department anyway.
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What was your reaction when you first heard fans talk about "the Silver test"? Do you feel that Big Money strategies are too strong in base Dominion, and was that a consideration at all when you put together the flagship set?
I'm not sure I would put it like that - more like, when I first heard a non-fan talking about it. I thought, lol. It's pretty obviously stupid and while it's good to realize "hey maybe buying a terminal action every turn won't work out," that obv. doesn't mean the game is broken. Dominion clearly survived that nonsense and so much for that.
I think base Dominion could have better replayability/variety via swapping out some of the duds for more interesting cards. That would also make more-interesting decks better; a bunch of decks where you play just 1-2 terminals plus money is not as much variety as, you know, not that. But I would be changing it for the variety issue, not due to wanting to hurt heavy money strategies.
Heavy money strategies were not a consideration for picking the cards in the main set. Being simple enough was the main concern, followed by, variety. It did well on simplicity, probably it could have been slightly less simple. It wasn't going to have as much variety as when you add an expansion, but it could have had more variety.
Silver isn't awful, and the game has this "only play one action per turn" rule. Those both seem like good things, but together they lead to, sometimes you can do well without many actions. Not playing many actions is just one of the basic solutions to only being able to play one per turn. There are other solutions though, and the main set has them: I can play lots of +1 action cards like Lab, I can play Village and more terminals, I can play Remodels and Remodel Remodel, I can go for Gardens and just live with lots of terminals.
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Is Seaside your second favorite set?
Comparing just the large sets, I like Dark Ages best, then Hinterlands, Prosperity, Seaside, Intrigue, Dominion. They are just strictly in order from worst to best. The biggest gap is between Intrigue and Seaside though; from Seaside on they're all so good that who cares which set is better. I've had plenty of fun with Intrigue and Dominion but for sure there's room for improvement there.
It's hard to fairly compare the small sets to the large ones (or Dark Ages to normal large sets). I like Cornucopia more than Alchemy. I like Alchemy though, I am no Alchemy hater. I probably like Guilds best, but it's close.
What was the most enjoyable set to work on and playtest?
There's no set where I wasn't enjoying working on it. I guess the later sets were arguably more fun because we could playtest them on isotropic. Dark Ages is my favorite set, so, I dunno, Dark Ages?
Don't know why this comes to mind, but what is your wife's favorite card?
I don't know and she's asleep.
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Do you have favorite kid's game?
Any thoughts on a "Dominion for Kids" sort of variant similar to what we've seen for Settlers and Carcassonne?
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This version should include chits in a bag instead of cards. Kids are poor shufflers and tend to warp cards, especially if excited by the game.
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Do you have favorite kid's game?
I'm fond of step-on-feet. You try to step on their feet. They try to step on your feet. You win when every other player has conceded.
Any thoughts on a "Dominion for Kids" sort of variant similar to what we've seen for Settlers and Carcassonne?
I have not given any thought to such a thing. I've played Dominion with an 8-year-old, and I'm not sure I'd want to aim much lower.
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Any thoughts on a "Dominion for Kids" sort of variant similar to what we've seen for Settlers and Carcassonne?
I have not given any thought to such a thing. I've played Dominion with an 8-year-old, and I'm not sure I'd want to aim much lower.
"You may drool on this card. If you don't, +$3."
What games did you play growing up (if any)? What's your earliest gaming memory?
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What games did you play growing up (if any)? What's your earliest gaming memory?
I played a lot of D&D. I played it when it was the little books - Eldritch Wizardry etc. No-one ever played by the rules, because there were awful, so I guess that was probably my first experience with game design. At some point in my teens I briefly tried to be good at chess. I was good at intimidating people by being smart, I would push a piece forward and they would be sure it must be some great plan.
Otherwise, you know, normal American stuff, this will not be interesting. Monopoly, Checkers, etc. etc. Trying to figure out what my oldest such memory is is too hard and boring. I'm like the Memento guy, I can only remember the last 38 years. I have a photo of a man from before then and it says "don't believe his lies;" I think it's referring to Santa Claus.
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Why does Spy cost $4? Were Spy/Spy openings just too annoying to resolve or something?
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Why does Spy cost $4? Were Spy/Spy openings just too annoying to resolve or something?
It's pretty random. I didn't know as much what I was doing then; I tried it at $4 and people bought it and you didn't have to. These days I wouldn't make it at all - it's too slow for what you get, and charging less doesn't fix that. Rabble is the way to do Spy.
The "this has to cost $4 to stop you from opening with two of them" thing first came to light with a main set outtake that was "trash a card from your hand, discard a card, +3 cards." It was $3 for a while and I upped it to $4 to stop that opening (and moved it to Intrigue, then to Dark Ages, then it died). Throne Room is $4 because $3 was too good with +buys; it was cute that you could open Throne / Feast but I couldn't preserve that. Remodel is $4 because that makes it better. Smithy, Gardens, and Feast want to be $4. Militia, Moneylender, Bureaucrat, and Thief are all somewhat randomly at $4; they were trying to fit into a continuum of cards, where as you know the big difference is from $4 to $5. They are correctly less than $5. I'm happy with them being $4; it's not like you want to face double-attack openings a lot (bad or not) when you're new to the game. Moneylender fits fine into the continuum.
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That seems like it would go well on the spy wiki page.
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That seems like it would go well on the spy wiki page.
All the other cards he mentioned should go too.
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How do you go about teaching the game in general to new players?
How many games of Dominion would you guess you have played?
What card do you think you are "best" with? What about worst?
Boxers or briefs?
Which is more frustrating for you in a competitive-ish game, Turn 5 chapel or 2+P in a Familiar game?
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This thread seems similar enough to a reddit AMA that this feels appropriate....
Would you rather fight one Trusty Steed-sized Rat or 100 Rat-sized Trusty Steeds?
edit: asked this before coming to the post where you said you wouldn't be answering funny questions
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Which is more frustrating for you in a competitive-ish game, Turn 5 chapel or 2+P in a Familiar game?
I bet I can provide the start of his answer! "It depends on the board..."
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That seems like it would go well on the spy wiki page.
A whole lot of this thread would be great for the wiki.
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How do you go about teaching the game in general to new players?
I uh explain the rules? "This is a game of building a deck..." I explain the data in the game - "you have a deck, a discard pile, a hand of cards..." I explain how your turn goes. I explain the card types, the four +'s, gain/trash, the end condition. I am teaching the game using whatever expansion I am testing, so I explain whatever twists it has.
How many games of Dominion would you guess you have played?
Man. Well, in the thousands. IRL I must have played at least 3K games; it's hard to estimate because any given game night may have involved other games. There are 3600+ posts in playtest forum threads for posting results from playing online; they aren't all games and I'm not in all of them, although a lot are and I'm in a lot of them. That doesn't cover all online games, just from Cornucopia on (I had a bad online version when working on the main set).
What card do you think you are "best" with? What about worst?
I'm best with new, untested cards. Also against them.
I'm looking at the sets, I don't see cards that say I will lose. I buy the weak cards less often than the strong cards, the narrow cards less often than the flexible ones. I guess like anyone decent can say, I do worse against swingy cards.
Boxers or briefs?
Boxers; the motif on them is a boxer, poised to punch.
Which is more frustrating for you in a competitive-ish game, Turn 5 chapel or 2+P in a Familiar game?
Well I've experienced the former more than the latter so I guess that one. But really, if this game is competitive-ish, phew, I can point to this as why I lost. The pressure's off.
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What I've always liked about Dominion and disliked about Magic is that in Dominion all players have the same choices. Every card in the kingdom was available to every player. You weren't limited to the amount of money you wanted to spend on random booster packs and such. You could just buy a set, know every card you were going to get and have equal access to all of those cards.
Cornucopia changed this with the Tournament prizes and it seems that a lot of games are decided on who gets Followers or Trusty Steed first. Dark Ages introduced Ruins and Knights and even made the initial shuffles more different with Shelters.
Now I understand that it's sometimes fun when games are this asymmetrical, but it seems like you're straying further from the original "equal access" concept - if that even ever existed. Even cards that "do something with the trash" attribute to this as the timing of when you play your trasher/trash-grabber matters a lot.
Did you have an "equal access" concept in mind when you started designing Dominion? Is there a reason you've been exploring asymmetry more and more?
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edit: asked this before coming to the post where you said you wouldn't be answering funny questions
I don't want to disappoint people, I just don't want to spend hours trying to think of funny answers. I started looking for an old, unrelated joke to post instead, and even that was taking too long.
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What I've always liked about Dominion and disliked about Magic is that in Dominion all players have the same choices. Every card in the kingdom was available to every player. You weren't limited to the amount of money you wanted to spend on random booster packs and such. You could just buy a set, know every card you were going to get and have equal access to all of those cards.
Cornucopia changed this with the Tournament prizes and it seems that a lot of games are decided on who gets Followers or Trusty Steed first. Dark Ages introduced Ruins and Knights and even made the initial shuffles more different with Shelters.
Now I understand that it's sometimes fun when games are this asymmetrical, but it seems like you're straying further from the original "equal access" concept - if that even ever existed. Even cards that "do something with the trash" attribute to this as the timing of when you play your trasher/trash-grabber matters a lot.
Did you have an "equal access" concept in mind when you started designing Dominion? Is there a reason you've been exploring asymmetry more and more?
When I thought of the premise, my original thought was that there would be some cards to buy, and when you bought one we'd deal out a replacement. When I actually made the game, months later, that sounded bad. Wouldn't a lot come down to having a good card turned over when you got first shot at it? It might seem just like if we draw cards from a deck and I draw a better one, but it's much more in-your-face. Anyway I didn't manage to come up with a good solution, so for the first game, I just put (all) ten cards out at once. I figured, it would make it easy to find the broken cards, and if the game seemed promising I could come up with something better later. Then of course we liked getting to pick from ten cards. So this significant feature of Dominion was something I just lucked into.
From my perspective there has been no trajectory like you describe. The Knights and Black Market are from 2007. I have asymmetry in this area because it was something to do. There sure isn't much of it. It's like $7's; some people felt like $7's would break the game, not realizing that, even if I made say four of them, you still wouldn't have one in most games.
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What I've always liked about Dominion and disliked about Magic is that in Dominion all players have the same choices. Every card in the kingdom was available to every player. You weren't limited to the amount of money you wanted to spend on random booster packs and such. You could just buy a set, know every card you were going to get and have equal access to all of those cards.
This is what instantly clicked with me. I committed to buying all the expansions if the game promised to be any good, and still be way below the money I spent for M:tG.
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I agree with the fact that having a few asymmetric cards doesn't immediately sway the balance to complete asymmetry because most games wouldn't have those cards anyway, it's just something I noticed as more expansions came out.
I reckon it might be difficult for you (and us) to keep track of the timeline as our experience with the cards is different from yours. We don't exactly know the order the cards were designed in, we just know the order of the expansions. So introducing this asymmetry can simply be an effect of shuffling cards around from set to set and it's also quite logical that asymmetrical cards are more complex and thus end up in later sets.
And with Guilds around the corner I wondered if this was a trend or just a side effect of the way cards were released and judging from your answer, I guess it's the latter. In your view, correct me if I'm wrong, asymmetry has always been part of the game, but you can see how it looks to us like a trend, just because the expansions are released in a certain order.
I found the first tidbit about "just turn over some cards and replace them if they're bought" very interesting. So you essentially started with a Black Market deck? It's funny to see how games develop this way. Nowadays, picking 10 cards out of all the available cards is such a linchpin of the game that we don't even think twice about it and, for me certainly, this has been a big reason why it's been so popular.
Imagine playing with just the 25 cards from the base game, containing exactly one copy of Witch and one copy of Chapel. ;D
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I reckon it might be difficult for you (and us) to keep track of the timeline as our experience with the cards is different from yours. We don't exactly know the order the cards were designed in, we just know the order of the expansions. So introducing this asymmetry can simply be an effect of shuffling cards around from set to set and it's also quite logical that asymmetrical cards are more complex and thus end up in later sets.
Tournament is a fixed Black Market and is in Cornucopia because I wanted something in the variety-based set that actually increased the number of cards available, which Black Market does. The Knights were always in Dark Ages, from when it was called War. They are Knights; it's a War. The Ruins cards and Shelters vary because that's more interesting than having them be the same. They were made for the set. It was not some drive to increase asymmetry or some careful saving of complex things; it was, can I make Curses more interesting, and then Tom suggesting replacing the starting Estates to push the Dark Ages flavor.
And with Guilds around the corner I wondered if this was a trend or just a side effect of the way cards were released and judging from your answer, I guess it's the latter.
I'm not really looking to tell people about Guilds yet. Let's just steer all questions away from that.
If the game didn't include any cards anyone hated, it wouldn't include any cards anyone loved either. You are complaining about a tiny number of things that some people absolutely adore. Don't play with Tournament and Knights if you don't like them. They are slam dunks for me.
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If the game didn't include any cards anyone hated, it wouldn't include any cards anyone loved either. You are complaining about a tiny number of things that some people absolutely adore. Don't play with Tournament and Knights if you don't like them. They are slam dunks for me.
It struck me as amusing that Tournament and Knights are in different sets. How can you have a Tournament without Knights?
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It struck me as amusing that Tournament and Knights are in different sets. How can you have a Tournament without Knights?
Well, when you host a Tournament, knights come from all over to compete; that doesn't mean they're each in your personal employ. The more provinces you yourself hold, though, the more likely the victor will come from your lands.
Also, I totally like the flavor of hiring Dame Molly to go wreck a tournament being hosted by another player.
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If the game didn't include any cards anyone hated, it wouldn't include any cards anyone loved either. You are complaining about a tiny number of things that some people absolutely adore. Don't play with Tournament and Knights if you don't like them. They are slam dunks for me.
It struck me as amusing that Tournament and Knights are in different sets. How can you have a Tournament without Knights?
Hey, I'm not saying I hate those cards! It's just something I noticed after the first sets not having such cards. :)
Some of the cards I'd like to see in Guilds are asymmetrical cards. Yes, you don't have to say anything about Guilds, but we're allowed to speculate.
Dominion by itself is already pretty asymmetrical with all the shuffling anyway.
Again, it's just something that caught my eye, I'm not judging it either way. Getting the 2nd prize with Tournament is certainly no more annoying than drawing $2P on turn 5.
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Again, it's just something that caught my eye, I'm not judging it either way. Getting the 2nd prize with Tournament is certainly no more annoying than drawing $2P on turn 5.
So much less annoying than this. I wish Familiar cost $1P so badly.
Dolan, why 10 kingdom cards? Did you ever try 12 cards available at a time, or eight? (Different cards, not cards per pile)
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Again, it's just something that caught my eye, I'm not judging it either way. Getting the 2nd prize with Tournament is certainly no more annoying than drawing $2P on turn 5.
So much less annoying than this. I wish Familiar cost $1P so badly.
Dolan, why 10 kingdom cards? Did you ever try 12 cards available at a time, or eight? (Different cards, not cards per pile)
Dolan? Is this a scumslip?
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(http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/31685080.jpg)
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Again, it's just something that caught my eye, I'm not judging it either way. Getting the 2nd prize with Tournament is certainly no more annoying than drawing $2P on turn 5.
So much less annoying than this. I wish Familiar cost $1P so badly.
Dolan, why 10 kingdom cards? Did you ever try 12 cards available at a time, or eight? (Different cards, not cards per pile)
Dolan? Is this a scumslip?
It feels like it would be the Celtic equivalent of Donald, doesn't it?
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Or maybe the title of a new Eagles song: Duelin' Dolan Doolan.
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Again, it's just something that caught my eye, I'm not judging it either way. Getting the 2nd prize with Tournament is certainly no more annoying than drawing $2P on turn 5.
So much less annoying than this. I wish Familiar cost $1P so badly.
Dolan, why 10 kingdom cards? Did you ever try 12 cards available at a time, or eight? (Different cards, not cards per pile)
Dolan? Is this a scumslip?
It feels like it would be the Celtic equivalent of Donald, doesn't it?
Donald is Celtic.
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tag
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Dolan, why 10 kingdom cards? Did you ever try 12 cards available at a time, or eight? (Different cards, not cards per pile)
As you add more cards you get more options but the game is harder to play, especially when you're new. Of course at a certain point you aren't increasing options much anymore because cards displace other cards for you.
Originally I had ten cards and decided to just put them all out. We could cope with ten so it stayed ten.
At one point I played with eight for a while. It worked fine but was not as good. I never really considered twelve because ten is already too many to remember them all (and I didn't consider odd numbers). There's the neat trick of, it's my first game ever, man I'm not reading all these, I have $4, what costs $4, I'll read those. But ten cards is still a lot.
Another thing is that the number has an effect on the variety you get. With 25 cards and 10 at a time, it takes you, you know, 2.5 games to see them all. If it were 8 cards at a time it would take 3 games. That was the big reason to test 8 for me, and it pushes away from putting more cards out at once.
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Again, it's just something that caught my eye, I'm not judging it either way. Getting the 2nd prize with Tournament is certainly no more annoying than drawing $2P on turn 5.
So much less annoying than this. I wish Familiar cost $1P so badly.
Dolan, why 10 kingdom cards? Did you ever try 12 cards available at a time, or eight? (Different cards, not cards per pile)
Dolan? Is this a scumslip?
It feels like it would be the Celtic equivalent of Donald, doesn't it?
Donald is Celtic.
I can't imagine why I didn't know that, with a name like Vaccarino.
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Again, it's just something that caught my eye, I'm not judging it either way. Getting the 2nd prize with Tournament is certainly no more annoying than drawing $2P on turn 5.
So much less annoying than this. I wish Familiar cost $1P so badly.
Dolan, why 10 kingdom cards? Did you ever try 12 cards available at a time, or eight? (Different cards, not cards per pile)
Dolan? Is this a scumslip?
It feels like it would be the Celtic equivalent of Donald, doesn't it?
Donald is Celtic.
I can't imagine why I didn't know that, with a name like Vaccarino.
Ahh, I meant the name, not DXV. I have no clue what DXV is.
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Ahh, I meant the name, not DXV. I have no clue what DXV is.
515, duh.
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Again, it's just something that caught my eye, I'm not judging it either way. Getting the 2nd prize with Tournament is certainly no more annoying than drawing $2P on turn 5.
So much less annoying than this. I wish Familiar cost $1P so badly.
Dolan, why 10 kingdom cards? Did you ever try 12 cards available at a time, or eight? (Different cards, not cards per pile)
Dolan? Is this a scumslip?
It feels like it would be the Celtic equivalent of Donald, doesn't it?
Gooby plz.
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As you add more cards you get more options but the game is harder to play, especially when you're new. Of course at a certain point you aren't increasing options much anymore because cards displace other cards for you.
Originally I had ten cards and decided to just put them all out. We could cope with ten so it stayed ten.
At one point I played with eight for a while. It worked fine but was not as good. I never really considered twelve because ten is already too many to remember them all (and I didn't consider odd numbers). There's the neat trick of, it's my first game ever, man I'm not reading all these, I have $4, what costs $4, I'll read those. But ten cards is still a lot.
I've found this to be true too. These days when I explain Dominion to a set of non-gamer friends I only use five cards instead of ten. It all fits in memory that way. For their second game, I roll out a full set of ten cards. Of course if you have an experienced boardgaming audience then you can start with ten to begin with.
I've sometimes thought that the official First Game set should be less than ten cards for this reason.
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I've also been itching to play some games with 12 instead of 10. I think that experienced players would enjoy the greater number of options it presents and it would lead to fewer BM+X games, which are no one's favorites.
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These days when I explain Dominion to a set of non-gamer friends I only use five cards instead of ten. It all fits in memory that way. For their second game, I roll out a full set of ten cards. Of course if you have an experienced boardgaming audience then you can start with ten to begin with.
Do you have a specific set of five that you use?
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These days when I explain Dominion to a set of non-gamer friends I only use five cards instead of ten. It all fits in memory that way. For their second game, I roll out a full set of ten cards. Of course if you have an experienced boardgaming audience then you can start with ten to begin with.
Do you have a specific set of five that you use?
King's Court
Goons
Masquerade
Saboteur
Possession
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These days when I explain Dominion to a set of non-gamer friends I only use five cards instead of ten. It all fits in memory that way. For their second game, I roll out a full set of ten cards. Of course if you have an experienced boardgaming audience then you can start with ten to begin with.
Do you have a specific set of five that you use?
King's Court
Goons
Masquerade
Saboteur
Possession
Saboteur makes the whole thing worth it. BRING IT ON.
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These days when I explain Dominion to a set of non-gamer friends I only use five cards instead of ten. It all fits in memory that way. For their second game, I roll out a full set of ten cards. Of course if you have an experienced boardgaming audience then you can start with ten to begin with.
Do you have a specific set of five that you use?
King's Court
Goons
Masquerade
Saboteur
Possession
The more I stare at it, the more I think it would be incredibly interesting to play.
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These days when I explain Dominion to a set of non-gamer friends I only use five cards instead of ten. It all fits in memory that way. For their second game, I roll out a full set of ten cards. Of course if you have an experienced boardgaming audience then you can start with ten to begin with.
Do you have a specific set of five that you use?
King's Court
Goons
Masquerade
Saboteur
Possession
Mind=Blown
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These days when I explain Dominion to a set of non-gamer friends I only use five cards instead of ten. It all fits in memory that way. For their second game, I roll out a full set of ten cards. Of course if you have an experienced boardgaming audience then you can start with ten to begin with.
Do you have a specific set of five that you use?
King's Court
Goons
Masquerade
Saboteur
Possession
I didn't know you were going to go claiming credit for the final match kingdom I submitted. ;)
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Donald is Celtic.
It means "world ruler." And Vaccarino means "cow herder." And then X is the unknown. So, put it all together and it's like that South Park joke. phase 1: herd cows. phase 2: ? ? ?. phase 3: world domination.
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Donald is Celtic.
It means "world ruler." And Vaccarino means "cow herder." And then X is the unknown. So, put it all together and it's like that South Park joke. phase 1: herd cows. phase 2: ? ? ?. phase 3: world domination.
But since it's the other way around, it seems to me like you're taking over the world in order to herd cows.
Allegedly, the biggest-selling LCG in Japan is a game called "Tanto Cuore", a maid-themed deck builder. While a lot of its mechanisms are practically identical to Dominion, its basic currency costs one more than the Dominion equivalent (so the $1 costs $1, the $2 costs $4 and the $3 costs $7). Did you ever consider doing anything like this in Dominion - particularly, moving Copper off the $0 price point?
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He herds us like cattle...
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Allegedly, the biggest-selling LCG in Japan is a game called "Tanto Cuore", a maid-themed deck builder. While a lot of its mechanisms are practically identical to Dominion, its basic currency costs one more than the Dominion equivalent (so the $1 costs $1, the $2 costs $4 and the $3 costs $7). Did you ever consider doing anything like this in Dominion - particularly, moving Copper off the $0 price point?
I never considered Copper not costing $0, because I wanted something you could do usefully with no money. Obv. they can sell out, and I have seen that case, I have seen the Coppers sell out and someone with no money. Obv. I try to avoid that being so possible in games with published cards, and if I've done that then does it matter that Copper costs $0, but what, it still seems nice that it does. And of course since it costs $0 that affects things.
The treasures had their costs from game one. The way to think of it is, all of the other costs were tweaked to work with them.
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So the player learns as the developer developed the game ;]
This brings up another question:
Was any tweaking done to Estates/Provinces/Colonies?
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In case Donald doesn't want to add more, I'll quote things he's said before:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=115.0
Estate, Duchy, Copper, Silver, Gold: These cards are unchanged from day one. You could argue that the actions got tweaked to fit the treasures. The treasure pile sizes changed to match different estimates for the total set size, and ended up generous on all counts. In development the issue of the names for these came up - is it simpler if it's Copper Mine rather than Copper? In the end you can see that Copper won out. It just makes it a lot easier to name action cards if the treasures are treasures rather than mines.
http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Province (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Province)
As mentioned in the BGN article, we changed [Province] from 5 VP to 6 VP during development, as part of the fix to the Duchy rush. The Duchy rush was, you buy nothing but Silver and Duchies. At the time the game ended when any Victory pile ran out. If one person went for the Duchy rush you could beat them, but if two people did, you had to join them. My friends found this strategy, but it didn't seem like a problem. It was a boring strategy, so the only reason to play it was if you thought it would win for you. It wouldn't though; it would win for someone at random, since we would all follow suit. You could make the game suck but that's it. So we never did it. Well would you believe, being able to make the game suck is not so hot. Furthermore, if you're a new player, the Duchy rush may elevate your chance of winning from zero to even. So it was in fact a problem. An anonymous playtester realized this, Valerie and Dale raised the alarm, and in the end, Province changed from 5 VP to 6 VP and the end condition changed from "any empty victory pile" (the end condition we were using at the time, but not the original one, which was "any empty pile") to the one you know. We tried ideas that Valerie or Dale came up with, but in the end happened to go with something that I suggested (which is why I didn't count this when I mentioned Thief as the only card they changed). These two changes were easily the most important changes during development.—Donald X. Vaccarino (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Donald_X._Vaccarino), The Secret History of the Dominion Cards (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=115.0)
http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Colony (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Colony)
This always cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/d/df/Coin11.png/16px-Coin11.png). Originally it made 8 VP. At the time Province was worth 5 VP. When Province went up to 6 VP, I changed this to 9 VP. It stayed like that for a while. 9 VP seemed like a good spot for making both Colony and Province viable in Colony games. In development, Valerie and Dale really wanted it to be worth 10 VP. 1 - 3 - 6 - 10! Except, the 1 and 3 there really don't mean much; Estate and Duchy are not bargains. For a while I said, sure, maybe 9 VP isn't the right value, but you know, it sure has seemed good in testing so far. And it had. It had seemed just fine. I finally tested it at 10 VP anyway though. And well, it usually didn't make a difference in who won, and it made counting scores easier, and it looks prettier. And attacks and rush strategies already push you away from Colony; it's fine if some games you really don't want to stop at Provinces. So 10 VP it is.—Donald X. Vaccarino (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Donald_X._Vaccarino), The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5230)
Though we would of course love to hear more :)
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Was any tweaking done to Estates/Provinces/Colonies?
Province was originally worth 5 VP. I changed it to 6 VP as part of the fix for the Duchy rush (the other part was changing the end condition from "any empty victory pile" to "any 3 empty piles, or all provinces gone").
Colony was originally 8 VP. I changed it to 9 VP when Province went to 6 VP. Valerie and Dale wanted it to be 10 VP so that the victory cards went 1 - 3 - 6 - 10, even though the 1 and 3 there don't belong. I tried it and found that it didn't matter much in terms of game play, but it did look nice and made counting scores easier. So Colony went to 10 VP.
Estate and Duchy never changed. Well the very first versions weren't named.
Edit: There was nothing new to say. They're green because I had a lot of green paper, I could mention that. At the time I printed in black and white on colored paper.
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all my firend buyz is money and he winz. pls help.
Do you consider yourself more of a BM-ish player or an engine player?
What's your favorite type of pie?
How did you decide on the artists for the cards?
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Do you consider yourself more of a BM-ish player or an engine player?
What's your favorite type of pie?
How did you decide on the artists for the cards?
Engines, apple. I don't have any input into who does the art for what card. I do get to see some of the sketches sometimes, in which case I comment on them, but that's about illustrating the correct thing (and not having anachronisms or what have you) rather than say quality of art.
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Donald is Celtic.
It means "world ruler." And Vaccarino means "cow herder." And then X is the unknown. So, put it all together and it's like that South Park joke. phase 1: herd cows. phase 2: ? ? ?. phase 3: world domination.
Surely the X is actually a multiplication sign
So its World Ruler x Cow Herder.
I'll leave the maths for someone else.....
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How have the sales of Dark Ages compared to, say, Hinterlands?
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How have the sales of Dark Ages compared to, say, Hinterlands?
I won't have any sales figures until next year, and even then I'm not sure that will say anything about the level of interest from players - I'll just know how many copies were sold to distributors, and that may just reflect initial orders, i.e. what they guessed the level of interest would be.
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How have the sales of Dark Ages compared to, say, Hinterlands?
I won't have any sales figures until next year, and even then I'm not sure that will say anything about the level of interest from players - I'll just know how many copies were sold to distributors, and that may just reflect initial orders, i.e. what they guessed the level of interest would be.
Follow up question:
Aside from the base game, what is the best selling expansion to date, and what are your thoughts on why?
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Follow up question:
Aside from the base game, what is the best selling expansion to date, and what are your thoughts on why?
This kind of thing is really more appropriate for an interview with Jay; so, last question about sales.
Without adding up these numbers I am guessing it's Intrigue. It was the first expansion and is a standalone and those seem like plausible explanations.
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Do you have more fun playtesting stories involving horribly broken cards? I enjoyed the stories where no one has any deck whatsoever and must struggle forward with 5-card hands.
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In order to make more expansions, the cards necessarily get more complex, and that's the real problem with making more expansions (in addition to, then it's all I do with my life, and don't people have enough variety already, and so on, all the stuff I say over and over when people ask about why I'm not making more expansions). It's okay to change the game and there is more space to explore; it's just, you are pushed into making more and more complex things, while the audience already wants things less complex than they are.
Magic also has to deal with complexity creep in much the same way. Advanced players want more complicated cards, but the developers need to keep the game accessible to new players to make sure the playerbase doesn't stagnate. Somehow Wizards has managed to churn out expansions and attract new players for 20 years. Is there a reason why this couldn't be done with Dominion? I can understand you wanting to move on to new games, but would you ever be willing to hand off development of Dominion?
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Was it intentional or just fortunate that if you only have Base+Cornucopia or Intrigue+Cornucopia then you still have at least 10 cards costing $2 or $3, and thus can't run into a situation where YW can't find a bane, at least without base cards?
(Yes I know it's contrived, but it's something I observed recently)
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Do you have more fun playtesting stories involving horribly broken cards? I enjoyed the stories where no one has any deck whatsoever and must struggle forward with 5-card hands.
Well I looked at some outtakes and haven't thought of one. I try to include every good story I can in the secret histories, including ones where the cards weren't broken, and then there's that post where I looked at the extremes of each type of attack outtake. One "We were all stuck at 5 cards" story is probably about the same as the next one. There are other random memorable games I've posted about, and as they get less memorable they somehow get harder to remember.
I could talk more about the early cards though, and I typed up something I will be proofreading and posting before you know it.
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Magic also has to deal with complexity creep in much the same way. Advanced players want more complicated cards, but the developers need to keep the game accessible to new players to make sure the playerbase doesn't stagnate. Somehow Wizards has managed to churn out expansions and attract new players for 20 years. Is there a reason why this couldn't be done with Dominion? I can understand you wanting to move on to new games, but would you ever be willing to hand off development of Dominion?
Magic is drastically more complex than Dominion, and that rulebook complexity takes complexity away from the cards. You can make tons of very simple Magic cards, but there are only so many combinations of +'s for Dominion. Then, Magic is okay with having extremely similar cards, even identical cards with different names (plus straight reprints), but that doesn't work in Dominion; if there are two identical piles there's one pile that could be making the game better and isn't. Magic is also not a game that normal people can play. Dominion can be played by your parents and so on and that doesn't seem good to give up.
I have made hundreds of homemade Magic cards. You can churn them out. There are all these knobs, all these ways to tweak something to end up with something different enough for Magic that isn't too complex for Magic. Dominion doesn't have those knobs, while needing cards more different and less complex.
I don't imagine I will ever want to "hand off" Dominion. Someone might be able to talk me into letting them do an expansion, but I would feel compelled to put in a lot of work on it myself. And if I'm making spin-offs, isn't that enough?
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Was it intentional or just fortunate that if you only have Base+Cornucopia or Intrigue+Cornucopia then you still have at least 10 cards costing $2 or $3, and thus can't run into a situation where YW can't find a bane, at least without base cards?
(Yes I know it's contrived, but it's something I observed recently)
The original Young Witch always had a bane costing $3 (so, not intentional). Jeff Wolfe suggested changing it to "$2 or $3" to reduce the frequency with which the bane was a particular Cornucopia card.
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Someone might be able to talk me into letting them do an expansion, but I would feel compelled to put in a lot of work on it myself.
Resisting urge to send Donald fan cards...
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People need to ask Donald more questions. He evidently has enough free time to lurk the GoF threads and point out when we're resolving the rules wrong.
Donald, when will game stores start having Gauntlet of Fools and what do I need to do to give you money for that game?
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I don't imagine I will ever want to "hand off" Dominion. Someone might be able to talk me into letting them do an expansion, but I would feel compelled to put in a lot of work on it myself. And if I'm making spin-offs, isn't that enough?
We made one of those already! You should totally playtest it and get it printed. Especially the card I made.
Completely objective opinion, of course.
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Donald, when will game stores start having Gauntlet of Fools and what do I need to do to give you money for that game?
They have it now, and if you buy a copy I'll get my cut.
Obv. many physical stores may not have specifically chosen to stock it yet, but you can get them to order it, if you prefer that to ordering it yourself.
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I think the answer to this is "the game was long enough already", but I'm interested in the color:
Why 8/12 victory cards? And how did you get to that number?
My guess is that you started playing 3/4 player and wanted a number that was evenly divisible by that group- 12 is the obvious number. And then you shrank it to 8 to make 2p games similar.
Related question: why not 12 of each kingdom card then too? Making them evenly divisible seems fair using the same logic.
Would love to hear how the numbers were chosen.
Ed
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How often do you play Dominion with non-playtesting people? Do you ever do so online?
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Why 8/12 victory cards? And how did you get to that number?
My guess is that you started playing 3/4 player and wanted a number that was evenly divisible by that group- 12 is the obvious number. And then you shrank it to 8 to make 2p games similar.
Related question: why not 12 of each kingdom card then too? Making them evenly divisible seems fair using the same logic.
Originally there were 12 of every kingdom card and victory card (and I gradually printed more Copper / Silver / Gold / Curses, not knowing how much would be enough). Most of my games initially try to work with 3-5 players, and then I support 2 or 6+ if that works out. In a 5-player game where everyone wants a particular card, you may just end up with one of them. They get $5 on turns 3-4 and you don't, you know. I wanted enough copies of a card that I could expect to get a couple copies if I wanted them. So that was what mattered for a lower limit. And then the upper limit was, I can only print so many cards. I didn't know at the time that the number of cards would be an issue for publication, but man, I didn't want giant stacks of things we weren't buying. So 12 seemed reasonable and I went with 12. Yes, being divisible by 3 and 4 was nice too.
The original game ending condition was any empty pile. Normally it would be a victory pile though. When I learned that the number of cards was an issue - will people buy a box of just 500 cards, no incredibly valuable board or anything - I looked at ways to cut down. One was, lower the action card piles to 10 cards, but change the end condition to any victory pile. You had to leave a buffer you see - if I bought the Remodels down to one left, whoever's winning could buy that to lock in the win. So I have to leave two Remodels. With Remodel not ending the game, having only 10 Remodels was like having 12 had been before. We were getting use out of that last Remodel that never did anything but end the game, plus the Remodel you had to leave as a buffer. But the victory piles were still the end condition so they stayed 12. Then when I changed the end condition to "no provinces or 3 empty piles," I kept the non-Province VP piles at 12, because I felt like, having 12 of a kingdom victory card made it easier to go for that strategy. I wanted those cards to be competitive and having more cards was part of that. Now, Estate for sure did not need 12 and could have just not been a pile. If I had needed to cut cards, it was on the list. Since I didn't, it was 12 because the other VP piles were.
For 2 players you could just have a longer game, but it seemed good to pare it down, so it's 8. For more players you need more Provinces and so I add 3 per extra player to keep it a multiple of the number of players. Possibly 4 per player (so 16 for 4 players) would have been better; my thinking at the time was, more players means a longer game, so maybe it's not so bad to only have 3 per player for 4+. Speed it back up a little.
Curses ended up as 10 per opponent to make it possible to balance Witch over different numbers of players. It's probably 10 because it's a round number; it seemed like enough pain. And then Copper/Silver/Gold just tried to be enough to reasonably handle expansion cards that I already knew were coming.
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How often do you play Dominion with non-playtesting people? Do you ever do so online?
Never. All of my Dominion playing has also been Dominion playtesting. If I'm playing with non-playtesters, we're still playtesting. Some games were for playtesting sets-of-10 rather than cards. I've certainly played a lot for fun, but man, why not get in some testing while we're at it? And all it takes is using the most recent set. I haven't played Dominion irl in a while, but I only sent the Guilds rulebook to Jay two weeks ago; that was the earliest that I could not be accomplishing valuable playtesting in my games (and even now I could make a last-minute change if I had to).
I played a portion of a game for some people to film at Essen in 2009; that's the only time I've played with published cards, and the only game I can point to as not doing any testing.
There was a point when I was playing the Goko version to while away some time while technically accomplishing something. I stopped when it started crashing Chrome; since then I've only done a little dedicated new expansion testing. But all the Goko games count as testing Goko, including the tiny number I played against real people.
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If you weren't known as "The guy who created Dominion", which of your other games would you most want to fill that space?
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What's the weirdest fringe situation you learn about from playtesting broken cards, that we never experience? I'm guessing you have like ten pages of advice on what to do in games where, say, Gold is likely to run out, even though the rest of us have seen that situation about twice in our lives?
Similarly is there any sort of borderline-fringe stuff that you got good at because of playtesting, but you think it really helps you and maybe we should learn it? A few expansions ago I'd have said "Silver-based economies" as an example but I guess those have gotten pretty mainstream; we've all learned our lesson. Weird Duchy rushes or something like that, maybe?
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If you weren't known as "The guy who created Dominion", which of your other games would you most want to fill that space?
I'm not sure I exactly buy the premise - I don't know that I want all of my life achievements to be eclipsed by one particular achievement. If I go for it then a classic Donald X. game involves simultaneous play, cards with rules on them that interact, and variety from game to game, and takes about half an hour, with very little politics. There's an upcoming game from Queen that's like the quintessential one; of my published games, Nefarious is closest. But uh, like if we hypothesize that I really want to be known as "the guy with that one particular thing" then possibly that would go hand-in-hand with wanting to be known for whatever my most successful thing was.
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What's the weirdest fringe situation you learn about from playtesting broken cards, that we never experience? I'm guessing you have like ten pages of advice on what to do in games where, say, Gold is likely to run out, even though the rest of us have seen that situation about twice in our lives?
Most of what I learn from broken cards is how to avoid making broken cards. I'm not sure I have any advice for games where Gold runs out. Gold will run out if people aggressively pursue Gold-gaining cards, like Hoard or Tunnel; when it does, man, that's not so bad, you have plenty. Stop trying to gain Golds once they're gone, that's my advice. You have plenty of Silver if it runs out; you weren't planning on buying Copper anyway, except to boost Gardens or Goons or something in which case it's nevertheless okay that you can't. Sometimes you'll actually buy Curse because you are netting points, but man people know about that.
You can dodge Knights by sticking with just 5 cards in your deck and playing Remodels; they can beat that with Sir Michael though. If your deck is going to be really awful, get straight to the Duchies, don't waste time. One of my few games against real people on Goko, I won in part by going for Estates first; I guess it's fair to say that that did come from experience with broken cards, although also from experience with not-so-broken ones.
Similarly is there any sort of borderline-fringe stuff that you got good at because of playtesting, but you think it really helps you and maybe we should learn it? A few expansions ago I'd have said "Silver-based economies" as an example but I guess those have gotten pretty mainstream; we've all learned our lesson. Weird Duchy rushes or something like that, maybe?
I'm not really here to give strategy advice. I immediately think of one classic lesson that I think people take a long time to get, and it's like, man, why should I spoil that?
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Dominion can be played by your parents and so on and that doesn't seem good to give up.
You've obviously not met my parents....
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Can you explain once and for all why a "Curse - X" dualtype is a bad idea? Or if you think it CAN be done, what needs to be done to make it possible? Some extra setup instructions perhaps?
How did you arrive at the "1 Action, 1 Buy" principle? Other deckbuilders let you just play all of the actions in your hand and buy as many cards as you want as long as you have money. Obviously, this is a problem with Bridge and emptying the Copper Pile in one turn, but still...
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Can you explain once and for all why a "Curse - X" dualtype is a bad idea? Or if you think it CAN be done, what needs to be done to make it possible? Some extra setup instructions perhaps?
Since Curse is both a card name and a type, it would be confusing to have any more cards with the Curse type. It would create the question, what are Witch etc. referring to? Can I discard this to Mountebank? And even if you say "well it only makes sense that they did this if Witch can dish these out," whatever, yuck, it's awful. If I wanted more Curses, I had to make the type and name of Curse different back when.
Then consider the case where I want to add a new Curse so badly that I do it some other way. There's a Super Witch and it says (after a dividing line) "In games using this, when a player would gain a Curse, they instead gain a Super Curse." Let's say Super Curse is -2 VP. It is not a "Curse" so no problems there. It's clear whether or not you can discard one to Mountebank.
We have Super Witch and Witch in the same game. Well why buy Super Witch? Super Witch is balanced around Super Curse and Witch isn't. Witch is way better at dealing out Super Curses.
If Super Curse were comparable to Curse - just about as bad to get, no better no worse - then Super Witch wouldn't need to be weaker than Witch, and I could buy either card depending on other factors (you could also let the player choose which Curse they took, which makes all Cursing cards weaker but if it's not by much then why not). It is far from trivial to make Super Curse comparable to Curse though (aside from making it identical), and the less it matters which you get, the less exciting it is to do Super Curse in the first place.
Even if this all worked out, it wouldn't scale unless you got 50 Super Curses. What kind of expansion would have room for that many non-kingdom cards?
Finally there is Dark Ages. I went for it, I put in 50 Ruins, They are not as bad for you as Curses but the cards that give them out are balanced around that, with the existing cards that give out Curses still just giving out Curses in those games (albeit, Curses that hurt more because now you can get 20 dead cards, not considering Moat etc.). Dark Ages had 500 cards and it seemed like I could make room for Ruins. If there are more sets in the future, they won't have that space and anyway I did it already, it would be way less exciting the second time.
How did you arrive at the "1 Action, 1 Buy" principle?
Playing one action per turn is extremely simple and opens the door for making cards like Village and Spy (and less obviously, Remodel and Vault and Bank and Gardens). I value both of those things. I made a TCG that had you just play one action per turn, as part of an attempt to make an extremely mainstream TCG, and it worked great. So I already knew it was a fine direction to go in. I wanted something simple and went for it. It immediately worked well so that was that.
In my initial notes it was going to be that some cards let you buy cards, but that seemed bad once I thought about it. It had to be that you could just buy stuff. I didn't have Gardens etc. at that point and could have just let you buy multiple cards, but again I knew that limiting you to one card was simple and would let me make Market. Village and Market were maybe the 2nd and 3rd action cards I made; they were inherent in the game premise.
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Village and Market were maybe the 2nd and 3rd action cards I made; they were inherent in the game premise.
That of course raises the obvious question which card was the fourth...
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I know you "already did this" with Ruins, but imagine Dark Ages didn't exist for a second.
How about a Curse pile that replaces the original Curse pile kind of like how Shelters replace your starting Estates.
Setup instructions could be analogous to Colony and Shelters: In games using X Attack cards, have an X in 10 chance of replacing the original Curse pile with the alternative Curse pile. Not all Attack cards dish out Curses and not all games without Attacks are Curse-less, but you need a way to determine some chance of using them.
Would this way of replacing the Curse pile have been viable? More so than adding another Curse pile? By the time Dark Ages came around we were used to all kinds of setup instructions and edge cases, so I don't see a problem with discarding a Curse - Treasure to Mountebank. It's not much different from Fortune Teller putting a Great Hall on top.
Now let me make clear that I'm glad we have Ruins to spice things up and not this alternative Curse pile, but it has been tried so often that I wondered if it could be viable.
I know you have a sort of "been there, done that, I already know it doesn't work/isn't interesting" attitude toward fan cards, but the comments you provide are very helpful to us - we don't have that kind of experience with the game -, so that's why I asked about it.
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Village and Market were maybe the 2nd and 3rd action cards I made; they were inherent in the game premise.
That of course raises the obvious question which card was the fourth...
And the first.
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Village and Market were maybe the 2nd and 3rd action cards I made; they were inherent in the game premise.
That of course raises the obvious question which card was the fourth...
And the first.
Clearly that was Scout.
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How did you arrive at the "1 Action, 1 Buy" principle?
Donald already answered that, but I would like to elaborate on what I think.
Taking Magic as a source of inspiration. The number of cards in your hand is a valuable asset that carries over to your next turn. Curbing the number of actions wouldn't do much as playing three Enchantments in a turn meant that your future turns would be very limited. In Dominion, your cards are discarded and shuffled anyway, so the more cards you play this turn, the more power to you. So thinking about the number of actions as a resource in itself only would occur after implementing the rule "draw up to ... cards at end of turn".
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How did you arrive at the "1 Action, 1 Buy" principle?
Playing one action per turn is extremely simple and opens the door for making cards like Village and Spy (and less obviously, Remodel and Vault and Bank and Gardens). I value both of those things. I made a TCG that had you just play one action per turn, as part of an attempt to make an extremely mainstream TCG, and it worked great. So I already knew it was a fine direction to go in. I wanted something simple and went for it. It immediately worked well so that was that.
In my initial notes it was going to be that some cards let you buy cards, but that seemed bad once I thought about it. It had to be that you could just buy stuff. I didn't have Gardens etc. at that point and could have just let you buy multiple cards, but again I knew that limiting you to one card was simple and would let me make Market. Village and Market were maybe the 2nd and 3rd action cards I made; they were inherent in the game premise.
Since donald hasn't played the other dominion spinoffs, the ones that let you play unlimited actions / unlimited buys all are providing something else to do.
Ascension lets you have unlimited buys / actions, but you have the dual resource thing, and all of the cards are like buying from a black market - so you don't have to worry about having 2 similar cards come up...
Nightfall has limited actions via chaining, and while there are unlimited buys, you need them because the game is so short.
Resident evil is a straight dominion ripoff that redacted
Puzzle strike has unlimited buys, but limited actions. Because you aren't buying victory points, the value of +buy isn't particularly useful.
Having limits on actions and buys not only simplifies the basic gameplay, but also expands the space available for cards.
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How about a Curse pile that replaces the original Curse pile kind of like how Shelters replace your starting Estates.
Setup instructions could be analogous to Colony and Shelters: In games using X Attack cards, have an X in 10 chance of replacing the original Curse pile with the alternative Curse pile. Not all Attack cards dish out Curses and not all games without Attacks are Curse-less, but you need a way to determine some chance of using them.
Would this way of replacing the Curse pile have been viable? More so than adding another Curse pile? By the time Dark Ages came around we were used to all kinds of setup instructions and edge cases, so I don't see a problem with discarding a Curse - Treasure to Mountebank. It's not much different from Fortune Teller putting a Great Hall on top.
The crucial difference is, Curse is named Curse. There is no card named Action or Victory. When a card says Curse, does it mean the card with that name or a card with that type? It's ambiguous. I don't need you to care about this but I do. And I knew this was an issue with giving Curse that type, I just didn't have a better type for it or a reason it was going to matter. It was originally "token." Of course if it were still "token," you wouldn't be changing what Witch did by making a new "token," since Witch would still say "Curse."
Cards change how good other cards are. Witch isn't as good in games with Gardens and so on. So it's not strictly bad to have something that changes how good Witch is, although it's not exciting if it ends up, Witch sucks or is unbeatable. But whatever; is it worth 50 cards? The main set had a second Curse-like card originally, Confusion (a blank), and it was not worth the space it took, and that would have only been 30 cards.
You always have to weigh the cost vs. the benefits. Is it worth confusion and doing fewer kingdom cards in order to have a new card that Witch can give out? Man, no, it isn't.
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Village and Market were maybe the 2nd and 3rd action cards I made; they were inherent in the game premise.
That of course raises the obvious question which card was the fourth...
And the first.
In the early days I did not keep everything - I put new cards in the image files where dead cards had been. The oldest sheet of cards goes "Dungeon," Village, Market, Smithy. I know Dungeon and Smithy weren't in game one, and that Village and Market (in worse forms) were. Mine is next and was in game one, so it was probably the 5th card. You can read more about these pages at http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5905.0.
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How was the decision to allow up to 6 people made and is this something you regret?
The original game just plays 2-4. Coupled with Intrigue this could go up to 6, but this meant that any subsequent expansion that had some new "basic" cards (like the Ruins mentioned earlier) would have to support this number of players.
Do you regret "losing" 2 card slots (20 cards) in order to have so many Ruins?
When I play in real life, my favorite number of players is 3, then 4, then 2, but certainly not 5 or 6. In fact, I would just split 6 into two games of 3 players. 4 can already be a bit tedious as you wait for the Village idiot to play 8 Villages and buy another Village, but 5 or 6 just makes it too uninteresting for me and I would rather play something like 7 Wonders with so many players.
PS: I haven't exactly read every question and answer in this topic, so if I'm asking something that's been asked before, I apologize. It's just that..it got to 10 pages in half a day and I didn't have the time to keep up.
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This might help:
Do you sometimes play dominion with more than 4 players ?
IRL, when I was playing Dominion irl, I would play with 5 sometimes. There are 5 people who want to play, counting me; man, it works well enough. I prefer 3, then 4, then 2, then 5. I don't play with 6. Online I have played with 5 a few times but we usually split into 2/3 when that came up.
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That I did read, actually, but it doesn't answer my question entirely, which is why I still asked. :)
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How was the decision to allow up to 6 people made and is this something you regret?
I would have supported 2-5 in the main set and never added a 6th. In general game companies seem to support one more player than is sensible, though that's not always the case; I only play Nefarious with 5 or Kingdom Builder with 4, but I do play Gauntlet of Fools with 6. There is also some kind of attraction to adding a player or two in an expansion. So, I don't know Jay's actual reasons, but he wanted 2-4 in the main set and then going to six with Intrigue, and so that's what happened.
There's nothing to regret, it doesn't hurt me if people play with six. There are always people who want to play with one more player than is reasonable, which is maybe why game companies support it.
Do you regret "losing" 2 card slots (20 cards) in order to have so many Ruins?
No, it never felt like that and really whatever. Dark Ages was 500 cards, it didn't just fill up.
Randomizers cost each set 1-3 cards and are unnecessary (just use one card from each pile for your randomizer deck, adding them to the pile for playing, and as a bonus Black Market loses its setup). It's not like I "regret" that though.
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What do you think are the most overrated and underrated kingdom cards (using our card rankings (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/List_of_Cards_by_Qvist_Rankings) as a reference)?
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What do you think are the most overrated and underrated kingdom cards (using our card rankings (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/List_of_Cards_by_Qvist_Rankings) as a reference)?
Probably this:
I'm not really here to give strategy advice.
:P
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Haha. But to clarify, I was asking for personal opinion, nothing to do with strategy; he doesn't have to divulge any strategy secrets, that is. I was also gonna ask since he told us the first 5 cards he created, if he could tell us the most recent, say, 13 cards he made, but that would've been crossing the line. :P
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I was also gonna ask since he told us the first 5 cards he created, if he could tell us the most recent, say, 13 cards he made, but that would've been crossing the line. :P
The 13 most recent cards that DXV has made are not guaranteed to be Guilds cards, though. For all we know, some of the Guilds cards have been around forever.
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What do you think are the most overrated and underrated kingdom cards (using our card rankings (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/List_of_Cards_by_Qvist_Rankings) as a reference)?
There are more casual players than serious players, and more people playing the main set than anything else. So, overall, the most overrated card is Thief, and the most underrated is Chapel. I am okay with telling you that.
I don't see how you don't see that me commenting on the card rankings you link to would be me giving strategy advice. That's okay though.
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The 13 most recent cards that DXV has made are not guaranteed to be Guilds cards, though. For all we know, some of the Guilds cards have been around forever.
Guilds was going to come out ahead of Dark Ages, so Dark Ages got the last significant hunk of work. I think Rebuild was the last new card added, although the idea had been sitting in the file.
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The 13 most recent cards that DXV has made are not guaranteed to be Guilds cards, though. For all we know, some of the Guilds cards have been around forever.
Guilds was going to come out ahead of Dark Ages, so Dark Ages got the last significant hunk of work. I think Rebuild was the last new card added, although the idea had been sitting in the file.
I really like Rebuild; glad it made the cut.
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Now that Guilds is around the corner as the last expansion for now, do you feel like the entire collection is pretty complete?
Are you happy with how the game ended up or are there some things you would have liked to do, but couldn't due to deadlines, complexity or publisher requests?
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Now that Guilds is around the corner as the last expansion for now, do you feel like the entire collection is pretty complete?
Are you happy with how the game ended up or are there some things you would have liked to do, but couldn't due to deadlines, complexity or publisher requests?
I have gone over at length all of the things I might have done differently: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3179.msg56362#msg56362
I'm not sure I know what this "complete" feeling would be like, in order to compare my feelings to it. I don't sit around thinking, is Dominion complete or what. Anything that had seemed exciting but hadn't worked out but seemed like maybe it could somehow, I tried to fix up for Dark Ages, since that was going to be the last set. But it's not like you can't make more cards (they just get more complex etc.). So uh. Why would it ever feel "complete?" That doesn't seem to be in the nature of games with rules components.
The thing is I don't like being inaccurate; so some of these questions I just have to say, I don't relate to that. Dominion feels neither complete nor incomplete.
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Is there a particular reason you haven't made an Action - Treasure card (as far as we know)?
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I don't see how you don't see that me commenting on the card rankings you link to would be me giving strategy advice. That's okay though.
I think I remember you saying that when people were comparing Thief and Noble Brigand, and why would you ever buy Thief if NB was also in the Kingdom. In my mind that applies to the lists in that you giving specific comments on cards' rankings would be calling one card better than another, which I think you avoided in the Thief/NB discussion.
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Is there a particular reason you haven't made an Action - Treasure card (as far as we know)?
That would just be silly.
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Is there a particular reason you haven't made an Action - Treasure card (as far as we know)?
That would just be silly.
Diadem is nearly an action / treasure.
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Is there a particular reason you haven't made an Action - Treasure card (as far as we know)?
That would just be silly.
Diadem is nearly an action / treasure.
How do you mean?
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Is there a particular reason you haven't made an Action - Treasure card (as far as we know)?
That would just be silly.
Diadem is nearly an action / treasure.
How do you mean?
It could read:
Action / Treasure
+$1 for each action you currently have. Stop playing actions and proceed to the buy phase.
$2
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Is there a particular reason you haven't made an Action - Treasure card (as far as we know)?
That would just be silly.
Diadem is nearly an action / treasure.
How do you mean?
It could read:
Action / Treasure
+$1 for each action you currently have. Stop playing actions and proceed to the buy phase.
$2
Obviously - the current implementation is much more elegant. I was just pointing out that it functions as an action - in that in order to get benefit out of it you have to give up some number of actions.
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Is there a particular reason you haven't made an Action - Treasure card (as far as we know)?
That would just be silly.
Diadem is nearly an action / treasure.
How do you mean?
It could read:
Action / Treasure
+$1 for each action you currently have. Stop playing actions and proceed to the buy phase.
$2
By that argument, Copper could read:
Action / Treasure
Stop playing actions and proceed to the buy phase.
$1
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Is there a particular reason you haven't made an Action - Treasure card (as far as we know)?
That would just be silly.
Diadem is nearly an action / treasure.
How do you mean?
It could read:
Action / Treasure
+$1 for each action you currently have. Stop playing actions and proceed to the buy phase.
$2
By that argument, Copper could read:
Action / Treasure
Stop playing actions and proceed to the buy phase.
$1
Well actually, then you could only play one Copper.
The Diadem thing doesn't really work either since you can't draw Diadem dead or run out of Action to use it, it's always at least a Silver.
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Action/Treasure is silly because they're both types that you play, just in different circumstances. Combining them somehow means you can play them in both circumstances, which doesn't make sense.
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Any advice for getting a Mother who has honestly no interest in board games hooked on Dominion? (Base only)
Would you consider a Curse-X card but instead it being called Black Magic? (To be casted by Black Mage ;) )
Note: Above question refers to the Super Witch example.
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Action/Treasure is silly because they're both types that you play, just in different circumstances. Combining them somehow means you can play them in both circumstances, which doesn't make sense.
I think it's possible to design a card that would be interesting to be played in either the Action phase or the Buy phase. Consider this card:
Foo
Action - Treasure
+1 Card
+$1
If you play it in your Action phase, you can potentially play the action you drew off of it (if you have extra actions, of course), but if you play it during your Buy phase, it doesn't require you to have an action remaining.
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Also, one that would say "when you play this in your action phase, set it aside. Discard it with your other cards during your clean-up phase."
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This is the ask Donald X questions, thread, BTW, let's not get it TOO sidetracked with speculation, however fun it may be.
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Is there a particular reason you haven't made an Action - Treasure card (as far as we know)?
Yes, because it would be too confusing. And the most compelling reason for making one is to have Ironworks etc. trigger off both things.
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I think I remember you saying that when people were comparing Thief and Noble Brigand, and why would you ever buy Thief if NB was also in the Kingdom. In my mind that applies to the lists in that you giving specific comments on cards' rankings would be calling one card better than another, which I think you avoided in the Thief/NB discussion.
Well Noble Brigand is better in general, just not always better. That should be clear to you guys though, I mean most cards are better than Thief so why wouldn't Noble Brigand be?
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Any advice for getting a Mother who has honestly no interest in board games hooked on Dominion? (Base only)
Would you consider a Curse-X card but instead it being called Black Magic? (To be casted by Black Mage ;) )
If a new Curse-like card doesn't have the Curse type, it avoids the ambiguity problem but still has the other problems I explained.
The question would be how to get her to play; after that, it's up to her and Dominion. Uh, man, I don't know her. I have no great ideas here.
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Thanks for indulging us with all these answers, DXV. You're a champ.
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I would imagine it would mostly behave like normal treasure in a black market game. I don't think it could create any more confusion than that. Double Tactician fun :)
But then again BM already does that.
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Did you ever consider a card that had some sort of silly mechanic, like "Keep this card on top of your head for as long as you can" or "do ten jumping jacks" or something like that?
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Did you ever consider a card that had some sort of silly mechanic, like "Keep this card on top of your head for as long as you can" or "do ten jumping jacks" or something like that?
For a time, Amazon seemed to believe it existed.
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/701090/prosperous-caterpillar
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Did you ever consider a card that had some sort of silly mechanic, like "Keep this card on top of your head for as long as you can" or "do ten jumping jacks" or something like that?
No. There could be a silly promo but I don't think people would like it as much as a non-silly one.
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I went through the list and picked out what I thought were good questions. The edited version is a 17-page word doc with 8k+ words.
I'm probably going to split them up / categorize them and post it on the main page.
Of course this thread is still live!
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If time and money were no concern, what would you most like to be doing right now?
Did you ever imagine an alternative career for yourself, outside of ability? Like becoming a rock star, or an astronaut, or football player?
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Do you consider yourself as having a "game design philosophy"?
Do you think of your games as related by some unifying theme? Or are they just random areas of design that you wanted to explore?
How would you describe the process for you, from initial seed of an idea to final game?
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If time and money were no concern, what would you most like to be doing right now?
Did you ever imagine an alternative career for yourself, outside of ability? Like becoming a rock star, or an astronaut, or football player?
Are you suggesting that Donald X doesn't have the ability to celebrate his Space Football game-winning touchdown by doing a sick Space Guitar solo?
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If time and money were no concern, what would you most like to be doing right now?
Did you ever imagine an alternative career for yourself, outside of ability? Like becoming a rock star, or an astronaut, or football player?
Are you suggesting that Donald X doesn't have the ability to celebrate his Space Football game-winning touchdown by doing a sick Space Guitar solo?
For some reason I'm now contemplating what effect zero-g would have on my guitar playing...
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If time and money were no concern, what would you most like to be doing right now?
Well they aren't really a concern, and here I am. Money hits these thresholds; if I had twice as much money I would get a nicer house but that might be the only change. I would like that nicer house, don't get me wrong, but you know. I don't like to travel, I don't want a boat. There aren't activities that are expensive that I want to do; there aren't material possessions I want that I can't have. At some level of wealth I might hire people; I dunno, that's a job, interacting with those people.
Did you ever imagine an alternative career for yourself, outside of ability? Like becoming a rock star, or an astronaut, or football player?
As a kid I wanted to be a writer; then I wanted to be someone who worked on D&D products. Then I wanted to design computer games. I seriously pursued screenwriting at one point, if it counts as serious if you don't submit stuff anywhere, and I've written songs, although a whole rock star career, I dunno. Hunter / gatherer doesn't sound so bad; the hours are short, and you can pee almost anywhere.
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Wait, you mean Rock Star Game Designer DXV can't pee anywhere already?
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Do you consider yourself as having a "game design philosophy"?
Well in general I aim for short games, with low downtime, minimized politics, variety, and interacting rules on cards.
An example of an overall philosophy would be, it has to be fun to lose.
Do you think of your games as related by some unifying theme? Or are they just random areas of design that you wanted to explore?
There were two big areas I explored when I first started seriously designing games.
First there were, games where the rules change. This comes from Magic; I loved how the game could work so differently from game to game. I seriously mapped out this space. The rules can change once per game, once per turn, or somewhere in-between; they can be rules the players make up, or that the players build inside the game, or they can come pre-built. In the end it turns out the best approach is, they change once per game and are all pre-built. I made a lot of games coming to this conclusion though, and then more games just doing it.
The other area was game theory. I read about game theory in the William Poundstone book Prisoner's Dilemma, and thought, but wait, games don't do this stuff (yes some do). So I made games with simultaneous decisions that would often be dilemmas. You don't just automatically get a dilemma; you can aim for more or fewer dilemmas. Simultaneous decisions are great eight ways from Sunday and that was the biggest thing that came out of this. A typical game of mine has simultaneous decisions.
These days I am doing more turn-based games, and trying to do stuff with boards, but I haven't forgotten my roots.
A third area I've focused on is building stuff; especially, assembling combos.
How would you describe the process for you, from initial seed of an idea to final game?
I either randomly have an idea, or find it by working through possibilities looking for the good ones.
Then months or years go by, while I try to convince myself that the idea is actually worth making the game for. Maybe a particular flaw will be obvious and I won't want to make a prototype until I've fixed it. This stage is the biggest hurdle.
When I finally make a prototype, I play it with whoever will have me and then decide whether to work on it more based on how it goes. If it doesn't go well, probably I drop it immediately, and maybe come back to it months or years later.
If it goes well then it becomes a regular game that I play. I'll put a bunch of work into it and then it will coast along and I'll gradually tweak it.
Then I have to consider whether or not to submit it to a publisher, and who to send it to. This is another significant hurdle, unless a particular publisher wanted the game already, or wants games in general.
If I don't get anywhere with publishers then probably at some point I focus on the game a little more, improve it slightly. This could happen multiple times.
If I find a publisher then we interact over the contract, and then there's a delay in which they are committed to the game but nothing is happening. Maybe I work on it some more, although this work isn't as good because it's not automatically in - anything I change before a publisher sees it, that's all just up to me, but once the publisher has it, maybe they will disagree with my change. I might have to convince them of it or something. Or not, but you know. Get your changes in before the publisher has it, that's my advice.
The publisher may or may not work on the game, I mean probably they do but not always. If they do it probably involves me - they say, we don't like this, we want this change, and I fix it or replace it or argue about it or what have you. I will repeatedly try to make sure I will see the rulebook in time to proofread it. They might show me sketches or finished art or might not.
I write up an article to post when the game is in stores, and work on other things. If the game has expansions, or expansions are wanted, I work on those things as a new general project, but maybe there aren't any. When the game comes out, I read about it on the internet.
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Any one else think that this entire thread was cooked up by Donald and Theory just to get their Respect counts up into unreachable numbers?
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Any one else think that this entire thread was cooked up by Donald and Theory just to get their Respect counts up into unreachable numbers?
I'll start an "Interview with Ozle" thread to see if we can match them.
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Any one else think that this entire thread was cooked up by Donald and Theory just to get their Respect counts up into unreachable numbers?
Together with their alt ()|(_)^/
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Any one else think that this entire thread was cooked up by Donald and Theory just to get their Respect counts up into unreachable numbers?
I'll start an "Interview with Ozle" thread to see if we can match them.
Argh....the pressure! You realise it will be extremely dull? Im a very boring person generally!
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Any one else think that this entire thread was cooked up by Donald and Theory just to get their Respect counts up into unreachable numbers?
I'll start an "Interview with Ozle" thread to see if we can match them.
Argh....the pressure! You realise it will be extremely dull? Im a very boring person generally!
This is the internet. Make up a fake, more exciting personality.
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Any one else think that this entire thread was cooked up by Donald and Theory just to get their Respect counts up into unreachable numbers?
I'll start an "Interview with Ozle" thread to see if we can match them.
Argh....the pressure! You realise it will be extremely dull? Im a very boring person generally!
This is the internet. Make up a fake, more exciting personality.
It's also gone midnight and I have to have enough sleep to manage to stay awake during the Hobbit tomorrow
-------> Thread back on track please!!
Donald X:
Was Rats always your favourite card?
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Donald X:
Was Rats always your favourite card?
Rats wasn't always a card so I'm guessing not.
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What goes in to writing those flavour paragraphs?
What gave you the idea for doing secret histories?
What are your thoughts, if any, about "classic" board games (chess, go, or even things like risk, stratego, monopoly)?
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Any one else think that this entire thread was cooked up by Donald and Theory just to get their Respect counts up into unreachable numbers?
That's what the meme thread is for some people.... I much prefer respect coming from a thread like this!
If time and money were no concern, what would you most like to be doing right now?
Well they aren't really a concern, and here I am. Money hits these thresholds; if I had twice as much money I would get a nicer house but that might be the only change. I would like that nicer house, don't get me wrong, but you know. I don't like to travel, I don't want a boat. There aren't activities that are expensive that I want to do; there aren't material possessions I want that I can't have. At some level of wealth I might hire people; I dunno, that's a job, interacting with those people.
Sort of a follow up: What is your favorite charity or cause that you like to (financially) support?
If there could be a Donald X Fund for X, what would the second X be and why?
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If a friend has a newly released game and puts it on the table, who's name as the game designer would get you most eager to play?
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At the end of the Cornucopia Secret History, you talk about three cards that went to a "later set": a "popular" card, an Attack card, and one that was in both Intrigue and Alchemy. What were these cards?
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.
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An example of an overall philosophy would be, it has to be fun to lose.
ok, I have to remember to enjoy myself next time I am on the receiving end of a Torturer pin. Don't want to hurt your philosophy, you know.
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An example of an overall philosophy would be, it has to be fun to lose.
ok, I have to remember to enjoy myself next time I am on the receiving end of a Torturer pin. Don't want to hurt your philosophy, you know.
edge cased
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Was Rats always your favourite card?
No, Rats does not even predate me showing the game to RGG.
It was a while before I felt like I had to consider what might be my favorite card, and your tastes change over time. In the early days I was especially fond of Pawn and Upgrade.
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An example of an overall philosophy would be, it has to be fun to lose.
ok, I have to remember to enjoy myself next time I am on the receiving end of a Torturer pin. Don't want to hurt your philosophy, you know.
Torturer can't really pin. You can just take the Curse.
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An example of an overall philosophy would be, it has to be fun to lose.
ok, I have to remember to enjoy myself next time I am on the receiving end of a Torturer pin. Don't want to hurt your philosophy, you know.
Torturer can't really pin. You can just take the Curse.
Its not just 1 curse, but usually if you're in a position where you are taking the curse, you're probably taking 2.
The problem with torturer, is that its a card drawer... so in addition to you hurting your deck or your buying power, your opponent has accelerated through theres - making the next torturer coming faster.
There are lots of situations this game can get into that are no fun. Being on the receiving end of torturer abuse. Being on the losing end of ambassador tennis. Being prize swept. Being on the receiving end of a scrying pool rampage.
The first time it happened, it's an eye opening experience.... wow you can do that???
The second time, it's still interesting.
The 10th time that it happens when you knew about it and were trying to do the same thing, and your opponent did it first can be no fun for some players.
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What goes in to writing those flavour paragraphs?
For the main set, they had an awful "impress the king" thing they put in as a placeholder. Man. Impress the king. You don't need to acquire land to impress anyone - it's its own reward. So I wrote up a replacement intro, which then got hacked up to be less conversational and therefore slightly less funny. It was still better than what they'd had so okay (the later ones mostly escaped editing).
For Intrigue I thought, oops, now I have to write another funny intro. I wrote it very quickly though, it was effortless.
For Seaside I sat down to work on a list of jokes to turn into a paragraph. You can see that in detail at http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=124.0.
For Alchemy I again worked on a list of jokes. It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but people seemed to like the main jokes, phew. For Prosperity, another list, this one turned out well. The baklava statue was originally a piece of pumice that looked like the pope, but not enough people got that joke. For Cornucopia I didn't do as well and then Jay cut the jesters fighting to the death, which was one of the main jokes. The roast hay doesn't carry the paragraph but well it turns out these things don't loom large in my life afterwards, hooray.
For Hinterlands I wrote down, "The world is big and your kingdom small," fitting the faraway lands theme, and then immediately thought of a joke from one of my screenplays, that started, "It's a big city out there, and we're little people. I mean little when compared to the city..." So I just copied that with the words changed, and the rest was easy except for what concept exactly for them not even to have a word for, which I picked a day or two later, although I think mamihlapinatapai was immediately in the running.
For Dark Ages I wrote one paragraph the usual way. It wasn't as good as I wanted and I wrote a completely new one, then merged them.
What gave you the idea for doing secret histories?
There was a BoardGameNews preview of Dominion. I was asked a bunch of questions, but whereas most people would just post my answers, W. Eric Martin kind of hacked it up. There would be one sentence quoting me, and then two sentences describing what I said. This made it a little less accurate, but I corrected the thing I cared most about in a comment on it, and hey W. Eric has to have fun too. Anyway that article was about the game and he also asked about the outtakes (which I barely said anything about), but it didn't cover the cards in the set. And there was stuff to say there. So I wrote up an article and posted it on BGG, which didn't have an article.
These days BGN is no more, and BGG has "designer diaries." I stuck with the Secret Histories though. I feel like they're plenty visible to the people that want to see them, and I don't want to be too in-your-face with them.
What are your thoughts, if any, about "classic" board games (chess, go, or even things like risk, stratego, monopoly)?
I will just cover those five.
Chess: Chess has two huge flaws. First, for new players, it's hard to even see what the pieces can do. You have to remember how all the pieces move and then consider how they would all interact with any potential move. Second, you can potentially see many moves in advance, perfectly. Only, you personally, you cannot do that, because it's too hard. You aren't looking ten moves ahead and therefore you're playing suboptimally. I guess you're just stupid, Chess tells you. Chess magnifies this due to the way the game works; it's not just perfect information, it's perfect information and small differences can get blown up. At one point I made a game in the Chess family. People would ask me about Magic, and I would say, well suppose we were going to play Chess, only we each brought half of the board and pieces. You've got knights and pawns and so forth, but I've got archers and pikemen, and half of my board is under water. After using this analogy a few times, I thought, I should make that game. And I made a game and well, it was way too hard to even see what the pieces could do.
Go: Go is also perfect information but somehow does not seem as flawed in that way as chess, in addition of course to not making you remember how the pieces work and stuff. I've barely gotten to play it. It was interesting. I guess I'm more interested in it in terms of implications than as a game to play. It's cool that like a piece in the middle of nowhere is doing good work for you.
Risk: Risk (the old version, not whatever goes by that name today) is perhaps the game I most often use as a bad example. In Risk, the better you're doing, the more fun you get to have; the worse you're doing, the less you get to do. It's like if in Scrabble, the player in last place only got 3 letters to work with. In Risk all losers look identical - they all have nothing. No-one has any interest in seeing that position but the winner. Risk eliminates players with hours left in the game. It's heavily political. Having a map of the world with armies in the countries is great, but that's all it's got.
Stratego: The premise is cute. I've played but don't really remember it.
Monopoly: I think people take the wrong lesson away from Monopoly. Monopoly is a bad game, because it gives you pointless decisions and lasts a random huge amount of time and eliminates players with hours left in the game and is political. But Monopoly is also a successful game, perhaps because it's filled with fun things - you roll dice and draw cards and see what you get, you get stuff that's yours that goes in front of you, you build up your stuff. On anyone else's turn you might get paid. People focused on cashing in on Monopoly by making more roll-and-move games (yes they predate Monopoly but don't you think?), so that roll-and-move (a completely reasonable mechanic) has all these negative connotations now, when the real direction to go in was more games of building up your stuff. Settlers is more or less a fixed Monopoly - you roll dice and draw cards, you get stuff that's yours, both on the board and in your hand, you build up your stuff, you trade, you get paid when it's not your turn. But it's fast and doesn't eliminate players and isn't full of pointless decisions. It's still political of course.
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Sort of a follow up: What is your favorite charity or cause that you like to (financially) support?
If there could be a Donald X Fund for X, what would the second X be and why?
We donate some tiny amount to utterly conventional charities. My interaction with it is just recycling the junk mail they then send you. If one of them doesn't mock your contribution by spending some of it on junk mail, I pick that one.
This isn't the forum for political talk, so take it there if you must, but one cause I especially care about is uh well it might be called "voting reform," although if you're doing it right it's not really "voting." Voting is a poor way to get from "what people want" to "what they get." "Choosing" is much better. [Consider 10 friends who get together once a month and eat out; how should they determine the restaurant?] Voting reform is top-level for me because so much other stuff that you might try to accomplish goes through governments. So I want to fix that system first.
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If a friend has a newly released game and puts it on the table, who's name as the game designer would get you most eager to play?
In the 90s, Reiner Knizia and Richard Garfield were the two I was most likely to buy new games from. These days I might pick Vlaada Chvatil; I do not have much experience with his games, so this isn't due to that; but from reading the descriptions, they are the ones I am most interested in.
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At the end of the Cornucopia Secret History, you talk about three cards that went to a "later set": a "popular" card, an Attack card, and one that was in both Intrigue and Alchemy. What were these cards?
The popular card is Jack of All Trades. The attack is in Guilds. The card from Intrigue/Alchemy is Madman.
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At the end of the Cornucopia Secret History, you talk about three cards that went to a "later set": a "popular" card, an Attack card, and one that was in both Intrigue and Alchemy. What were these cards?
The popular card is Jack of All Trades. The attack is in Guilds. The card from Intrigue/Alchemy is Madman.
Jack was popular? Bwuh?
If a friend has a newly released game and puts it on the table, who's name as the game designer would get you most eager to play?
In the 90s, Reiner Knizia and Richard Garfield were the two I was most likely to buy new games from. These days I might pick Vlaada Chvatil; I do not have much experience with his games, so this isn't due to that; but from reading the descriptions, they are the ones I am most interested in.
Come play one of our Through the Ages PBFs! Or try and run a Galaxy Trucker PBF, what could possibly go wrong?
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Welp, we know there's an Attack in Guilds!
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In previous answers in this thread you have expressed a preference for fast games and also a dislike for games that eliminate players 'with hours to play'. Are these two philosophies related? Do you think any long game (let's say typically more than 1.5 hours per game) is destined to either have a fairly dull and meaningless early game or be forced to eliminate players early? Are there any 'long games' out there that you think successfully walk the fine line between giving players meaningful strategic choices all through the game, while at the same time keeping as many players as possible 'in contention' until the later stages?
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In previous answers in this thread you have expressed a preference for fast games and also a dislike for games that eliminate players 'with hours to play'. Are these two philosophies related?
They aren't.
Fast games are good because there are more opportunities to play them, players get more of a chance to win a game over the evening, and you get more variety of experiences over your evening.
Eliminating players with a substantial amount of game left is bad because you leave them with nothing to do. I guess it's getting kind of late. Maybe I'll just go home. It's fine in an online game, where I can just go off and start another game somewhere; it's awful for anything to be played at a kitchen table.
I obv. don't think player elimination is always bad; I think it's fine if there isn't much game left. It's entertaining seeing how things play out in Gauntlet of Fools, and doesn't take long. And the threat of elimination can be a fun thing. In Risk though, well, thanks for having me over. I'll see myself out.
Do you think any long game (let's say typically more than 1.5 hours per game) is destined to either have a fairly dull and meaningless early game or be forced to eliminate players early?
No.
Are there any 'long games' out there that you think successfully walk the fine line between giving players meaningful strategic choices all through the game, while at the same time keeping as many players as possible 'in contention' until the later stages?
Staying in contention isn't an issue. It has to be fun to lose! And if it is then it's okay not to be in contention. You can start a game of Scrabble knowing you have no chance of winning - the other player is just way better at anagramming than you. That doesn't stop you from having fun anagramming though. That would be true even if Scrabble took twice as long (although, being so homogeneous, it's just as well that it doesn't).
Some people may make games faster as a way to avoid eliminating players while minimizing how much time you spend knowing you've lost. I just make fast games because I like fast games.
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One of the reasons that a game might not be fun enough to play, is when it just has too much bookkeeping for how meaningful the choices are. (Imagine something like the numerous resources of Puerto Rico or Agricola with the depth of Monopoly. Or imagine a DifficultDominion, with not only treasure and potion, but also wheat, wood, swords and ships as possible card costs. Or imagine a Dominion card whose effect changes each time you play that individual card (rather than e.g. pirate ship, where the number of successful PS plays are recorded)).
With the recent uprise of touch devices (iPad etc.) this could be alleviated - it's a computer, right! These things are really good at counting stuff!
Have you ever considered developing a game especially for this kind of devices? (either completely new, or adapting an old, rejected one)
Realizing that the above question only allows a boring yes/no answer, but not being successful at properly rephrasing it:
Why do you give that answer? :)
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it's a computer, right! These things are really good at counting stuff!
Have you just invented computer games? ???
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"Gangnam Style" or "Call Me Maybe"?
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Let's say you designed a Dominion card that is balanced and fun, but some aspect of the card makes it unusable in an electronic implementation of Dominion. It plays just fine in paper, but it won't work in Goko, Isotropic, or any other foreseeable digital medium.
Would you be most likely to:
A) Change the digital card to do something different than the paper card (or replace it with a new card for the digital version
2) Just not implement the digital version of the card
iii) Scrap the card altogether and design something new, for the digital AND analog Dominion
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it's a computer, right! These things are really good at counting stuff!
Have you just invented computer games? ???
Not sure if serious. So I will elaborate.
What I mean is inspired by my new addiction: Hero Academy for iOS. This plays like a strategic boardgame - the playing field is even divided up in clearly visible squares. But as fun as the game is on iOS, it would totally suck IRL. You would have to keep track of hit points, upgrades, calculate damage modifiers for each individual unit, a.s.o. For that kind of effort, the game is too light. The iPad naturally does a very good job at keeping track of all this, thus matching lightness and level of bookkeeping, leading to a fun experience.
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Have you ever considered developing a game especially for this kind of devices? (either completely new, or adapting an old, rejected one)
Realizing that the above question only allows a boring yes/no answer, but not being successful at properly rephrasing it:
Why do you give that answer? :)
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg148838#msg148838
In general I would not be doing programming, because it's so much work relative to making physical games. But I mean, providing designs, I'm there, why wouldn't I be.
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"Gangnam Style" or "Call Me Maybe"?
My only knowledge of Call Me Maybe is the meme. I've seen the Gangnam Style video. I guess from that I go with Gangnam Style.
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it's a computer, right! These things are really good at counting stuff!
Have you just invented computer games? ???
Not sure if serious. So I will elaborate.
What I mean is inspired by my new addiction: Hero Academy for iOS. This plays like a strategic boardgame - the playing field is even divided up in clearly visible squares. But as fun as the game is on iOS, it would totally suck IRL. You would have to keep track of hit points, upgrades, calculate damage modifiers for each individual unit, a.s.o. For that kind of effort, the game is too light. The iPad naturally does a very good job at keeping track of all this, thus matching lightness and level of bookkeeping, leading to a fun experience.
Well, yeah, I was serious. Many computer-implemented strategic games are too complex to be managed on the board lightly. When Vlaada Chvatil adapted Civilization to the playing table, the map had to go. And the rest is, for a modern boardgame (I am not talking about Battletech or the like) at the upper end of bookkeeping. When I play Through the Ages with newbies whose moves I'd better check whether they conform with the rules, it's quite a stressing experience.
Most computer games are not transparent about every aspect of the gaming environment. And good multiplayer strategy games (http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.L.E.") did not really catch on on the computer.
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Let's say you designed a Dominion card that is balanced and fun, but some aspect of the card makes it unusable in an electronic implementation of Dominion. It plays just fine in paper, but it won't work in Goko, Isotropic, or any other foreseeable digital medium.
Would you be most likely to:
A) Change the digital card to do something different than the paper card (or replace it with a new card for the digital version
2) Just not implement the digital version of the card
iii) Scrap the card altogether and design something new, for the digital AND analog Dominion
I do not find your scenario remotely plausible. It's a fantasy question.
What could such a card look like? Is it a dexterity card? I'm unlikely to ever make a dexterity card; I wouldn't expect it to be "fun" to enough Dominion players. I'm not against dexterity games, but you want to sell them to people who like dexterity games, not throw them into something that people like for unrelated reasons. Similarly I wouldn't be making a card that involved eating cake or something.
In Magic they have physical cards that do not appear online - the Un- sets - and have had online stuff that is not physical - the Astral set from an old dead computer implementation, "avatars" with special rules, and reprints that they can't reprint physically due to the reserved list. The Un- set cards are silly things that sometimes involve the physical world - eating and flipping cards and how old you are and so on. You couldn't do them online. What Wizards did was to group them together and then not do them online. That seems fine, I don't remember people complaining. It does make those sets less worth making for Wizards though. These days Wizards is not interested in doing more Un- sets, but I think the reason is just lack of interest from players in general, rather than not being able to make an online version. They also are English-only, so that's another strike (the argument there was the difficulty of translating the type of humor they have).
Anyway I don't see an Un- set for Dominion; I don't think the interest is there. But let's say Reiner Knizia died and Jay wanted a commemorative promo, and it had to involve eating cake because that was Knizia's favorite thing to do, and it couldn't just be called Cake-eating Contest or something, it really had to involve eating. I would just do that as a real-world only promo and no-one playing online would feel remotely left out.
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it's a computer, right! These things are really good at counting stuff!
Have you just invented computer games? ???
Not sure if serious. So I will elaborate.
What I mean is inspired by my new addiction: Hero Academy for iOS. This plays like a strategic boardgame - the playing field is even divided up in clearly visible squares. But as fun as the game is on iOS, it would totally suck IRL. You would have to keep track of hit points, upgrades, calculate damage modifiers for each individual unit, a.s.o. For that kind of effort, the game is too light. The iPad naturally does a very good job at keeping track of all this, thus matching lightness and level of bookkeeping, leading to a fun experience.
Well, yeah, I was serious. Many computer-implemented strategic games are too complex to be managed on the board lightly. When Vlaada Chvatil adapted Civilization to the playing table, the map had to go. And the rest is, for a modern boardgame (I am not talking about Battletech or the like) at the upper end of bookkeeping. When I play Through the Ages with newbies whose moves I'd better check whether they conform with the rules, it's quite a stressing experience.
Amusingly, this is how I feel about Mage Knight.
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<text>
O right, now I get it. I guess you meant it in the sense of "discovered" instead of "Eureka".
No, I have been playing video games my whole life, and I love TBS games more than any other. I was just wondering what a Donald X. (2 SdJ's says he knows a thing or two about making good/fun games) rejected-IRL-for-bookkeeping-or-specifically-designed-ground-up-for-touch-devices game would be like. Judging from his answer (which I missed earlier): apparantely nothing worth publishing. (yet) :)
Sorry to have sort of taken offense.
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Donald,
In the Secret History of the Dominion Cards you said that Witch at one time had a penalty of "pay 1 coin". I wonder if you have explored the design space of "activation costs" further and what your findings were. Obviously, there are no cards like this currently in existence, but what would the main problems of a card like that be? Another way to pay activation costs is through discarding, like Baron, Stables and Hamlet have, but they are somewhat limited to either a specific card, a specific type or just discarding two in the right order. Could there be a reason against a card like the following to exist (don't mind the details, just the parts about discarding)?
Random Card
Action - $SomeCost
You may discard up to 3 cards from your hand.
If you discarded at least 1: +$2
If you discarded at least 2: +2 cards
If you discarded 3: +2 actions
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Sorry to have sort of taken offense.
I was a bit snappy and I knew it, sorry if you took sort of offense and thanks for elaborating.
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Have you ever tried a village + trashing effect ?
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Donald,
In the Secret History of the Dominion Cards you said that Witch at one time had a penalty of "pay 1 coin". I wonder if you have explored the design space of "activation costs" further and what your findings were. Obviously, there are no cards like this currently in existence, but what would the main problems of a card like that be? Another way to pay activation costs is through discarding, like Baron, Stables and Hamlet have, but they are somewhat limited to either a specific card, a specific type or just discarding two in the right order. Could there be a reason against a card like the following to exist (don't mind the details, just the parts about discarding)?
Random Card
Action - $SomeCost
You may discard up to 3 cards from your hand.
If you discarded at least 1: +$2
If you discarded at least 2: +2 cards
If you discarded 3: +2 actions
How is this any different from what Hamlet and Cellar already do?
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If you wanted to brag -- what do you think separates Dominion from other deckbuilders?
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In the Secret History of the Dominion Cards you said that Witch at one time had a penalty of "pay 1 coin". I wonder if you have explored the design space of "activation costs" further and what your findings were. Obviously, there are no cards like this currently in existence, but what would the main problems of a card like that be?
Originally Prosperity was going to have it as a sub-theme, although I never had much of it (see secret histories). There was a trashing attack that trashed an extra card if you paid; then later it trashed a card with a cost based on how much you paid. There was a card that let you pay to draw cards. At the same time I had stuff that let you discard cards, and those cards were just better. They were simpler. If I say "discard a treasure," you will be trying to discard a copper, and the fact that you might be discarding something else is fine.
Another way to pay activation costs is through discarding, like Baron, Stables and Hamlet have, but they are somewhat limited to either a specific card, a specific type or just discarding two in the right order. Could there be a reason against a card like the following to exist (don't mind the details, just the parts about discarding)?
Look through the secret histories and you will see plenty of cards that involve discarding. Obv. I am going to go for something simpler where possible (it's usually possible). Multiple conditionals is generally bad, although when you can make a chart like Ironworks etc. that's not so bad.
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Have you ever tried a village + trashing effect ?
I'm guessing you mean a Chapel rather than Dame Molly.
I am thinking, what if you ask about something in Guilds? What do I say then? Maybe these kinds of questions aren't so great for this interview.
After Guilds comes out I will probably send theory a collection of shrunken images of some of the more interesting outtakes. It will mostly be stuff covered by the secret histories but may have some entertainment value anyway.
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If you wanted to brag -- what do you think separates Dominion from other deckbuilders?
Well you can mean this question two ways.
What separates Dominion from the Dominion clones? Man. They are clones. I haven't played them so really this is a question for the people who have. In some cases the answer is just going to be, they aren't balanced as well and different people get paid for them. For others it will be, that plus they added something bad or pointless. Some people will prefer them anyway though, just as I know of someone who intentionally saw the Asylum version of something.
What separates Dominion from the actual new deckbuilding games, such as A Few Acres of Snow and Eminent Domain? Well they are just different games. They are different in all the ways they are different.
We can make a special case for Ascension. When I typed up my original notes for Dominion, I was going to have multiple resources, and have a small number of cards available, where buying a card would cause it to be replaced. Ascension seems like a reasonable thing to try, but I liked my choices for Dominion better.
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Straight from the horse's mouth - there's a trashing Village in Guilds.
;)
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Straight from the horse's mouth - there's a trashing Village in Guilds.
;)
Well, info on Guilds would mainly cause a problem for the publisher, it's not like I won't get it anyway if it gets totally spoilerd... ::)
But I guess it's a pretty big thing for Goko to have...
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some people felt like $7's would break the game, not realizing that, even if I made say four of them, you still wouldn't have one in most games.
This piqued my interest, because it seems that a card "breaking the game" only really matters when it's in the game. That is, if it "breaks" the game, it doesn't matter how often it shows up - it's probably just a bad card.
But clearly you playtested the heck out of the $7s and they do not break the game. Maybe they skew games toward themselves, but that's what all good cards do, right? In the big picture, that's actually variety.
So what was the concern, exactly? That the existing $7s were just too powerful? Or that any card at $7 would inherently be too powerful? The latter seems mistaken; any achievable cost can be "balanced" (even though most of them won't be worth doing).
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So what was the concern, exactly? That the existing $7s were just too powerful? Or that any card at $7 would inherently be too powerful? The latter seems mistaken; any achievable cost can be "balanced" (even though most of them won't be worth doing).
The concern at the time was mostly that the 'hole' at $7 was serving a purpose. For instance it prevented you gaining Provinces with Upgrade. Same thing with the hole at $1. That's why it's not a big deal if a few cards are at these costs. Most games still have those holes.
EDIT: I'm not trying to imply that the game would be bad if those holes weren't usually there, but certain cards are balanced around usually having them, I believe.
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Donald,
We haven't heard much from you about Infiltration--no secret history that I could find, for instance. Any chance of that happening? (If there's a contractual obligation with FFG or the like, no worries.) Thanks!
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So what was the concern, exactly? That the existing $7s were just too powerful? Or that any card at $7 would inherently be too powerful? The latter seems mistaken; any achievable cost can be "balanced" (even though most of them won't be worth doing).
I had no concerns - I tried a $7 early on. People on BGG would talk about how not having a card costing $7 was good for the game, and reason that thus there would never be a card costing $7. This was poor reasoning because even if not having a $7 is the bee's knees, you still get that experience most of the time if there are a few $7's, while also getting to have whatever experience the $7's give you.
I did not specifically avoid $7 for any value that hole provides - I avoided $7 because it was hard to make those cards sexy enough in non-Colony games. I solved the problem by doing them in Prosperity, then made $7's more special by not doing them in other sets (though I might not have anyway).
The basic cards have a hole at $4, and that caused me to make more $4's than was sensible early on ($5 is the important cost), and to put Potion at $4 (which was fine).
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We haven't heard much from you about Infiltration--no secret history that I could find, for instance. Any chance of that happening? (If there's a contractual obligation with FFG or the like, no worries.) Thanks!
FFG wants to control the flow of information there.
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The Powerman question from part I has me referring to an answer that is now in part II.
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Was it ever an option to fix some things, like a Throne Room rewording, when doing the online implementation or even later editions?
On a similar note, as you maybe know, some translations into other languages are flawed for several cards (I only know about German, but that's probably similar for other languages). Some of those are due to simple oversight (German Procession says "gain a card costing exactly $1 more"), some due to not caring enough about exact wording (German Venture says "Play that Treasure. Discard the other cards"), some due to unawareness of the exact wording which turned out to be crucial for future cards (German Chancellor says "You may discard your draw pile"). Will such things be fixed for the upcoming Goko translations?
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German Procession says "gain a card costing exactly $1 more"
Oops, I wasn't even aware that it is an erroneus translation. Sorry to all the people I beat by processing Border Villages into Banks.
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German Procession says "gain a card costing exactly $1 more"
Oops, I wasn't even aware that it is an erroneus translation. Sorry to all the people I beat by processing Border Villages into Banks.
rofl!
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Dutch translation of King's Court doesn't say "you may", it has text analogous to Throne Room. I guess the translators didn't think two little words (you may) would mean so much.
Throne Room doesn't need to be "fixed" for online since it can force you to play a card, it needed to be fixed for live play where you could pretend not to have that Masquerade in hand (with only Colonies), that's the real problem; it doesn't keep you honest. All later cards got a "or reveal a hand with no X" clause, but it was too late for Throne Room.
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On a similar note, as you maybe know, some translations into other languages are flawed for several cards (I only know about German, but that's probably similar for other languages). Some of those are due to simple oversight (German Procession says "gain a card costing exactly $1 more"), some due to not caring enough about exact wording (German Venture says "Play that Treasure. Discard the other cards"), some due to unawareness of the exact wording which turned out to be crucial for future cards (German Chancellor says "You may discard your draw pile"). Will such things be fixed for the upcoming Goko translations?
Well this is a question for Goko, I mean the only way I would know is to ask them, but it seems really unlikely that they wouldn't at least fix the wording if someone pointed out it was wrong. They don't just have images of the cards, they build them. So it's just a matter of changing the translation text.
They have a German version up on the private site, so I can tell them now about whatever mistranslations you know of, starting with Chancellor.
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All later cards got a "or reveal a hand with no X" clause, but it was too late for Throne Room.
Not Graverobber!
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Do you have favorite kid's game?
I'm fond of step-on-feet. You try to step on their feet. They try to step on your feet. You win when every other player has conceded.
Step-on-feet is a pretty fun game, and I heartily recommend it for people of all ages who do not mind looking silly and occasionally being accidentally kicked. There's even strategy to it! It's like fencing without the pointy bits, the safety equipment, and the years of training!
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Well, yeah, I was serious. Many computer-implemented strategic games are too complex to be managed on the board lightly. When Vlaada Chvatil adapted Civilization to the playing table, the map had to go. And the rest is, for a modern boardgame (I am not talking about Battletech or the like) at the upper end of bookkeeping. When I play Through the Ages with newbies whose moves I'd better check whether they conform with the rules, it's quite a stressing experience.
My gaming group plays Through the Ages a lot, and we still have to watch each other like hawks. There are enough constraints to follow that you end up missing one and cheating without trying to. I can only remember one game of it where nobody caught anyone else breaking the rules, and that was one that ended early with Napoleon pwning everyone into submission in age 2, and, you know, maybe we just didn't catch the Napoleon player.
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Tom Lehmann had an idea for one although I never heard what it was. Again I would need to playtest any such set and am not keen to, but it's at least more likely than a fan set.
I think I remember that idea. It was before Seaside had come out and he was speculating on what new mechanics Seaside would have, since all he knew was the name.
The idea ended up being rather similar to some of the concepts that ended up in Alchemy and Guilds.
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My gaming group plays Through the Ages a lot, and we still have to watch each other like hawks. There are enough constraints to follow that you end up missing one and cheating without trying to.
My 9yo is extremely sharp at this. Yesterday I had a Dominion match with him and two friends. By his design, we played with Golem, King's Court, and Possession. We had to resolve convoluted sequences of recursively triggered King's Courted Possessions (why kids played that: see parallel thread on Politics and Bargaining, but maybe just for the lulz) that he seemed to have little problem to keep abreast of.
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Why in the rules must there be at least one Prosperity card for Colony games? Why must there be one DA card for there to be Shelters?
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Why in the rules must there be at least one Prosperity card for Colony games? Why must there be one DA card for there to be Shelters?
Prosperity and Dark Ages cards are designed to generally work better with Colony games and Shelters games respectively.
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Why in the rules must there be at least one Prosperity card for Colony games? Why must there be one DA card for there to be Shelters?
The idea is just to have Colony show up proportionally to how much of your collection Prosperity is. If you just have the main set and Prosperity, you get Colony half the time; if you have four large expansions, you get Colony (close to) a fourth of the time, and so on. That's it, that's the idea. I mean how often should it show up? It seemed to me that it shouldn't be every game (except for those people who chose to play that way). So what should the ratio be? And then there it is, why not have it be that the ratio is the same as the rest of the set. If you just have two sets, then half your cards are from Prosperity, half of your experience is Prosperity, and you get Colony half the time. That just sounded perfect.
And then Dark Ages matches that for Shelters. There was no specific intention to prevent Colony from appearing in games without Prosperity cards; the rule that neatly gives the intended ratio just happens to have that side-effect. You could instead roll some dice to determine whether or not to use Colony, and have the same ratio but without limiting Colony to games with Prosperity cards. Or, you know, do whatever you want.
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They have a German version up on the private site, so I can tell them now about whatever mistranslations you know of, starting with Chancellor.
Here is a collection of mistakes in the German forums:
http://forum.dominionblog.de/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1338
And here my attempt of a translation:
Base Game:
Thief:
"you may discard any of the gained gards" instead of "gain"
Chancellor:
"You may discard your draw pile" instead of "put"
(partially corrected in 2nd edition)
Seaside:
Pirate Ship:
"Each player..." instead of "Each other player"
(corrected in 2nd edition)
Alchemy:
Possession:
"Any cards he gains..." instead of "would gain"
Prosperity:
Venture:
Wrong order: "Play that Treasure. Discard the other cards" instead of "Discard the other cards. Play that Treasure"
Bischop:
has a "If you do that..." clause after "Trash a card"
King's Court:
matches the Throne Room "mistake", i.e. has no "may"
Forge:
Gain a card with the exact [coin symbol] costs of all the trashed cards combined (or something like that - in any case it would make it legal to forge two Estates into a Golem)
Cornucopia:
Tournament:
Says "You may discard a Proince from your hand. If you do,..." and then "Each other player may reveal a Province..."
(changes the timing a bit, because you don't know whether another player has a province when you have to decide which Prize to gain)
Trusty Steed:
matches the Chancellor mistake, i.e. has "discard" instead of "put"
Hinterlands:
Scheme:
Says "If you would discard it" instead of "If you discard it"
(this is a subtle thing, but it matters a bit with Herablist)
Dark Ages:
Procession:
"gain a card" instead of "gain an action card"
Dame Natalie:
"Gain a card" instead of "You may gain a card"
Ironmonger:
Wrong order. Says "...you may discard it. If it is an Action.../Treasure.../Victory.... Discard the revealed card or put it back on your draw pile"
Scavenger:
matches the Chancellor mistake (discard instead of put)
Hermit and Urchin:
has no "from the Madman/Mercenary pile" clause (is a bit nitpicky, but as far as I know without a statement that tells otherwise "gain" is restricted to the supply")
Promo:
Walled Village:
Says "only one more action card in play" instead of "no more than one other"
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Here is a collection of mistakes in the German forums:
http://forum.dominionblog.de/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1338
This is great, but if you want to go that extra mile, what Goko will need to fix these is fixed text in German. I'm sure they can get someone to translate for them, but you know, if you have fixed text I will give it to them and you will get to have it all just the way you wanted.
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Here is a collection of mistakes in the German forums:
http://forum.dominionblog.de/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1338
This is great, but if you want to go that extra mile, what Goko will need to fix these is fixed text in German. I'm sure they can get someone to translate for them, but you know, if you have fixed text I will give it to them and you will get to have it all just the way you wanted.
I was at Goko when they were copying the German from the cards into their system and I did make sure that King's Court and Venture were corrected (but that's the only errata I noticed at the time). Thanks for the link, kn1tt3r, I'll make sure that they get looked at.
Some of the trickiness is that actual Germans may not be aware of the errata and may have been playing the cards as written instead of as intended. Of course Goko can't realistically implement different rules based on what language you're playing the game in, so it's best if the text actually matches how the cards behave and not how the text was originally printed. :)
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Will you still play Dominion after playtesting (for everything: Goko, possible promos, possible future expansions) is finished?
If you do, will you just play with the released cards or will you still sometimes bring new ideas to the table?
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Anyway I don't see an Un- set for Dominion; I don't think the interest is there. But let's say Reiner Knizia died and Jay wanted a commemorative promo, and it had to involve eating cake because that was Knizia's favorite thing to do, and it couldn't just be called Cake-eating Contest or something, it really had to involve eating. I would just do that as a real-world only promo and no-one playing online would feel remotely left out.
I had a friend who created a "Food" expansion for Dominion for a mutual friend's birthday party. It had cards like: "You may eat some bacon. If you do, +2 cards or +$2."
Also, I've been with Reiner in an environment where cake was offered and he declined, so sadly I doubt that cake-eating is his favorite thing.
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Will you still play Dominion after playtesting (for everything: Goko, possible promos, possible future expansions) is finished?
If you do, will you just play with the released cards or will you still sometimes bring new ideas to the table?
The last new prototype images were from January 7th 2012. So it's been done! And I haven't played much non-Goko since then; maybe four or five nights I brought Dark Ages / Guilds to a game night, when I didn't have a new game to work on and it seemed like the previous new games were done. Online is different because you can play it alone, and not waste valuable playtesting time.
Anyway this is typical. Getting lots of playtesting done doesn't just mean I don't have much time for games that aren't mine; I don't have much time for finished games of mine either, unless I can play them alone.
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Here is a collection of mistakes in the German forums:
http://forum.dominionblog.de/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1338
This is great, but if you want to go that extra mile, what Goko will need to fix these is fixed text in German. I'm sure they can get someone to translate for them, but you know, if you have fixed text I will give it to them and you will get to have it all just the way you wanted.
I was at Goko when they were copying the German from the cards into their system and I did make sure that King's Court and Venture were corrected (but that's the only errata I noticed at the time). Thanks for the link, kn1tt3r, I'll make sure that they get looked at.
Thanks a lot.
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Will you still play Dominion after playtesting (for everything: Goko, possible promos, possible future expansions) is finished?
If you do, will you just play with the released cards or will you still sometimes bring new ideas to the table?
The last new prototype images were from January 7th 2012. So it's been done! And I haven't played much non-Goko since then; maybe four or five nights I brought Dark Ages / Guilds to a game night, when I didn't have a new game to work on and it seemed like the previous new games were done. Online is different because you can play it alone, and not waste valuable playtesting time.
Anyway this is typical. Getting lots of playtesting done doesn't just mean I don't have much time for games that aren't mine; I don't have much time for finished games of mine either, unless I can play them alone.
Why not design a solitaire game then? There have been some popular ones lately: Friday, Robinson Crusoe (same theme surprisingly), Legendary (deck building game) among others. Well, this isn't a serious question, since you like games with interaction, but still. :)
Let me ask you this then: Which of your games has taken you most out of your comfort zone? Or do you tend to "stick to what you know"?
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What's the coolest mechanic you've seen in other designer's board games? Why?
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Why not design a solitaire game then? There have been some popular ones lately: Friday, Robinson Crusoe (same theme surprisingly), Legendary (deck building game) among others. Well, this isn't a serious question, since you like games with interaction, but still. :)
I've made solitaire computer games. A solitaire card/board game isn't out of the question, although I'd be more likely to make one than to get one published.
Let me ask you this then: Which of your games has taken you most out of your comfort zone? Or do you tend to "stick to what you know"?
I wouldn't exactly say that I stick to what I know. Once you have a good solution to a problem it's hard not to use it when you need it, which makes future games more similar unless you desperately search for a different solution. And I like certain things and so do those things more often. But I've done pretty exotic premises, specifically to be doing something different; Dominion itself was an exotic premise.
I avoid making political games; I guess a political game would count as outside my comfort zone. It's not that I don't think I'd be up to the task though; I just wouldn't want to play it.
Of my published games, Kingdom Builder is the least typical for me, simply because it's a board game and I've done more card games. It is pretty recognizable as one of my games in other respects.
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What's the coolest mechanic you've seen in other designer's board games? Why?
At one point "rules on cards that interact" was new to me, and if that counts then I have to pick that one. I was introduced to it in Magic, but Magic gets it from Cosmic Encounter expansions and Wiz-War.
"Rules for playing make-believe," from D&D, was pretty amazing in its day, again if that counts as a mechanic.
Dilemmas (simultaneous decisions where the pay-offs vary based on the combination of choices), well I got them from game theory rather than a board game, so I guess they don't count, but they're definitely a mechanic at least.
I'm not sure I can do a good job of answering "why" for those. They are good times. I value that.
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Do you feel your goal of "no politics" in your games is satisfied now that the most popular setting of Dominion is a 2-player game? ::)
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Do you feel your goal of "no politics" in your games is satisfied now that the most popular setting of Dominion is a 2-player game? ::)
I don't know where you get your data. You mean most popular online?
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Do you go through phases where you are sick of playing with certain cards?
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Do you go through phases where you are sick of playing with certain cards?
I can only get so sick of a card while still keeping it in the set. So there's a limit to how bad anything could be for me. Odds are, whatever it is, I like it.
The worst cards for me are Spy variants. Some of them are slow, but all of them make it harder to get testing done. I buy the new card, you buy the Spy, you flip my card over a couple times, and that's that, I am learning nothing about the new card this game. Aside from the speed and testing issue they're fine though. I am happy to have made Rabble, it just messes up playtesting.
IRL I don't look at my hand in Minion games until it's my turn (barring Moat etc. obv.). Online that's not an option, I mean I am sure not closing my eyes when I click on what I'm buying. So Minion gets annoying online, as you look at your hand and wonder if it will vanish.
Some of the cards people cite as not liking are swingy cards and attacks. I like swingy cards; they take the pressure off, and you get fun swings. I like attacks in general, especially trying to beat them.
I guess there was a time period when I didn't like Pirate Ship because there would always be someone who thought it was broken, and while odds were I would beat them handily, it put pressure on the game, I had to make sure they were crushed so they didn't say, "see, see, you sure blew it on this card." And I mean Pirate Ship was trying not to just be awful 100% of the time, so maybe they had a shot. But these days that issue has been settled and I can relax as I beat Pirate Ship.
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I've learned to tolerate even online Minion games with a little mind trick of looking at my hand as little as possible, not planning my turn so as not to get invested in it, and just assuming it will be Minioned away.
Still not quite as thorough as your IRL solution to be sure. I guess if you were playing for blood you might want to know what your hand was to know which cards have gone by, depending on what's in your deck of course. But playing for fun I'd probably also trade any small strategic advantage for the major reduction in annoyance. Funny how the mind works.
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Do you feel your goal of "no politics" in your games is satisfied now that the most popular setting of Dominion is a 2-player game? ::)
I don't know where you get your data. You mean most popular online?
Certainly, though my experience with ftf is about in the same direction.
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Do you feel your goal of "no politics" in your games is satisfied now that the most popular setting of Dominion is a 2-player game? ::)
I don't know where you get your data. You mean most popular online?
Certainly, though my experience with ftf is about in the same direction.
Well I am here to tell you that in fact there is plenty of 3+ player Dominion getting played IRL.
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I wouldn't ever argue with that.
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I've learned to tolerate even online Minion games with a little mind trick of looking at my hand as little as possible, not planning my turn so as not to get invested in it, and just assuming it will be Minioned away.
Still not quite as thorough as your IRL solution to be sure. I guess if you were playing for blood you might want to know what your hand was to know which cards have gone by, depending on what's in your deck of course. But playing for fun I'd probably also trade any small strategic advantage for the major reduction in annoyance. Funny how the mind works.
Well, I want to look to track where my cards are, even if the current hand goes away. ???
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Well, the way he referred to Dominion-inspired games certainly made the respect I had for him take a big notch.
By Dominion-inspired games, do you mean Dominion clones, rather than say the actual Dominion-inspired games, a few of which I specifically cited, saying nothing negative about them at all, even picking a few I'd try? That would make no sense, so you mean the clones, right? Oops that makes no sense either.
Came here to say the same thing. It was just openly disrepectful to say so much crap about it after he admitted to not ever trying them before.
I openly disrespect Dominion clones. I'm with you there. "So much crap," man, I felt I kept it short and sweet, and was even generous, noting that some people would prefer them. I was answering a question, did you see the question? I didn't say, "World, listen up, I want to talk about Dominion clones."
This is an interesting thing that people do. Because I said that some games were Dominion clones that didn't add anything worthwhile, I must be the most egotistical person who ever lived. But anyone can tell which games are clones and just what they add. Was I supposed to lie and say, wow, Silver costs $4 and it's maids, you've really got something new there? [The game I must be referring to has other things it adds that I am not impressed by, but the sentence wouldn't read as well if I listed them, I am mentioning this so you don't have to.]
When someone interviews you, a lot of the questions will be about how great you are. This question was especially so. "If you wanted to brag" is how it starts. So, I was perhaps being given the option of politely not answering. It was an interview, and I had an answer; I answered. The humble thing is not to do interviews. I was up front about not having played the clones; that should clue you in that what follows is what I've heard about the games, not me fantasizing about how awful they must be because of my greatness.
One question I've gotten a bunch is, "how much do you play games that aren't yours?" At first I would say "basically never," then I worked out to say "basically never, I am too busy playtesting." Both responses would get people commenting, "wow, he's the most egotistical person who ever lived." As if my answer were somehow "all games I didn't make are awful." In one case I specifically cited games I wanted to try when I got the chance, but still got that comment. I further modified my answer to "basically never, I am too busy playtesting; I have time to play other games alone, and play video games, but I only get so much time with other people, and need all the playtesting I can get." This is all in a desperate attempt to reduce the number of people who will think my completely innocent and honest answer is the most egotistical thing ever. At this point my answer would be "Basically never, I only get so much time with other people to playtest, and need to use it all playtesting. In fact I don't get to play my own finished games either." I dunno, I bet someone will find record-setting egotism in there if they want to.
I thought of Dominion. I don't brag about that, like I'm the only one who could have thought of it. Two guys thought of calculus; Knizia had Qwirkle just a few years too late. And so on. Someone else would have thought of Dominion, sooner or later. And the way intellectual property works is awful; awful from the perspective of humanity that is, rather than say rights holders. And if there's say a vegetable-themed Dominion clone, and you prefer that theme, then it's better for you the consumer that that exists than that it doesn't. It's worse for me, but whatever; there are a lot of consumers and only one me. [And one RGG and so on, person who was going to think I was the most egotistical person ever if I didn't mention the obvious fact that I am not the only one cashing checks for Dominion.]
But despite all these things, a Dominion clone is still a Dominion clone. No amount of humility or egotism on my part will make those games stop being clones. And the only clones worthy of respect are actual clones, like that sheep.
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I thought it was pretty funny, though a telling contrast with Richard Garfield’s own “Let a thousand flowers bloom” vibe. Especially since Vaccarino has always studiously denied that Magic was an influence on Dominion, despite it being his favorite game and Garfield being the game designer he’d been actively trying to impress in his salad days.
I think it's great that people get to make Dominion-inspired games, and sad what many of them have chosen to do with that power.
Some people get the idea that I must have thought, hey can you take Magic's deck-building and turn it into a game. That isn't how I thought of Dominion; it was a solution to a complexity problem in a card game where you built up fantasy heroes. I'm a game designer because of Magic, but I can't change the actual events of how I thought of Dominion.
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I think the reason many people find your response to "do you play other games" egotistical is the implicit assumption that your own game designs would get basically no benefit from having played other best in breed games from other top designers. It gives the impression that you know how to solve all design problems that you'll ever face and that you'll never get any insight from thinking about other well made but new games.
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I think the reason many people find your response to "do you play other games" egotistical is the implicit assumption that your own game designs would get basically no benefit from having played other best in breed games from other top designers. It gives the impression that you know how to solve all design problems that you'll ever face and that you'll never get any insight from thinking about other well made but new games.
I don't know why people think the things they do, so let's just look at, if they do think that, how accurate do I think that is.
I have played lots of games. And I can read about new games all I want. And I play computer games, although they generally aren't computer versions of board games. So, it's like, just how many advances are being made that are confined to new board games and only visible if you play them? Like, Space Alert had a cool premise; I would have a much better idea of how it played if I played it, but I know what the idea was.
Then, the flip side: if there's a solution to a problem and someone's already figured it out, shouldn't I be looking for a new solution? Space Alert already did Space Alert; I have no interest in making Space Alert II. When I read about Space Alert, it's more likely to stop me from making a particular game than it is to improve a game I make. Even if it's a broad idea, worthy of a genre, I can stick to my own broad ideas, or rather, the broad ideas that I have had that other people have had too, but which I nevertheless feel connected to due to me thinking of them. For example I have not made a worker placement game and it doesn't sound especially attractive. I have made a bunch of games where you pick an action each turn though. Other people have made those too, but I was doing them before I knew that, and they feel better to me for future projects than worker placement does.
I have certainly gotten plenty from other games, and here is a good example. After playing Evo, I spent a while thinking about bidding, trying to figure out how best to do it. [There are two basic problems: 1) it shouldn't be possible to know just what something is worth, but you have to be able to have a good idea as to what it's worth; and 2) if players are taken out of the bidding by say winning an auction, they will get screwed over by the other players turning out to undervalue things; ideally good players can stay in the auction as long as possible.] When I made Gauntlet of Fools, I went with something very similar to Evo's (the only difference, well besides the fact that you are bidding with penalty rules rather than money/vp, is that you keep going around in Gauntlet of Fools, but jump to the outbid player in Evo; I think my way is a slight improvement). I felt like I had done my work on bidding and that I wasn't going to do better. But I can't run the experiment the other way; I don't know what I would have come up with if I didn't have that good answer sitting in front of me already. I don't know if it would have been the same or better or worse or just different.
I don't think you should avoiding hearing any Bach if you want to write music, like in Unaccompanied Sonata, but I don't think you have to hear Bach if you want your music to have any merit, either. I'm already standing on the shoulders of giants; I'm not sure why I should be trying to get up higher. The view is fine.
Anyway I am sure there is stuff to learn from games I haven't played; I get in a game or two a year, and otherwise am trying to coast along on reading about them and what I've already got. I have games to be playtested. They always benefit from more playtesting, you just hit diminishing returns on them, and then move on to the next one. If I'm just trying to maximize respect (in the non-forum sense), which of course I'm not, then improving my games via playtesting totally seems like it beats out improving them by looking for ideas to copy from other games.
Lastly, re-reading your post, I can tell you that I abandon games all the time due to problems I couldn't solve. Sometimes I go back to them months or years later, sometimes multiple times, and sometimes they just die. I don't ever feel like, I just need to find the answer in some other game. It seems to me that the less unique the problem is, the more likely I can find the answer in another game, but then too the less essential it is to get that answer from another game; and the more unique the problem is, the more likely that I'll just abandon my game if someone else has done the solution.
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If you don't like "politics" in games, why did you call the strongest $3 card "ambassador"?
(To be fair, you also called the weakest one "chancellor".)
You say it should be fun to lose. Do I need to say "torturer"?
Bishop is usually not a great opening buy, but chapel obviously is. So I am confused - are you for or
against child baptism?
Ok, now you can all get back to serious questions and arguing :P
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Bishop is usually not a great opening buy, but chapel obviously is. So I am confused - are you for or
against child baptism?
Baptism - Action, $2
Name a card. If a card with that name would be trashed this game, instead, it goes to heaven.
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Bishop is usually not a great opening buy, but chapel obviously is. So I am confused - are you for or
against child baptism?
Baptism - Action, $2
Name a card. If a card with that name would be trashed this game, instead, it goes to heaven.
Shouldn't this be "this turn", or is this in line with the permanent cards to be introduced in Guilds? ::)
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You've spoken about doing Dominion Spin Offs.
Any reason why you haven't started on these already?
Historically RGG has released ~2 Dominion expansions per year. And it seems from the outside at least to be commercially viable.
Next year there will only be one. And given the lead times I expect it will be a long while before we see a Dominion spin-off - unless something is already in the works?
Ed
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You've spoken about doing Dominion Spin Offs.
Any reason why you haven't started on these already?
Historically RGG has released ~2 Dominion expansions per year. And it seems from the outside at least to be commercially viable.
Next year there will only be one. And given the lead times I expect it will be a long while before we see a Dominion spin-off - unless something is already in the works?
I have started on spin-offs. The first one, I ended up taking out the deckbuilding, and it's Kingdom Builder. The second one, I ended up taking out the deckbuilding, and it's a game I'm still working on but which is looking good.
Probably the latest in the year that a spin-off would come out would be at Essen. To have one at Essen it needs to be done by ~July. With say flavor commitments before that so that art can be started in June.
RGG would very much like a spin-off, the sooner the better, and I'd like to do one or more, so it's still on the agenda. It will be a bit though before I know whether or not I'll have one for 2013.
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Now I might have counted wrong, but assuming I haven't... was it intentional to have exactly 200 kingdom cards after Guilds is out, excluding promos?
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You say it should be fun to lose. Do I need to say "torturer"?
I still don't get why people hate Torturer so much. I hear all this talk about being "Torturer-pinned". How does this happen?
Torturer isn't a super-Militia. It's a Witch with a bane of "Two cards you don't want". Really, I think it's closer to Mountebank than anything else, but no one ever talks about being "Mountebank-pinned". (And yeah, I know they're easier to chain because of the draw, but mostly I think people discard to Torturer way more than they should.)
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Now I might have counted wrong, but assuming I haven't... was it intentional to have exactly 200 kingdom cards after Guilds is out, excluding promos?
You have counted correctly. It was not intentional. The large sets are 25 cards so if there were eight it would naturally be 200 for all of them and not seem special. Instead one was split into 12/13, and then there is no 12 to go with Guilds' 13, but Dark Ages has an extra 10 and as it happens two of the 25-card sets actually got 26.
If the "no-one possibly needs a placeholder card for Copper" technology had been around earlier, there would be 1-2 more cards, and Dark Ages might have had a few more or less depending on what happened with the cards that eat up the extra space.
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If the "no-one possibly needs a placeholder card for Copper" technology had been around earlier, there would be 1-2 more cards, and Dark Ages might have had a few more or less depending on what happened with the cards that eat up the extra space.
Man, I really wish future copies of the base set had Dungeon and future copies of Intrigue had another new card to take up that space. Then maybe the BGG store could sell them as promos for those of us who already own those sets.
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If the "no-one possibly needs a placeholder card for Copper" technology had been around earlier, there would be 1-2 more cards, and Dark Ages might have had a few more or less depending on what happened with the cards that eat up the extra space.
Man, I really wish future copies of the base set had Dungeon and future copies of Intrigue had another new card to take up that space. Then maybe the BGG store could sell them as promos for those of us who already own those sets.
What was Dungeon?
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If the "no-one possibly needs a placeholder card for Copper" technology had been around earlier, there would be 1-2 more cards, and Dark Ages might have had a few more or less depending on what happened with the cards that eat up the extra space.
Man, I really wish future copies of the base set had Dungeon and future copies of Intrigue had another new card to take up that space. Then maybe the BGG store could sell them as promos for those of us who already own those sets.
What was Dungeon?
Dungeon
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. Discard a card. +3 Cards.
It's not that Dominion as a whole really needs Dungeon, but the base set really does. There's a big Dungeon-shaped hole in it. Without Dungeon, the only viable way to fight Witch is with Chapel. Remodel is a terrible Curse trasher. Moneylender and Mine can't trash Curses. I think new players might hate Witch less if Dungeon were available.
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If the "no-one possibly needs a placeholder card for Copper" technology had been around earlier, there would be 1-2 more cards, and Dark Ages might have had a few more or less depending on what happened with the cards that eat up the extra space.
Man, I really wish future copies of the base set had Dungeon and future copies of Intrigue had another new card to take up that space. Then maybe the BGG store could sell them as promos for those of us who already own those sets.
What was Dungeon?
Dungeon
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. Discard a card. +3 Cards.
It's not that Dominion as a whole really needs Dungeon, but the base set really does. There's a big Dungeon-shaped hole in it. Without Dungeon, the only viable way to fight Witch is with Chapel. Remodel is a terrible Curse trasher. Moneylender and Mine can't trash Curses. I think new players might hate Witch less if Dungeon were available.
Except it's trodding directly on Smithy's territory.
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Except it's trodding directly on Smithy's territory.
Not at all. Smithy's primary function is to increase your handsize. Under most circumstances, Dungeon maintains your handsize.
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It's much more similar to masquerade than smithy. Actually, it's really, really similar to masq.
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It's much more similar to masquerade than smithy. Actually, it's really, really similar to masq.
That is definitely true.
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Why was Scout priced at $4? It doesn't seem like it would be too much better at a lower price, and it might be a bit better priced then anyway.
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Why was Scout priced at $4? It doesn't seem like it would be too much better at a lower price, and it might be a bit better priced then anyway.
It's somewhat random. It was $4 originally and neither caused problems nor went unplayed. Card balance is better from Seaside on, especially in terms of having fewer duds.
Scout dates back to when it turned out that Intrigue was going to be 25 cards rather than 20 cards. I made a few cards and moved a few cards. Scout was a new one. I added it to have something else that interacted with the two-type victory cards. People would sometimes buy it for those combos or the Wishing Well one, and other times would buy it even though there was no good reason. Intrigue expanded in August; it was finalized in October. So there wasn't much time for people to get sick of Scout.
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You say it should be fun to lose. Do I need to say "torturer"?
I still don't get why people hate Torturer so much. I hear all this talk about being "Torturer-pinned". How does this happen?
As Torturer draws 3 cards as opposed Witch's 2 cards, it's easier to chain multiple Torturers than multiple Witches.
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I wanted to register a vote 100% behind Donald on this one. I can't stand people that try to attack him for being supposedly 'egotistical' and dismissing inferior games. The truth is that he created a massively successful game (s?) and deserves to take credit for all the ambition, hard work, talent, and determination that that entails. Society has far too much political correctness, equal outcomes are good, don't ever say anything bad or think you're better than anyone else nonsense. Let the winners take credit for having done something special and if you don't like it go out and do something special yourself. That would make you a much better person than whining about how someone else is proud of their accomplishments.
Donald - stay strong brother!
Well, the way he referred to Dominion-inspired games certainly made the respect I had for him take a big notch.
By Dominion-inspired games, do you mean Dominion clones, rather than say the actual Dominion-inspired games, a few of which I specifically cited, saying nothing negative about them at all, even picking a few I'd try? That would make no sense, so you mean the clones, right? Oops that makes no sense either.
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Regarding the discussion of Dominion Clones vs. legitimate new deckbuilding games:
What, in your mind, differentiates between a clone and an interesting new game? What defines a dominion clone?
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Regarding the discussion of Dominion Clones vs. legitimate new deckbuilding games:
What, in your mind, differentiates between a clone and an interesting new game? What defines a dominion clone?
He listed a pair of examples in the interview: Friday and A Few Acres of Snow.
Friday is a solo game that you lose by running out of hit points. Snow is a war game with a board/map. They both borrow Dominion's deckbuilding mechanic, but they play their own game using deckbuilding, as opposed to 'buy currency and actions, then buy victory cards slay monster cards, then count points,' which is just a retheme of Dominion.
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Here's an interesting take on this: How do you view the game "Copycat" or as it is originally known in German: "Fremde Federn" by Friday designer Friedemann Friese?
This game is a tribute to the best games on BGG, Dominion among them. It's even published by the same company that has Dominion: Rio Grande Games.
In it you start with 7 money cards and 3 victory point cards, I mean, he doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's copying Dominion here. But as the game is like a satirical comment on other games, I wonder if this is a big deal. Still, it's the same designer that made Friday...
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My two cents on the ego thing: I also have the impression of him giving egotistical answers, and I think this is primarily because through the interview there is almost none (sorry, but I do not have the time or energy to go read it all over again to check the fact) recognition to good things others do. On the flip side, the fact that there is a lot of mention of good things he did well, I here agree that is a direct consequence of him being the interviewed, so I do not find that annoying at all. But it would be good to recognize that other people does good things as well, and I think there is lack of such recognition. For instance, there is mention to Magic being good or innovative a couple of times, and also Richard Garfield is mentioned as a designer he trusts makes good games. However, this are minor comments and, more significantly, there is no mention to Magic nor Garfield as direct contributors to Dominion existence.
tl; dr: I don't think concluding DXV is egotistical from this interview is fair at all, although I, and apparently others as weel, would appreciate if he commented more on people or games or ideas he recognizes as really good, as we all recognize his game as really good.
Onto a more constructive part of the post:
1. Besides the obvious deck-building, do you feel there is something deeper or more detailed Magic contributed to Dominion? In particular, did you at some point considered other properties in Magic and how they would affect dominion (like different resources in costs, things that stay in play a really long time as opposed to instant effects, explicit combat)? I know this has been partially answered before here and there, so it is of course fine if you only go into new details.
2. How do you feel about identical starting hands? Would you consider including it as a suggestion or variant in a rule book? How often do you think a different opening has a too big impact on the outcome (by "too big" I mean "it would be better to avoid if it could be done in a simple manner, like arrange shuffle luck for particular kingdoms with god, nature, chance, or whatever has the "decision").
3. One of the two things that I hate most about Dominion (this sounds harsh, but after reading it, I think this is more a testimony that I love the game) is the fact that the text on the cards is sexist (it refers to individual players as "he"). Did you consider gender neutrality while making the game? Would you (if you happen to call the shots on such a thing) consider a request for gender neutrality for upcoming expansions/games?
[small skippable sidenote: this fact was something me, my girlfriend and a friend of mine all noticed individually, so it IS noticeable, at least to our kind of people]
4. How good were you at playing Dominion during development in comparison with the other playtesters? When playtesting, do you feel that you play to win as hard as possible, or are your decisions based on other things as well (from "I need to test this card, even if I do not
5. If you were to put a clock on Dominion to avoid people thinking forever, would you give a particular limit to the first move (i.e., some time to evaluate the board)? How much time do you think a person should take to play close enough to optimal (i.e., close to what he/she would play if given unbounded time)? Do you have any more general thoughts on how to clock Dominion games in general?
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I wanted to register a vote 100% behind Donald on this one. I can't stand people that try to attack him for being supposedly 'egotistical' and dismissing inferior games. The truth is that he created a massively successful game (s?) and deserves to take credit for all the ambition, hard work, talent, and determination that that entails. Society has far too much political correctness, equal outcomes are good, don't ever say anything bad or think you're better than anyone else nonsense. Let the winners take credit for having done something special and if you don't like it go out and do something special yourself. That would make you a much better person than whining about how someone else is proud of their accomplishments.
Donald - stay strong brother!
Thanks, you're there for me.
I feel like I feel very sure of myself when it comes to opinions about the world, but that I am not nearly egotistical enough when it comes to game design. It took making Dominion for me to try to get games published (not counting trying to get Wizards to hire me); since RGG took another game at the same time (from 1995), clearly that other game at least could have been published earlier. Then I didn't show any more games to companies until a year after Dominion came out, using the excuse that my games would get looked at more closely and generously once I was the Dominion guy (I am not sure this even did much, but being the Dominion / Kingdom Builder guy seems to have drummed up some interest). It would have been great to have been sufficiently full of myself that I tried to get games published earlier. Dominion could have been a crowning achievement after a decade of games, instead of my first game published.
When you read a novel, odds are the author was a hyper-motivated self-promoter. They wrote a novel - they were hyper-motivated. Novels don't just write themselves. And then, they were sufficiently full of themselves to try to get the novel published, to tell other people, no really, this is good, read my thing. They're a self-promoter. Once in a while there's a posthumous Confederacy of Dunces or The Trial or what have you, but mostly, if someone managed to write a novel and get it published, you are talking about a somewhat constrained subset of humanity. So I mean, if I thought my stuff just sucked you'd never have heard of me. They never interview that guy who would be saying, "well I figured I wasn't good enough and so I gave up." And that movie about writer's block was written by two guys who got around it by switching projects.
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Regarding the discussion of Dominion Clones vs. legitimate new deckbuilding games:
What, in your mind, differentiates between a clone and an interesting new game? What defines a dominion clone?
This seems like a poor direction for future questions. The entire beauty of asking me this rather than someone else is the potential to think positively or negatively about me. Since people bothering to read the interview probably lean towards positive already, I am only losing here.
A Dominion clone copies the entire game and works from there. It is possible to not copy the entire game, as other games have demonstrated. The idea of building a deck during a game doesn't automatically carry with it any of the other choices I made.
Let us use Illuminati: New World Order as an example, since that doesn't involve me. INWO copies Illuminati (by the same guy). It isn't a Magic clone. The only thing it gets from Magic is the CCG premise: players bring their own decks to the table. Well realistically the CCG premise is, that, plus cards are sold in random packs - the random purchase part gets you the incredible money-making scheme (although INWO abandoned that later iirc). But you know. You can copy the CCG idea without copying the way resources work in Magic or the way combat works. Bringing your own deck to the table doesn't automatically carry with it "play one land a turn and other cards cost an amount of mana that lands produce" and so on.
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Here's an interesting take on this: How do you view the game "Copycat" or as it is originally known in German: "Fremde Federn" by Friday designer Friedemann Friese?
Friedemann asked me for permission.
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But it would be good to recognize that other people does good things as well, and I think there is lack of such recognition. For instance, there is mention to Magic being good or innovative a couple of times, and also Richard Garfield is mentioned as a designer he trusts makes good games. However, this are minor comments and, more significantly, there is no mention to Magic nor Garfield as direct contributors to Dominion existence.
Here is an interview at opinionatedgamers, in which the interviewer asks who taught me the most about game design, and I cite some people: http://opinionatedgamers.com/2012/05/11/the-art-of-design-interviews-to-game-designers-19-donald-x-vaccarino/
Magic was important for me pursuing game design, but it did not directly contribute to Dominion existing otherwise. I did not think "hey could I take deckbuilding out of Magic and make it the whole game." What I actually thought was, "how do I keep the building-up-heroes part of Spirit Warriors II while simplifying it enough for it to be playable." An edited version of that story can be seen here at http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1997.0
1. Besides the obvious deck-building, do you feel there is something deeper or more detailed Magic contributed to Dominion? In particular, did you at some point considered other properties in Magic and how they would affect dominion (like different resources in costs, things that stay in play a really long time as opposed to instant effects, explicit combat)? I know this has been partially answered before here and there, so it is of course fine if you only go into new details.
I did not get the deckbuilding from Magic. Not all obvious things are true.
Magic introduced me to interacting rules-on-cards, which Dominion has (as well as most of my other games). Magic didn't come up with that though, it was in turn inspired by Wiz-War and Cosmic Encounter. As a game with tons of cards, Magic had to really deal with making rules-on-cards work on a large scale, which other games had not; this didn't happen overnight, and all of that work is valuable for other games with rules-on-cards, although in this case I was there, I was working on good wordings right when they were, and even offered some to them (I am credited in the Magic rules in the "contributions" section, for commenting on the 6E rules, although most of what I suggested was probably also suggested by in-house people).
I tend to give cards types, on a line at the bottom of the card. This comes from Magic doing that. Again I don't think it originated that.
Spirit Warriors II (as described in the linked article) at one point had something like Smash Up has; you drafted four heroes and then shuffled packets of ~10 cards per hero together to get your own deck. I got that idea from a set of Magic decks I'd built that worked the same way. You make a 30-card packet for each color, plus one for artifacts; they include lands (use Urza lands for the artifact one). So your 6 packets end up making 15 possible decks. You have a theme; an early one I made was graveyard-themed. The RW graveyard deck was pretty cool. As it happens the contribution this had to Dominion was needing to be replaced by something that worked better for building up heroes.
I made Dominion after years of making other games. Dominion took things like "attacks hit everyone else" automatically from those other games. Things which you can trace back to Magic, like card types, only ultimately came from Magic; they directly came from other games of mine, where I'd tried out things and found what I liked.
2. How do you feel about identical starting hands? Would you consider including it as a suggestion or variant in a rule book? How often do you think a different opening has a too big impact on the outcome (by "too big" I mean "it would be better to avoid if it could be done in a simple manner, like arrange shuffle luck for particular kingdoms with god, nature, chance, or whatever has the "decision").
No interest. The opening hands vary intentionally. I have never felt unhappy with how that turned out. Play whatever variants you want; I shuffle my starting ten.
3. One of the two things that I hate most about Dominion (this sounds harsh, but after reading it, I think this is more a testimony that I love the game) is the fact that the text on the cards is sexist (it refers to individual players as "he"). Did you consider gender neutrality while making the game? Would you (if you happen to call the shots on such a thing) consider a request for gender neutrality for upcoming expansions/games?
The prototype said "they." RGG which is to say Jay switched to "he" (and also expanded most contractions).
I think "he or she" is awful. I think "she" is also awful. "They" is where it's at and has been in use for centuries. Evo is an example of a game that uses it.
I would not include this in contracts; it is hard enough getting games published. If I self-published (not likely) I would use "they."
4. How good were you at playing Dominion during development in comparison with the other playtesters? When playtesting, do you feel that you play to win as hard as possible, or are your decisions based on other things as well (from "I need to test this card, even if I do not
In playtesting my focus is generally just on winning, although sometimes it's on doing something wacky to try it out. Some games the focus is "get this particular card playtested." When a card seems like it might be trouble but might not be, it may end up that I am saying, "okay this game mcp and vinay have to buy it and me and locus can't." Some players are bad at being forced to buy a card and they tend to get shifted into the can't-buy role. But you know, if everyone buys a card, someone who bought it will win, and there won't be any real data there on how the card measures up. Unless it's always, "whoever gets the most copies of it wins," which I guess has come up. Anyway you can just decide, I am not buying the card they think is broken this game, but you will get (different) data faster if two buy it and two don't.
I won my share, I was no slouch. There were weaker playtesters, but among the better playtesters, I'm not sure I see a clear winner.
For Kingdom Builder, I think I am 2nd best after playtester Mark Levine. It's close though.
5. If you were to put a clock on Dominion to avoid people thinking forever, would you give a particular limit to the first move (i.e., some time to evaluate the board)? How much time do you think a person should take to play close enough to optimal (i.e., close to what he/she would play if given unbounded time)? Do you have any more general thoughts on how to clock Dominion games in general?
Well for a computer version it's straightforward to count down the time for whoever currently gets to make a decision - usually the person taking the turn, but sometimes another player who is deciding what to discard or something. You could resolve Militia in turn order as the rules technically say to do. Anyway then you don't need to do anything special for turn one; you've got X minutes for the whole game, spend 'em how you want.
I don't know how much time you should spend thinking about turn one or whatever later situation. The hardest decisions tend to matter the least and knowing that is helpful. There may be a lot to think about on turn one or not much. You don't necessarily need to figure out your whole strategy; some games you are clearly opening Silver/Silver or something and can work out the rest while shuffling. I generally do stare at the cards on turn one.
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Why are you not depicted in a Dominion card art? Are you going to get depicted in a Guilds card? If you could redo the art of the existing expansions, in which card would you like to be? (cue Harem joke)
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Well, imagine that it would be the best card ever, it would be pretty arrogant. And if it were the worst card ever too, it would be a good laugh. And if it were a mediocre card, it would just be... mediocre.
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3. One of the two things that I hate most about Dominion (this sounds harsh, but after reading it, I think this is more a testimony that I love the game) is the fact that the text on the cards is sexist (it refers to individual players as "he"). Did you consider gender neutrality while making the game? Would you (if you happen to call the shots on such a thing) consider a request for gender neutrality for upcoming expansions/games?
The prototype said "they." RGG which is to say Jay switched to "he" (and also expanded most contractions).
I think "he or she" is awful. I think "she" is also awful. "They" is where it's at and has been in use for centuries. Evo is an example of a game that uses it.
I would not include this in contracts; it is hard enough getting games published. If I self-published (not likely) I would use "they."
Donald's probably right that singular they is where the future's at. But, you know what's so amusing about these claims of sexism? Gender-neutral "he" was introduced by a feminist. e.g. see this NYT article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=0).
Also of note from the article: "It’s a shame that grammarians ever took umbrage at the singular they. After all, they gave you a slide. It began life as a plural object pronoun and evolved into the whole enchilada: subject and object, singular and plural."
(Side thought: I wonder why "one" hasn't caught on? I would think since "one" is already a gender neutral pronoun, its use as a personal pronoun in informal contexts would be an easier adaption than using "they" as singular, but I guess not).
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Donald's probably right that singular they is where the future's at. But, you know what's so amusing about these claims of sexism? Gender-neutral "he" was introduced by a feminist. e.g. see this NYT article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=0).
Also of note from the article: "It’s a shame that grammarians ever took umbrage at the singular they. After all, they gave you a slide. It began life as a plural object pronoun and evolved into the whole enchilada: subject and object, singular and plural."
Its not the technicaly correct what matters in this case, but the impact on society's view. I think if they or one shock someone because of its technically improper use, that's not a bad thing, and its probably a good thing: people ought to think someone did their job to avoid following the usual male-oriented language, and that lead some people as to think why they would do that and that eventually reinforces the important debate over sexism, which of course exceeds language issues by far.
As for the they vs one vs other alternatives, I don't know which alternative is better, for the time being, any gender-neutral or non-sexist way is fine with me.
In any case, this debate, like all ideology ones, may quickly divert from the thread, and I know that can be really annoying, especially in a successful thread, so I don't want to get too into this, unless it entails cool questions for Donald, which does not seem to be happening.
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"It"
Problem solved
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Are you proposing using It as a neutral pronoun or sending an evil clown to hunt us down so we stop nagging about this?
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Are you proposing using It as a neutral pronoun or sending an evil clown to hunt us down so we stop nagging about this?
I am good with either to be honest!
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3. One of the two things that I hate most about Dominion (this sounds harsh, but after reading it, I think this is more a testimony that I love the game) is the fact that the text on the cards is sexist (it refers to individual players as "he"). Did you consider gender neutrality while making the game? Would you (if you happen to call the shots on such a thing) consider a request for gender neutrality for upcoming expansions/games?
The prototype said "they." RGG which is to say Jay switched to "he" (and also expanded most contractions).
I think "he or she" is awful. I think "she" is also awful. "They" is where it's at and has been in use for centuries. Evo is an example of a game that uses it.
I would not include this in contracts; it is hard enough getting games published. If I self-published (not likely) I would use "they."
Donald's probably right that singular they is where the future's at. But, you know what's so amusing about these claims of sexism? Gender-neutral "he" was introduced by a feminist. e.g. see this NYT article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=0).
Also of note from the article: "It’s a shame that grammarians ever took umbrage at the singular they. After all, they gave you a slide. It began life as a plural object pronoun and evolved into the whole enchilada: subject and object, singular and plural."
(Side thought: I wonder why "one" hasn't caught on? I would think since "one" is already a gender neutral pronoun, its use as a personal pronoun in informal contexts would be an easier adaption than using "they" as singular, but I guess not).
(http://i.qkme.me/3sf9o3.jpg)
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Here is a collection of mistakes in the German forums:
http://forum.dominionblog.de/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1338
This is great, but if you want to go that extra mile, what Goko will need to fix these is fixed text in German. I'm sure they can get someone to translate for them, but you know, if you have fixed text I will give it to them and you will get to have it all just the way you wanted.
I was at Goko when they were copying the German from the cards into their system and I did make sure that King's Court and Venture were corrected (but that's the only errata I noticed at the time). Thanks for the link, kn1tt3r, I'll make sure that they get looked at.
Thanks a lot.
I got permission to edit their card text and all the errata on the German page you linked to should be in (but I did the copy-paste manually myself so I can't guarantee that it's completely error free).
Here's hoping there aren't any mistakes in the Guilds translation...
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My two cents on the ego thing: I also have the impression of him giving egotistical answers, and I think this is primarily because...
I also have two cents to chip in, but they're a bit more general than that. I think smart people (like Donald) tend to state things very efficiently and matter-of-factly, which can create an arrogant tone, especially via text. I honestly think the majority of perception issues stem not from what Donald says, but how he says it.
Take the "so much crap about Dominion clones" issue brought up earlier. Every version of the answer Donald generated about playing other people's games starts with "Basically never." This is super word-efficient but sets the tone as "I don't have time for that" rather than "I'd like to, but I'm too busy". Personally, I find the tone of the first to be impatient/offputting and the tone of second to be apologetic/conciliatory.
Good, meaningful PR is a weird and delicate art, which is why you usually hire somebody skilled to do it. I'm not always good at generating it, but I think I recognize it decently-well. It's really cool that Donald interacts directly with the community, but I think he's a game designer first and PR guy second, so it doesn't surprise me that these issues come up.
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I think we have also been conditioned to perceive confidence as arrogance. If you state something succinctly and concretely, you must obviously be arrogant, since only arrogant people do not hedge and concede with every statement.
Now, of course that is hyperbole and not meant at anyone in particular. I think it stems at least in part from the same thinking that handed out trophies to everyone on every team in little league, but had nothing to congratulate the team who actually won the play-off.
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I think we have also been conditioned to perceive confidence as arrogance. If you state something succinctly and concretely, you must obviously be arrogant, since only arrogant people do not hedge and concede with every statement.
Now, of course that is hyperbole and not meant at anyone in particular. I think it stems at least in part from the same thinking that handed out trophies to everyone on every team in little league, but had nothing to congratulate the team who actually won the play-off.
I think that's probably part of it, but I also think that's an easy excuse for the insensitive. I can think of several extremely confident people who don't come off as arrogant. There's a real but hard-to-define line there.
Part of communicating effectively is knowing your audience and if you're perceived as arrogant, you can't simply say "well that's just your perception" and expect people to accept it. IMO, that would actually be arrogant, since you're effectively putting the blame on anybody but you. Something causes that perception. If it's rare, isolated cases, you can shrug it off as anomaly. If there's a pattern, then maybe you're sending different signals than you thought.
BTW, this isn't directed at Donald or anybody else. It's just, like, my opinion, man.
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Why are you not depicted in a Dominion card art? Are you going to get depicted in a Guilds card? If you could redo the art of the existing expansions, in which card would you like to be? (cue Harem joke)
I've got my name on the boxes, that's something. I had the game, I didn't need to be on a card. If I had to be on a card it would be the randomizer for the Knights.
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I got permission to edit their card text and all the errata on the German page you linked to should be in (but I did the copy-paste manually myself so I can't guarantee that it's completely error free).
Here's hoping there aren't any mistakes in the Guilds translation...
Incidentally I sent the list to Jay and I believe fixes will be incorporated into future printed German cards also.
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I've got my name on the boxes, that's something. I had the game, I didn't need to be on a card. If I had to be on a card it would be the randomizer for the Knights.
Nice choice!
Follow up: Are the personalities or any other real life characteristic of the real persons that inspire the names of the Knights in any way related with the card "effect"? More precisely, are the assignments of names-effect purely random? If not, what were the criteria, assuming is something not too private to be told here?
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Follow up: Are the personalities or any other real life characteristic of the real persons that inspire the names of the Knights in any way related with the card "effect"? More precisely, are the assignments of names-effect purely random? If not, what were the criteria, assuming is something not too private to be told here?
"Here" is the internet you know - I am not whispering exclusively to the people on dominionstrategy. Google can find anything, within reason - even pictures these days. It's okay though, nothing's too private for the internet.
Dame Josephine, Dame Molly, and Sir Destry all picked what bonus they wanted, from a list. At the time there was no Sir Bailey effect and I suspect if we did it again Dame Molly would pick that one. Sir Bailey is her boyfriend so hopefully that all worked out.
Sir Martin got his because he was the youngest in our gaming group. Dame Natalie got the one that gains little cards because she was a baby. Sir Vander was depressed so I gave him the suicidal knight, there's an in-joke you weren't expecting. I gave +$2 to Dame Sylvia just to give her a good knight. Dame Sylvia is a good one, you heard it here.
Dame Anna, Sir Bailey, and Sir Michael are just random.
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Okay, Dame Natalie is my new favorite knight. :)
Now, finding some actual time to play Dark Ages with my wife is tough with a 4 months old baby. ;)
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Now, finding some actual time to play Dark Ages with my wife is tough with a 4 months old baby. ;)
i find it quite difficult to play dark ages with my wife in general. She likes BM-type games, and whenever i manage to pull of an uncontested engine megaturn she walks off, doing laundry or some reading,... and dark ages is all about crazy engine possibilities (exception: rebuild)
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I think we have also been conditioned to perceive confidence as arrogance. If you state something succinctly and concretely, you must obviously be arrogant, since only arrogant people do not hedge and concede with every statement.
Now, of course that is hyperbole and not meant at anyone in particular. I think it stems at least in part from the same thinking that handed out trophies to everyone on every team in little league, but had nothing to congratulate the team who actually won the play-off.
To be honest, nothing I've read from Donald seemed arrogant to me.
If he tells us he doesn't play other games because he doesn't have time, I believe him. I don't think he thinks he's too good for games made by other designers. He might like to play them, but I can understand that if you are a game designer and finally have a bunch of people together, you'd rather seize the opportunity to test your own games instead of playing something else.
And concerning Dominion clones: I don't think he said anything weird or negative about them.
In all of Donald's answers all that's become clear to me is that he is a human being passionate about the games he designs and why wouldn't he be? I write game reviews for a printed magazine and when I write something (I think is) good I'm very proud of myself. Or when I find an elegant solution to a programming problem at work.
In fact, Donald has been very helpful answering most if not all questions in this 18 page thread and he often jumps into other threads to clear up rules questions or provide various other insights. He didn't have to do this. He could have just designed Dominion, moved on to the next game laughing and swimming in the money a la Scrooge McDuck.
He shows a big commitment to Dominion not only here but I suspect at BGG as well and therefore I have a lot of respect for Donald. I mean, he could also take the Martin Wallace A Few Acres of Snow approach and just pretend an apparent game flaw is not a big deal and when you can't suppress the angry crowd anymore come up with a half ass solution. Now I'm not trying to dig up dirt here dragging that game into the discussion again. It's just to prove my point how "lucky" we are that Donald is that passionate about his games.
I don't know many other games and places that allow for this kind of direct communication with its designer.
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To be honest, nothing I've read from Donald seemed arrogant to me.
If he tells us he doesn't play other games because he doesn't have time, I believe him.
and, after all, we want an interview with him and not with his PR-manager...
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He could have just designed Dominion, moved on to the next game laughing and swimming in the money a la Scrooge McDuck.
That's an odd way of spelling Martin Wallace.
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He could have just designed Dominion, moved on to the next game laughing and swimming in the money a la Scrooge McDuck.
He already said he prefers engines to BM.
About the post, I agree with Davio, however, I do not think those good qualities are related (at least not too strongly) with him being arrogant or whatever. Plenty of arrogant people that are also smart, passionate and good persons.
However, why would we (or him) care so deeply about him being perceived as arrogant or not in the internet? Is definitely not such a big deal, and I don't think responses in this forum are conclusive proofs about his actual personality in either way. If he was asking people their skin color to decide weither to answer their questions, it would be different, but is nothing like that, so what's the point?
I think what we are actually doing here is almost Analysis Paralysis, just analizing a situation for the sake of arguments and discussion without any actual consequence or conclusion coming up. I know I do this a lot, and the nerdy folks I know IRL also, so I guess is just "professional" deviations, but we should seriously stop and get something useful, like nice questions.
So, questions:
What are the best games of Dominion you remember playing and why? (more fun, surprising, whatever)
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I wonder if it included Rats and Knights. :)
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What are the best games of Dominion you remember playing and why? (more fun, surprising, whatever)
I have commented on some memorable games in secret histories and that post in response to "maybe you should try getting beaten with KC/Masq/Goons before commenting on it" and such. It will be hard to find good new stories. Which I think is what I said previously in this thread. There isn't generally going to be much of a story to a random game with Rats that was a blast.
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What are the best games of Dominion you remember playing and why? (more fun, surprising, whatever)
I have commented on some memorable games in secret histories and that post in response to "maybe you should try getting beaten with KC/Masq/Goons before commenting on it" and such. It will be hard to find good new stories. Which I think is what I said previously in this thread. There isn't generally going to be much of a story to a random game with Rats that was a blast.
Sorry, I did not explain myself correctly, I was not requesting anecdotes (although I love those), I was thinking more on "were there boards that surprise you because of its power or fun or whatever?". Do you even keep some boards to study later like we do here?
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Sorry, I did not explain myself correctly, I was not requesting anecdotes (although I love those), I was thinking more on "were there boards that surprise you because of its power or fun or whatever?". Do you even keep some boards to study later like we do here?
Well playtest games played online all had that uh block of text from isotropic showing how they went posted in a thread so I could review them, sometimes with a sentence of description. Mostly I wasn't looking at those cards later - an exception would be like when Crossroads / Margrave was too strong and we had to work out what cards exactly were the problem. If nothing was a problem then we just moved on to the next game of random cards. When it came time to make recommended sets I made lists and then we tried them; obv. any particular combo I remembered enjoying might make it, but I wasn't saving up sets of 10.
As far as sets where we focused on them due to problems, the big one is again Crossroads at +2 actions every time / Margrave / Spice Merchant / Highway / "discard x coppers, gain a card costing up to $3+X." As I have related it turned out that Crossroads and Margrave were the issue and Crossroads was more fixable given what I was getting from both cards. Generally a power problem is more obviously confined to one card and so there's not a memorable set of 10, just, that card seems broken and we play it some more.
If it were rare for a random set of 10 to be fun, I would be desperately trying to fix that. Some are more fun than others but not by a sad margin. There are broad issues like "are there enough villages" and I look at those.
Okay I searched for "fun" in the latest version of the thread. Most of the hits are for Sir Destry saying how fun some specific card is. Most of the sets you couldn't play anyway. Here's an example set though, described as "really, really fun:"
cards in supply: Armory, Counting House, Develop, Great Hall, Hermit, Mandarin, Rebuild, Talisman, Walled Village, and Wandering Minstrel
Armory is Storeroom; Walled Village is Fortress; and Rebuild is some kind of Remodel outtake, I don't know which one. Probably one of the $5's since then you could Develop a Fortress into it. Destry specifically cited getting to go village, Counting House, Madman, and also using Hermits to draw Fortresses.
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There are 12 blank cards in Seaside; enough room for an extra kingdom card. Why was the decision made to have blanks instead of an extra card? This is especially notable as seaside had at least 2 outtakes that were deemed good enough to release as promo cards.
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There are 12 blank cards in Seaside; enough room for an extra kingdom card. Why was the decision made to have blanks instead of an extra card? This is especially notable as seaside had at least 2 outtakes that were deemed good enough to release as promo cards.
Originally the mats were going to be cards (which takes 18 cards total). Then when it turned out they were going to be mats, Haven didn't seem like it needed more testing, and some people felt like some people would like blanks. If it had switched from cards to mats earlier, I expect I would have put another card in, although I don't think Black Market or Stash would have made it.
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Why is there a strict requirement to have a round number of cards to the point where it influences what cards make it into the game?
Also, what's your take on including blank cards in general? What do you anticipate players do with them? If you could go back and replace the blank cards and placeholders (which IIRC you never used) with new cards, would you?
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Why is there a strict requirement to have a round number of cards to the point where it influences what cards make it into the game?
Also, what's your take on including blank cards in general? What do you anticipate players do with them? If you could go back and replace the blank cards and placeholders (which IIRC you never used) with new cards, would you?
The number of cards comes from whatever RGG agrees to with the printer. There's a deal for a round number or something. 493 cards would cost as much as 500 so we might as well give you 7 blanks. In some cases we could give you more Spoils or something instead, but in others it's like, a blank is maybe better than more Silver. Obv. when it hits 11 cards we can give you another kingdom card.
I have no interest in blanks. You can always sleeve cards and stick a slip of paper in front with your homemade card image, as I do for prototypes; you don't specifically need blanks. You can use extra treasures/VP from Intrigue, or cards you don't like.
The Copper etc. placeholders were obv. not the move. I did not advocate those, or try to fight against them; it didn't feel like I got to make those decisions. I would use those slots for something better, who wouldn't. The randomizers, I'm not sure, I don't have a good idea as to whether people in general would prefer to have them or not. They might prefer to have them. The main set could benefit from having more variety, but it could manage that with the 25 cards it has, or the 26 it would have with just dumping the Copper etc. placeholders.
I expect most players do not use the blanks, but I know some people want them.
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I assumed that the blanks were there in case you lost or damaged a card.
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Total cards in each set that are randomisers, blanks and placeholders:
*Base set: 40 cards (4 kingdom cards)
*Intrigue: 33 cards (3 kingdom cards)
*Seaside: 38 cards (3 kingdom cards)
*Alchemy: 12 cards (1 kingdom card)
*Prosperity: 26 cards (2 kingdom cards)
*Cornucopia: 13 cards (1 kingdom card)
*Hinterlands: 34 cards (3 kingdom cards)
*Dark Ages: 35 cards (3 kingdom cards)
For a total of 231 printed cards that aren't used in gameplay (I'll assume guilds will add another 13 unless the randomiser cards are built into the mechanic somehow)
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I assumed that the blanks were there in case you lost or damaged a card.
I think that was part of the idea behind blanks rather than more Coppers etc., but probably just a couple blanks do the trick there.
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In the Rules Questions subforum, there was recently another question about the interaction of Ironworks / Trader. I noticed that you didn't say anything specific about this confusion in your Dominion Time Machine post a while back (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3353.0 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3353.0)), although you did say you would consider dropping the reaction on Trader.
If you had it to do again, would you reword Ironworks somehow? Which (if any) other cards would you reword purely to clarify intended behavior / interactions?
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In the Rules Questions subforum, there was recently another question about the interaction of Ironworks / Trader. I noticed that you didn't say anything specific about this confusion in your Dominion Time Machine post a while back (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3353.0 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3353.0)), although you did say you would consider dropping the reaction on Trader.
If you had it to do again, would you reword Ironworks somehow? Which (if any) other cards would you reword purely to clarify intended behavior / interactions?
I don't imagine there's a better wording for Ironworks that isn't just confusing for no benefit. Trader issues are most easily solved by not doing the reaction part of Trader; the game doesn't need any particular card. If I wanted to do the reaction but somehow simplify it, it could give you a Silver in addition to whatever (non-Silver) else rather than instead of it. The main argument against Trader as it stands is that the game has only a tiny number of "replacements" (things that happen instead of other things), and so they are especially confusing; it would be better to do none at all or to have them be common. The reason I considered dropping the reaction in that post wasn't rules issues though, it was just, I had wanted the set to be simple enough to be a standalone and dropping that reaction is a step in that direction. The top was a compelling card by itself and it's so much simpler not to have a reaction too, even if the reaction is simple.
In general for any rules question the issue is, how much does this come up. Sometimes it's never coming up except for people who want to poke at the rules; those things are not much of a problem. Sometimes it comes up but very rarely. Sometimes it comes up but if people get it wrong it's probably not so bad; the key thing is that people can come to an agreement by looking at the rulebook. So in general what I care about is failing to include a particular interaction in the rulebook, rather than that particular interaction existing. If Trader's FAQ answered the Ironworks question then I would consider that sufficient there. I like common questions to be answered right on the card and well I work on the wordings.
I may have blown it on some random phrasings but I feel like I have already looked through the cards for these things, in particular for that post you cite. Where earlier cards don't match later ones, I would probably switch to the later style, such as saying "Silver" rather than "Silver card."
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IF (big if) you decided to do an expansion after Guilds, do you think it would be large (500 cards), normal (300 cards) or small (150 cards)?
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Why don't you join any of the Forum Games?
You'd make a great Mafia member as no one wants to kill the Dominion Godfather!
Heck, you could threaten to make an entire expansion of Scout clones and they wouldn't touch you.
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IF (big if) you decided to do an expansion after Guilds, do you think it would be large (500 cards), normal (300 cards) or small (150 cards)?
Small seems more likely.
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Why don't you join any of the Forum Games?
You'd make a great Mafia member as no one wants to kill the Dominion Godfather!
Heck, you could threaten to make an entire expansion of Scout clones and they wouldn't touch you.
They sound stressful. Mafia seems like it would take up way too much time, but for something faster, I dunno, too much pressure. I've considered running something sometime though.
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This is a bit of a specific question, but if the original version of Feast was too strong, how in the world did Mining Village pass muster? I'd think that "+1 Card. +2 Actions. +$2. Trash this." would be generally be more powerful than "+1 Action. +$3. Trash this." Mining Village even gives you the option of not trashing it.
EDIT: I'm not arguing that the old version of Feast was that interesting or worth printing, but the comparison between the two cards interests me.
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Why don't you join any of the Forum Games?
You'd make a great Mafia member as no one wants to kill the Dominion Godfather!
Heck, you could threaten to make an entire expansion of Scout clones and they wouldn't touch you.
They sound stressful. Mafia seems like it would take up way too much time, but for something faster, I dunno, too much pressure. I've considered running something sometime though.
Oh man. I (and so many others) would be all over that.
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This is a bit of a specific question, but if the original version of Feast was too strong, how in the world did Mining Village pass muster? I'd think that "+1 Card. +2 Actions. +$2. Trash this." would be generally be more powerful than "+1 Action. +$3. Trash this." Mining Village even gives you the option of not trashing it.
EDIT: I'm not arguing that the old version of Feast was that interesting or worth printing, but the comparison between the two cards interests me.
The first explanation is that only four people were playing Dominion when I decided old-Feast was too good, and none of them had been playing for long. We would get a Gold with it on turn 3 automatically and it seemed like, this is no good. I don't know how it would go if we playtested it today. Obviously the game has ways to get turn 3 Gold, some of which leave you in a better position than old-Feast, some worse. Old-Feast was pretty automatic though. You bought it to get that Gold and then got that Gold with it.
The second is that trashing Mining Village early is not quite as surefire there because the card is sometimes an Estate. The extra action doesn't matter turn 3, you don't have two more action cards. Similarly Smithy is a good start towards turn 3 Gold (and then you have a good card in your deck), but you aren't guaranteed +$3 when you first draw it. Smithy is a good card at $4, but +$3 can't cost $4, it would make for some really dull games.
The fact that people don't automatically consider buying turn one Mining Village in order to immediately trash it is good too.
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Okay I searched for "fun" in the latest version of the thread. Most of the hits are for Sir Destry saying how fun some specific card is. Most of the sets you couldn't play anyway. Here's an example set though, described as "really, really fun:"
cards in supply: Armory, Counting House, Develop, Great Hall, Hermit, Mandarin, Rebuild, Talisman, Walled Village, and Wandering Minstrel
Armory is Storeroom; Walled Village is Fortress; and Rebuild is some kind of Remodel outtake, I don't know which one. Probably one of the $5's since then you could Develop a Fortress into it. Destry specifically cited getting to go village, Counting House, Madman, and also using Hermits to draw Fortresses.
The Rebuild for that period was "Trash a card from your hand. Gain two differently named cards each costing exactly $2 more than the trashed card."
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Okay I searched for "fun" in the latest version of the thread. Most of the hits are for Sir Destry saying how fun some specific card is. Most of the sets you couldn't play anyway. Here's an example set though, described as "really, really fun:"
cards in supply: Armory, Counting House, Develop, Great Hall, Hermit, Mandarin, Rebuild, Talisman, Walled Village, and Wandering Minstrel
Armory is Storeroom; Walled Village is Fortress; and Rebuild is some kind of Remodel outtake, I don't know which one. Probably one of the $5's since then you could Develop a Fortress into it. Destry specifically cited getting to go village, Counting House, Madman, and also using Hermits to draw Fortresses.
The Rebuild for that period was "Trash a card from your hand. Gain two differently named cards each costing exactly $2 more than the trashed card."
So presumably you'd usually be trashing Estates and $3 cards with it. Interesting.
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Where do expect Dominion to be in 50 years? Still on store shelves?
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Where do expect Dominion to be in 50 years? Still on store shelves?
I don't have much to go on here. There are gamer's games that have stayed in print for 20 years; I think Dominion looks okay there. Boardgame technology and competing entertainment have changed so much in the last 50 years though.
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Why don't you join any of the Forum Games?
You'd make a great Mafia member as no one wants to kill the Dominion Godfather!
Heck, you could threaten to make an entire expansion of Scout clones and they wouldn't touch you.
They sound stressful. Mafia seems like it would take up way too much time, but for something faster, I dunno, too much pressure. I've considered running something sometime though.
Well, Mafia can be stressful and time consuming, but there are a lot of alternatives.
We're playing all sorts of games now, ranging from actual board games like Pandemic, Small World, Diplomacy, Gauntlet of Fools, Witch's Brew and such to single submission psychology games like trying be the furthest from any other guess or the Coin Game.
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Do you think Dominion has the potential to catch on big-time with the general public (people who have only played Monopoly and such)?
I do.
I paid no attention to gaming communities until my boy was given Dominion as a Christmas present in 2011. Now I follow this board and try to play a game every night. I see this game as having huge crossover appeal. Of course it would need much more marketing support to pull this off.
Rob
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Do you think Dominion has the potential to catch on big-time with the general public (people who have only played Monopoly and such)?
I do.
I paid no attention to gaming communities until my boy was given Dominion as a Christmas present in 2011. Now I follow this board and try to play a game every night. I see this game as having huge crossover appeal. Of course it would need much more marketing support to pull this off.
Thanks, happy to have sucked you in.
I don't really know what the general public can tolerate in games. I think normal people can play Dominion, and I know it's done well as a gamers' spouses game. I don't know if full-on non-gamer couples would actually prefer it to other entertainment options though. I do not have much to go on there.
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I don't really know what the general public can tolerate in games. I think normal people can play Dominion, and I know it's done well as a gamers' spouses game. I don't know if full-on non-gamer couples would actually prefer it to other entertainment options though. I do not have much to go on there.
I can speak to this. My sister likes to play games, but before I introduced her to hobby games, her favorite games were things like Sequence. We've only played a handful of hobby games, but there have only been two that she liked enough to want to play more of them: Dominion and Ticket To Ride. So there you go. My anecdotal evidence totally supports you. Now if I can just stop her from calling the card, "Smitty..."
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I have tried to get non-gamers interested in Dominion, but I think seeing all the cards laying out there for a complete non-gamer is just too daunting.
I have to soften them up with less awesome games first and then once they have a grasp of strategy and tactics, I say "oh why don't we try this one next"
Anybody who is at heart a gamer, but just doesn't know it yet (Closet Gamers?) it gets brought out right away.
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When you're making an expansion, how much consideration are you giving to the cards themselves, and how much to how they fit together?
In other words, would you be fine releasing an expansion of "all-star" cards, or would you rather have cards that fit together in some way, even if it means losing a bit of "all-star"-ness?
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When you're making an expansion, how much consideration are you giving to the cards themselves, and how much to how they fit together?
Every set has general things it wants that all sets want - a certain percentage of villages and so on. A particular set may have other needs - generally just, having the new things show up a good amount. For example I wanted Dark Ages to have three ways to use Ruins, but only two of them to be attacks, so there was this special need for something that Death Cart filled. This can mean one card's existence affects another - Margrave is providing +buy, only so many cards in Hinterlands should, something else may not get to.
But in general the existence of multiple expansions means that any great card that can't fit due to these roles can just go in another set. The worst case is, a great card that won't fit anywhere could be a promo.
In other words, would you be fine releasing an expansion of "all-star" cards, or would you rather have cards that fit together in some way, even if it means losing a bit of "all-star"-ness?
Hobby Japan has done several rethemes - Dominion cards grouped different ways and with new art and names. I am totally fine with those and have offered advice on their lists. An English all-star set isn't out of the question. It would still have a good proportion of villages and so on though, even if that meant taking a non-all-star to fill out a slot. In practice that just wouldn't matter, "all-star" isn't precise enough and most cards aren't duds.
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You heard it, Guilds has a Village! ;D :P
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You heard it, Guilds has a Village! ;D :P
And a certain percentage of them! Alchemy only had one village -- University -- but I suppose its non-terminal theme made them less necessary. Cornucopia has two -- Farming Village and Hamlet. Three if you count Trusty Steed.
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Id put Mining Village and Fishing Village in an All Star list anyway, possibly even Working Village!
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Id put Mining Village and Fishing Village in an All Star list anyway, possibly even Working Village!
Hamlet, man!
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Here is a collection of mistakes in the German forums:
http://forum.dominionblog.de/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1338
This is great, but if you want to go that extra mile, what Goko will need to fix these is fixed text in German. I'm sure they can get someone to translate for them, but you know, if you have fixed text I will give it to them and you will get to have it all just the way you wanted.
I was at Goko when they were copying the German from the cards into their system and I did make sure that King's Court and Venture were corrected (but that's the only errata I noticed at the time). Thanks for the link, kn1tt3r, I'll make sure that they get looked at.
Thanks a lot.
I got permission to edit their card text and all the errata on the German page you linked to should be in (but I did the copy-paste manually myself so I can't guarantee that it's completely error free).
Here's hoping there aren't any mistakes in the Guilds translation...
I got permission to edit their card text and all the errata on the German page you linked to should be in (but I did the copy-paste manually myself so I can't guarantee that it's completely error free).
Here's hoping there aren't any mistakes in the Guilds translation...
Incidentally I sent the list to Jay and I believe fixes will be incorporated into future printed German cards also.
Regarding the problems with Hans im Glück and RGG, I think Hans im Glück won't publish the German version of Guilds right?
If this is true, can you say something about if there's already a replacement publisher found for the German version?
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Regarding the problems with Hans im Glück and RGG, I think Hans im Glück won't publish the German version of Guilds right?
If this is true, can you say something about if there's already a replacement publisher found for the German version?
Last I heard HiG was out of the picture. I don't know where things stand. I don't know who is publishing Guilds in German. I bet someone will be doing it.
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Regarding the problems with Hans im Glück and RGG, I think Hans im Glück won't publish the German version of Guilds right?
If this is true, can you say something about if there's already a replacement publisher found for the German version?
Last I heard HiG was out of the picture. I don't know where things stand. I don't know who is publishing Guilds in German. I bet someone will be doing it.
If you need someone I just got myself a swish new Epson Stylus C20UX off a guy in the market, will do a bang up job!
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And a certain percentage of them! Alchemy only had one village -- University
I'll count Golem as a kind of village
Every large expansion has three villages cards that let you play more actions
base has festival, village and throne room
intrigue has mining village, shanty town and nobles
seaside has fishing village, native village and bazaar
prosperity has KC, city and WV
hinterlands has Xroads, BV and Inn
Every small expansion has 2
alchemy: kind of golem and uni
cornucopia hamlet and Farming Village (ok Trusty steed also)
DA has as a 1.5 expansion 5 villages: squire, Wandering Ministrell, Procession, Fortress and Bandit Camp
so we can expect 2 +action cards i Guilds :)
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Oh I got a real life legit question for once!
Urchin -> Mercenary
Whats the thought process behind that?
If your street urchin gets attacked he grows up to be a big bad mercenary?
Or its a mercenary posing as a street urchin in order to trap unwary thugs?
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On the topic, are there any other card names you are particularly proud of? I like City a lot.
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Oh I got a real life legit question for once!
Urchin -> Mercenary
Whats the thought process behind that?
If your street urchin gets attacked he grows up to be a big bad mercenary?
Or its a mercenary posing as a street urchin in order to trap unwary thugs?
As a kid he's an urchin, he grows up to be a mercenary. He gets taught the ropes by another attack card. Even if it's just another urchin he learns a thing or two.
Previously he grew up to be a bandit. That made more sense. It didn't work out because sometimes you would want to fight Bandit by buying some and you couldn't, you had to upgrade Urchins. So I switched it to Mercenary, which was called Mercenary because you pay it to attack.
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Previously he grew up to be a bandit. That made more sense. It didn't work out because sometimes you would want to fight Bandit by buying some and you couldn't, you had to upgrade Urchins.
Also, Bandit is now Rogue, I think?
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On the topic, are there any other card names you are particularly proud of? I like City a lot.
City was called Boomtown when I passed the file on to Jay. There was a sketch for it I was commenting on and I was saying how the name suggested wild west but of course we wanted medieval, and Jay said oh uh maybe we should rename it. City is a great name for it so that all worked out.
Man, good card names. Scheme is pretty satisfying. Jester had to be in some sense a funny card, and I was happy there. Treasure Map is nice; the card was not based on the concept. Torturer feels like he's torturing. Ruined Market etc. are pretty cute. Procession is nice for a Throne variant. I like Band of Misfits a lot.
Ill-Gotten Gains was a hard one. It was originally Bad Penny, and then for a while it was Cursed Idol. People would say, but it doesn't curse the person with the idol. Tunnel was hard; what gives you gold when you discard? Sometimes you discard to attacks, in which case it's an escape tunnel; other times you have a name like Cellar, some kind of basement or storage area, and the tunnel leads away from that. It doesn't always work but it hits sometimes. Anyway neither of those is top-notch, I am just telling name stories.
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Previously he grew up to be a bandit. That made more sense. It didn't work out because sometimes you would want to fight Bandit by buying some and you couldn't, you had to upgrade Urchins.
Also, Bandit is now Rogue, I think?
Well yes, but Bandit was different. It didn't make +$2 but both attacked and gained-from-the-trash in the same turn.
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The nice thing about Torturer is that it lends itself to a verb which is appropriate. (iso's "waiting for X to be tortured" always makes me giggle). But the decision making, it can be quite torturous.
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Sometimes when I play a Torturer on Isotropic, when no one can hear me, I say out loud "Wheee, torture torture torture torture". So if anyone plays against me and I play a Torturer, now you can imagine that.
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Previously he grew up to be a bandit. That made more sense. It didn't work out because sometimes you would want to fight Bandit by buying some and you couldn't, you had to upgrade Urchins.
Also, Bandit is now Rogue, I think?
Well yes, but Bandit was different. It didn't make +$2 but both attacked and gained-from-the-trash in the same turn.
Wow. My initial reaction is that I like that a lot. It trashes an opponents card worth $3-$6 and then gains a $3-$6 from the trash. Effectively a thief for "everything else".
Why did you change it? Was the trash and gain too powerful (or bit powerful enough, hense the +$2?)
Ed
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Wow. My initial reaction is that I like that a lot. It trashes an opponents card worth $3-$6 and then gains a $3-$6 from the trash. Effectively a thief for "everything else".
Why did you change it? Was the trash and gain too powerful (or bit powerful enough, hense the +$2?)
It was not too powerful.
There is a certain kind of player who does not enjoy having a Duchy stolen. It's one thing to make you lose a Duchy; it's another if I get it at the same time. This was further compounded by your inability to buy a Bandit. You steal my Duchy and I'm all ugh fine whatever I buy a Bandit. Wait I can't, I need to upgrade an Urchin, it is so not happening.
So I moved Bandit out of Urchin-land, and then had it attack less often. And splitting the attack and gain meant it needed that +$2.
For a long time the set had three trashing attacks - Knights, Bandit, and Barbarian, which was "+$2, each other player trashes their top card and gains a cheaper card that shares a type with it, or a Ruins if they can't." I especially liked Barbarian. But I think a lot of Dominion players are not keen on this kind of attack, and the players who do like them did not need three of them. So they got one and a half.
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Barbarian sounds really cool. A candidate for a Dark Ages card in the Treasure Chest set? ;D
(I know you've said that if there was going to be anything after Guilds, Jay would rather have it be something new than a set with more Durations/VP token cards/etc so I guess that really makes my question did it get substantial play testing, or did the decision to drop it come before it got very much?)
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Barbarian sounds really cool. A candidate for a Dark Ages card in the Treasure Chest set? ;D
(I know you've said that if there was going to be anything after Guilds, Jay would rather have it be something new than a set with more Durations/VP token cards/etc so I guess that really makes my question did it get substantial play testing, or did the decision to drop it come before it got very much?)
Barbarian got plenty of testing.
The reasons for not doing Barbarian in Dark Ages continue to apply for not doing Barbarian elsewhere. Justifying bringing it back would require like some market research showing universal love for the Knights.
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You've said that you avoid politics in your games, and something that I appreciate about Dominion over say, Settlers of Catan, is that you avoid all the robber placement nonsense and one person feeling like everyone is ganging up on them. At the other extreme is a game like Diplomacy, where politics is most of the point. Perhaps counter-intuitively, it's one of my other favorite games (though I play it orders of magnitude less often due to the difficulty in getting 7 interested people together for a whole day). Have you played Diplomacy, and do you like it? Based on playing it, or perhaps what you've heard, do you think politics works in this sort of situation where it becomes the focus rather than an annoyance.
In reference to the massive, time-consuming game aspect, do you design your games to be quick because you, personally enjoy quick games more or because you think that they have broader appeal and people get to play them more often? Same with the politics: do you avoid politics because you like apolitical games better or because you think it makes them more fun for consumers?
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Name, reaction, and artwork of Horse Traders synergise very well. I find this card very thematic.
Bazaar should have been a Village. Every card which looks like a market should net a Buy.
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Since GeoLib has asked your opinion of Diplomacy, I need to ask your opinion of Axis and Allies. My boy Timothy insists.
Rob
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You've said that you avoid politics in your games, and something that I appreciate about Dominion over say, Settlers of Catan, is that you avoid all the robber placement nonsense and one person feeling like everyone is ganging up on them. At the other extreme is a game like Diplomacy, where politics is most of the point. Perhaps counter-intuitively, it's one of my other favorite games (though I play it orders of magnitude less often due to the difficulty in getting 7 interested people together for a whole day). Have you played Diplomacy, and do you like it? Based on playing it, or perhaps what you've heard, do you think politics works in this sort of situation where it becomes the focus rather than an annoyance.
I have not played Diplomacy. I have played other political games, like Risk and Settlers.
I think it's fine if some people like political games; I just don't like them. I don't enjoy spending the evening whining about who gets the robber and don't trade with Tom; I don't want the game to come down to people picking who wins. Richard Garfield argues that all political games are the same; he likes politics but doesn't need more games that have it. I don't remember how he actually argues this, but it seems to me that if convincing another player to do things good for both of you is more useful than whatever else you're doing with the components, then that's the game, the rest is window dressing. But I personally don't even want that one political game.
In reference to the massive, time-consuming game aspect, do you design your games to be quick because you, personally enjoy quick games more or because you think that they have broader appeal and people get to play them more often? Same with the politics: do you avoid politics because you like apolitical games better or because you think it makes them more fun for consumers?
Being fast does a lot for you.
Fast games are good because there are more opportunities to play them, players get more of a chance to win a game over the evening, and you get more variety of experiences over your evening.
I have made longer games, but they're less likely to get published. I make shorter games because 1) I like that for several reasons, 2) other people like it, 3) we get in more plays, 4) they are more publishable.
I don't like political games. You can't eliminate politics in multiplayer games with interaction and decisions. You can cut it down to size though. There is kingmaking in Dominion, but not enough to make it a game that people say has kingmaking in it. I don't know how the public in general feels about politics, but I think, they've got those games already, they don't need them from me.
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Name, reaction, and artwork of Horse Traders synergise very well. I find this card very thematic.
Bazaar should have been a Village. Every card which looks like a market should net a Buy.
Bazaar has that name because there was unused art from the main set that needed to be used - specifically, unused art for Market.
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Since GeoLib has asked your opinion of Diplomacy, I need to ask your opinion of Axis and Allies. My boy Timothy insists.
I have not played Axis and Allies and do not even have much of a notion of how it goes.
I liked Vinci but it had too much politics. I am told Small World has less kingmaking but I haven't played it. Risk (the "classic" game rather than modern versions) is the game I am most likely to use as an example of what not to do.
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Richard Garfield argues that all political games are the same; he likes politics but doesn't need more games that have it. I don't remember how he actually argues this, but it seems to me that if convincing another player to do things good for both of you is more useful than whatever else you're doing with the components, then that's the game, the rest is window dressing.
At least you can get away with designing an unbalanced game and rely on players' diplomacy to even it out. The races in Cosmic Encounter are not quite balanced but it doesn't matter much.
I think I get the gist of Richard Garfield's argument here but I have seen few games in which diplomacy is so dominant (the Werewolves/Mafia type of games come to mind but they don't deny that it's all about persuading). Most games are of the sort that someone should be able to trailblaze multiple paths to victory that cannot be blocked by everyone else. Your pet peeve Risk is not of the sort, that's why it takes ages to complete.
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Richard Garfield argues that all political games are the same; he likes politics but doesn't need more games that have it. I don't remember how he actually argues this, but it seems to me that if convincing another player to do things good for both of you is more useful than whatever else you're doing with the components, then that's the game, the rest is window dressing.
Wow, and then he designed King of Tokyo....
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Name, reaction, and artwork of Horse Traders synergise very well. I find this card very thematic.
Bazaar should have been a Village. Every card which looks like a market should net a Buy.
Bazaar has that name because there was unused art from the main set that needed to be used - specifically, unused art for Market.
It's really an exception to quite workable mnemonics the card names offer. A positive example is using verbs for cards that trash to get something better ("mine" can also be a verb). In German they use words ending with "-bau". One more adantage to your putting a cap on expansions: You have more verbs in English than we have words ending on "-bau".
I have bought Bazaar more than once only to find out later that it doesn't offer the +buy (well less often than I have mistaken Mine for Mint -- "hey, where's all my Silver?"). More so as Festival is Jahrmarkt in German.
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I think I get the gist of Richard Garfield's argument here but I have seen few games in which diplomacy is so dominant (the Werewolves/Mafia type of games come to mind but they don't deny that it's all about persuading). Most games are of the sort that someone should be able to trailblaze multiple paths to victory that cannot be blocked by everyone else. Your pet peeve Risk is not of the sort, that's why it takes ages to complete.
That's not Richard's argument, that's my argument: "I don't remember how he actually argues this, but it seems to me that..." Possibly you can dig up one of his old Duelist articles online. I know he explained the "chip-taking game," which is a very simple pure politics game.
I am not convinced by your statement about "most games." If most games are two player or have two teams or are co-ops or N-against-1 or are decisionless then hey, no politics. Multiplayer games with interaction and decisions always have politics, and not every designer tries to mute the politics. Risk is not unique, it is typical of an era.
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Most games are of the sort that someone should be able to trailblaze multiple paths to victory that cannot be blocked by everyone else.
If most games are two player or have two teams or are co-ops or N-against-1 or are decisionless then hey, no politics. Multiplayer games with interaction and decisions always have politics, and not every designer tries to mute the politics.
I didn't say "no politics". Cyclades, for instance, has a lot of decisions inflicting harm to a specific opponent (being overbid can be cruel). Yet politics does not dominate the game to an extent where you could as well play Mafia.
Risk is not unique, it is typical of an era.
Definitely, but I didn't have the games in mind that didn't stand the test of time when I said "most games".
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I didn't say "no politics". Cyclades, for instance, has a lot of decisions inflicting harm to a specific opponent (being overbid can be cruel). Yet politics does not dominate the game to an extent where you could as well play Mafia.
Definitely, but I didn't have the games in mind that didn't stand the test of time when I said "most games".
Let us avoid a pointless endless argument over exactly what people mean with words. I don't need to convince you that any particular fraction of published games have whatever level of politics, and don't wish to spend time analyzing the data.
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Were there any other Dominion cards that were named for animals at some point, besides Rats, Trusty Steed and Familiar?
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Was there any point during Dominion's development etc when you were ready to give up?
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Were there any other Dominion cards that were named for animals at some point, besides Rats, Trusty Steed and Familiar?
I considered "Menagerie" as an expansion theme at one point, and it came up again for Cornucopia, although that was really just a joke.
There were a couple cards called Kennel in Dark Ages. The original was "+1 card +1 action, name a type, others reveal their top cards and trash the ones that match." Dog & Pony Show, from Cornucopia, drew you one of each different card in the top 5.
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Was there any point during Dominion's development etc when you were ready to give up?
Well it worked immediately, so no. Sometimes I make a game and it has issues I don't see answers for and I put it aside for 6 months or 5 years or some combination of forever and who knows. Dominion worked the first night, so that was that.
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1. Why is the background of Action - Reaction cards blue instead of White and Blue? It seems that either this or Treasure - Reaction or Action - Victory is "wrong", i.e., there seems to be no simple to explain convention regarding how to assign colors. Maybe a Treasure - Reaction was not planned when Moat got full blue background?
2. Is it possible / feasible to have Treasure - Duration type?
3. When learning that Dark Ages had a trashing theme, I was expecting a Victory Card scoring points per cards in the trash (or something else trash related). This is a really simple idea, so my wild guess is that it was considered. Is there something particularly broken about something like that? (maybe an Action - Victory that potentially trashes, so there is always a trasher in the board).
4. After Prosperity, there seems to be a really thin line between non-terminal non-village Actions and Treasures, but there are lots of cards that care about that thin line (even disregarding the "drawing nonterminals dead" possibility). At this point, I even think the difference between Actions and Kingdom Treasures is more of a "spirit" things, so that things that interact specifically with one kind have some meaning. After a kind of long introduction, my question is, do you base the decision of weither something should be an Action or a Treasure purely based on possible game interactions? If so, is there any kind of rule of thumb to decide what type to assign to a card to put something to avoid bad interactions in future cards?
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1. Why is the background of Action - Reaction cards blue instead of White and Blue? It seems that either this or Treasure - Reaction or Action - Victory is "wrong", i.e., there seems to be no simple to explain convention regarding how to assign colors. Maybe a Treasure - Reaction was not planned when Moat got full blue background?
I remember answering this one on BGG, and hey here's that post.
I did think of this back when, and mentioned it in case anyone cared.
In Dominion, color indicates type, but type doesn't always mean a color, and the Action type does not always have its color represented.
The way to think of this is in terms of functionality. Why have colors at all?
- Green lets you know that you don't need to look at those cards in your hand, they are doing nothing. And it helps you sort them at the end too.
- Yellow lets you know you can play that card in your buy phase.
- Blue lets you know that this card does something at an unusual time. Look at your hand, see if there's a blue card.
- Orange reminds you that this might stay out an extra turn instead of being discarded.
Curses didn't strictly need their own color but it seemed nice to help sort them and they got one. Attacks were originally pink but I switched to the default white there because that word "attack" didn't have any meaning. It's just there so cards can refer to it.
White is just the default color; an Action with nothing extra going on is white.
So then, why make Nobles etc. white-green? Because normally you can ignore victory cards in hand, that's their deal, but you don't want to ignore Nobles. So it reminds you that it's an action.
Whereas orange-white isn't needed for duration cards because the orange color doesn't mean "ignore this."
For Moat in particular, there it was as the only reaction in the main set. It did not want to be two colors, that seemed more confusing rather than less confusing.
The "when-gain" ability could have had a type and color, to help remind you to do something when you gain one. But then Mint couldn't have been in Prosperity, and I didn't consider this back then.
Anyway, Moat could have been blue-white, this did not go unnoticed but it did go undone.
2. Is it possible / feasible to have Treasure - Duration type?
I would have to read the Seaside rulebook to know for sure. Read the Seaside rulebook, see what you think. The Seaside rulebook could have been written such that treasure-duration worked, but I don't know if it was.
3. When learning that Dark Ages had a trashing theme, I was expecting a Victory Card scoring points per cards in the trash (or something else trash related). This is a really simple idea, so my wild guess is that it was considered. Is there something particularly broken about something like that? (maybe an Action - Victory that potentially trashes, so there is always a trasher in the board).
There are secret histories for each expansion, you can see the Dark Ages one on this very site at http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4318.0
- Another late card was a treasure-victory card, worth $1 plus $1 per nontreasure in your hand, and worth 1 VP per 10 cards in the trash. The VP part was crazy, and I replaced this with a treasure worth $1 per different card type in your hand. It was cute in all-Dark Ages games and not so great otherwise. It flirted with staying in the set, then I replaced it with Rebuild.
Seaside also once had a victory card that counted the trash, and Seaside also has a secret history viewable on this site.
- The victory card that Island replaced was an Action-Victory with "Trash a card from the supply costing $6 or less / Worth 1 vp per 3 vp cards in the trash." I always thought it seemed cool and interesting, but in practice it wasn't much fun. If you went for it, other people would get in on it. It would do nothing some games, then dominate others, but never in a fun way. No-one was sad to see it go. There could still be a card someday that trashes supply cards, but in practice it's mostly a waste of time, with players sitting there trying to work out which card to trash in cases where it really doesn't matter (and so it's hard to decide).
4. After Prosperity, there seems to be a really thin line between non-terminal non-village Actions and Treasures, but there are lots of cards that care about that thin line (even disregarding the "drawing nonterminals dead" possibility). At this point, I even think the difference between Actions and Kingdom Treasures is more of a "spirit" things, so that things that interact specifically with one kind have some meaning. After a kind of long introduction, my question is, do you base the decision of weither something should be an Action or a Treasure purely based on possible game interactions? If so, is there any kind of rule of thumb to decide what type to assign to a card to put something to avoid bad interactions in future cards?
Prosperity had a theme of treasures that did things. Originally many of them were "when you spend this," but that created questions that I could solve by going either to "when you play this" or "while this is in play."
Since other sets don't have that theme, they don't have treasures that do something when played unless there's a compelling reason for them. It's not that an action with +1 action could be a treasure; it has to want to be a treasure. Only one card has been tried both ways - Horn of Plenty was an action, and switched to being a treasure in order to count treasures you'd played (in the simplest way). Diadem, Ill-Gotten Gains, and Fool's Gold all do something when played just to let them be worth varying amounts. Spoils does something to be one-use. Counterfeit is specifically a Throne Room for treasures, it plays treasures and so naturally it's a treasure (while some people like that Black Market plays treasures in the action phase, it's too confusing to be worth doing again).
I am not seeing the +1 Action cards that want to be treasures. Obv. anything that also draws cards is unhappy to be a treasure. Forager could be a treasure that makes a variable amount. Rebuild has no reason to be a treasure. Bag of Gold sounds like a treasure, but makes $0; even though Horn of Plenty is a treasure worth $0, that's not something to do for no good reason. Ruined Village for sure did not want to be a treasure.
So overall there's just Forager. I did not consider making Forager a treasure. I applied no rule of thumb; I just never considered it. It was an action and nothing said "wait let's think about this."
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Thanks for the pointers and reposts, and sorry for not remembering those excerpts from the secret histories. I read those a while ago and don't remember every detail. About BGG, well, I just don't read that forum.
2. Is it possible / feasible to have Treasure - Duration type?
I would have to read the Seaside rulebook to know for sure. Read the Seaside rulebook, see what you think. The Seaside rulebook could have been written such that treasure-duration worked, but I don't know if it was.
I did check beforehand and its apparently legal. Maybe my use of the word possible is not clear enough, my question was if there was something broken or not fun or difficult to explain that made such a thing better left out.
I think the Seaside rulebook is not too specific about what a Duration is or is not. Even "Reaction - Duration" would be legal, although it would be probably quite hard to get the text precise enough. Maybe Horse Traders is already an Action - Reaction - Duration, although this opens the door for things like "Action - Duration - Reaction - Duration" and that's probably too much.
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Treasures and Actions operate at different parts of your turn. It does make a difference.
Say you have a three-card hand of Forager, Estate and Horse Traders.
If Forager is an Action: you play Forager, trash the Estate, then play Horse Traders, discarding nothing.
If Forager is a Treasure: You have to play Horse Traders first, since Forager cannot be played yet, and you discard the Estate and the Forager.
Let's say there's a Copper and a Silver in the trash. In the first scenario, you get $5 and 3 Buys. In the second scenario, you get $3 and 2 Buys.
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Thanks for the pointers and reposts, and sorry for not remembering those excerpts from the secret histories. I read those a while ago and don't remember every detail. About BGG, well, I just don't read that forum.
I don't expect people to remember them, it's just, if you have a question about Dark Ages outtakes, there's a source.
I did check beforehand and its apparently legal. Maybe my use of the word possible is not clear enough, my question was if there was something broken or not fun or difficult to explain that made such a thing better left out.
I think the Seaside rulebook is not too specific about what a Duration is or is not. Even "Reaction - Duration" would be legal, although it would be probably quite hard to get the text precise enough. Maybe Horse Traders is already an Action - Reaction - Duration, although this opens the door for things like "Action - Duration - Reaction - Duration" and that's probably too much.
If it didn't conflict with the Seaside rulebook and I was doing a new set with duration cards, I would for sure consider doing a treasure-duration. I don't think it would be too confusing.
A card has to say "duration" to be a duration card, so Horse Traders for example is not one. I wouldn't do a "reaction-duration," that wasn't also an action or treasure, it doesn't make sense. Duration cards stay in play; pure reactions aren't played.
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Have you ever considered making an Action-Treasure? If so, how would such a card work?
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Have you ever considered making an Action-Treasure? If so, how would such a card work?
No, I can't do action-treasure because it would be too confusing. And basically the entire appeal of it would be triggering two things on Ironworks / Tribute / Ironmonger.
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Are there any interesting mechanics that you considered but didn't wind up using? Off the top of my head (just to save you the trouble of repeating yourself) you've mentioned:
* Duration cards that last longer than one turn, which were considered too confusing to mix in with Seaside
* A second resource, which obviously appeared in a very limited form as Potion
* Something like a board, which you say is better used for a spinoff, rather than an individual card that might not be bought and then why did you bother setting the board up.
You've probably mentioned some others in the Secret History articles but I can imagine where many ideas were probably abandoned too early to have ever had a place in one of the sets during development.
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Are there any interesting mechanics that you considered but didn't wind up using? Off the top of my head (just to save you the trouble of repeating yourself) you've mentioned:
* Duration cards that last longer than one turn, which were considered too confusing to mix in with Seaside
* A second resource, which obviously appeared in a very limited form as Potion
* Something like a board, which you say is better used for a spinoff, rather than an individual card that might not be bought and then why did you bother setting the board up.
You've probably mentioned some others in the Secret History articles but I can imagine where many ideas were probably abandoned too early to have ever had a place in one of the sets during development.
Treasury is like a duration card that lasts longer than one turn.
I have a list of possible mechanics. If any of them are really that interesting I should keep them private for now, and consider them for spin-offs. I will mention a few uninteresting things that I decided against.
- My first plan for Intrigue was to have an event deck. You'd flip over a card sometimes and something would happen to everybody. When the time came I didn't try it, because it seemed so superfluous. The game gets tons of variety from changing the ten cards, and an opponent playing an interactive/attack card is like an event.
- There was a Dark Ages outtake, "Choose one: +1 card +1 action, or Throne." It died because it didn't want to cost $5 (it had cost $4 when Throne cost $3). At one point I thought I'd do a mini-theme of cards like that, but I didn't because it wasn't interesting enough to even replace that one card.
- I tried a few cards that did something at the start of your turn, while staying in your hand. There was nothing interesting about this either; if you really want a card that can do a little without using up your action, that can just be a choose one.
- "Cost weirdness" was at one point a theme of a small set. This mechanic is good, but only in small doses. Grand Market and Peddler survived, and a few other cards didn't. There was a VP card that cost less per card you'd drawn, and a card that cost the same as the last card you'd gained that turn.
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I am not seeing the +1 Action cards that want to be treasures.
I think soulnet rather meant kingdom treasures that might as well have been actions, like Quarry, Talisman, and, to a lesser extent, Loan (the power cap on Loan by possibly drawing a copy of it may have been necessary).
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I am not seeing the +1 Action cards that want to be treasures.
I think soulnet rather meant kingdom treasures that might as well have been actions, like Quarry, Talisman, and, to a lesser extent, Loan (the power cap on Loan by possibly drawing a copy of it may have been necessary).
I wanted a treasures-that-do-things theme for Prosperity, and so made treasures that did things. Originally it was "when you spend this," but that creates some questions, so it ended up "when you play this" or "while this is in play."
They were not actions because the whole point was to do treasures.
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What's your favourite flavor of ice cream?
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What's your favourite flavor of ice cream?
Bittersweet Nugget.
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What's your favourite flavor of ice cream?
Bittersweet Nugget.
Who makes the best ice cream? James Bond or Indiana Jones?
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What's your favourite flavor of ice cream?
Bittersweet Nugget.
Who makes the best ice cream? James Bond or Indiana Jones?
Hans Solo, but you have to be careful not to eat any of the carbonite.
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What's your favourite flavor of ice cream?
Bittersweet Nugget.
Who makes the best ice cream? James Bond or Indiana Jones?
Hans Solo, but you have to be careful not to eat any of the carbonite.
+1 for Star Wars jokes, but -1 for Hans.
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+1 for Star Wars jokes, but -1 for Hans.
It's the red queen's race in here.
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What's your favourite flavor of ice cream?
Bittersweet Nugget.
Who makes the best ice cream? James Bond or Indiana Jones?
Hans Solo, but you have to be careful not to eat any of the carbonite.
I knew it! Donald thinks he's too good to eat carbonite!
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What I've always liked about Dominion and disliked about Magic is that in Dominion all players have the same choices. Every card in the kingdom was available to every player. You weren't limited to the amount of money you wanted to spend on random booster packs and such. You could just buy a set, know every card you were going to get and have equal access to all of those cards.
This is what instantly clicked with me. I committed to buying all the expansions if the game promised to be any good, and still be way below the money I spent for M:tG.
I was drawn in for the same reason. I actually had been avoiding ALL CCG/TCG games because of what I witnessed with MtG back in high school. Who wants to play a game where you lose before your 2nd turn? I actually wasn't much into gaming at all until this local company (PKXL, now Little Big Games) came to my work with PK Cards. The game struck me as exceptionally well balanced for a CCG/TCG so I tried it out. I'd love to still be playing it, but it doesn't seem that the company that owns the property actually does anything to promote it. (Which is sad, because it is a very fun game.)
So, as attention at work died, people started bringing in new games. The first such game was San Juan, the second was Dominion. Within 2 weeks I ordered the base game and two expansions to play regularly at game night. (We also tried Thunderstone and Nightfall without interest, the only one that seemed to draw any attention from Dominion was the Resident Evil clone.)
Sorry for the highjack. Donald, you have created an excellent game. I look forward to see what you might work on in the future.
With that said:
Dominion started out as "Castle Builder" and you have a game called Kingdom Builder. What can you say about the parallels between the two game concepts?
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Sorry for the highjack. Donald, you have created an excellent game. I look forward to see what you might work on in the future.
With that said:
Dominion started out as "Castle Builder" and you have a game called Kingdom Builder. What can you say about the parallels between the two game concepts?
Thanks, I'm there for you, and so is this thread; talk about whatever you want in it.
The initial premise of Kingdom Builder was, you played cards to put pieces on a board, and put pieces on a board to gain cards. It was a two-step process, whereas Dominion has a one-step process of playing cards to get cards. But it was directly intended to be a Dominion spin-off.
The idea had issues and I sat on it for a while, trying to think of a resolution I was happy with. In the end that resolution was taking out the deck, and just playing pieces to play pieces, again a one-step process like Dominion.
So they both started out as deckbuilding, and they ended up similar in that in both you have an engine that's just one thing, playing cards or placing pieces. Then of course both of them vary the set-up, including the set of abilities available, although it's the variable scoring that really does the work of providing variety in Kingdom Builder.
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On the matter of a Treasure-Duration type, it may have an awkward interplay with Herbalist (or Mandarin). Scheme topdecks an action when that action is cleaned-up; Herbalist topdecks a treasure when Herbalist is cleaned-up.
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On the matter of a Treasure-Duration type, it may have an awkward interplay with Herbalist (or Mandarin). Scheme topdecks an action when that action is cleaned-up; Herbalist topdecks a treasure when Herbalist is cleaned-up.
Thanks, that would be a good reason not to do one. Scheme struggled to not be confusing with duration cards, and of course Herbalist did not put in that effort.
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Thanks, that would be a good reason not to do one. Scheme struggled to not be confusing with duration cards, and of course Herbalist did not put in that effort.
Well, you already did Procession that takes a Duration card out of play before it finishes having its effect. Having Herbalist do the same is such a big issue to completely forbid Treasure - Duration?
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Well, you already did Procession that takes a Duration card out of play before it finishes having its effect. Having Herbalist do the same is such a big issue to completely forbid Treasure - Duration?
Well the only reason to do a treasure-duration is to do it. You know. For the sake of the novelty of it. It's not compelling in the face of this. Procession was a cool card that I couldn't otherwise make, but whatever the duration treasure is, odds are I can make a fine action version instead.
Again, I currently have zero expansions planned for after Guilds. And any spin-off that had something similar could plan for this.
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I gotta say, I am incredibly excited to see these Dominion spin-offs. Dominion is my favorite game, and I really doubt these games would be worse than the original! :D
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I gotta say, I am incredibly excited to see these Dominion spin-offs. Dominion is my favorite game, and I really doubt these games would be worse than the original! :D
Kingdom Builder? Not that KB's bad, don't mind a game of it every now and then, it's just nowhere near as good as its predecessor.
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What do people call you IRL? Do you have a preference what we call you online? (e.g., you might hate being called DXV for whatever reason)
You don't have an avatar on here... so if you did, what Dominion card would you choose? Would you choose the Isotropic or Official artwork?
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I gotta say, I am incredibly excited to see these Dominion spin-offs. Dominion is my favorite game, and I really doubt these games would be worse than the original! :D
Kingdom Builder? Not that KB's bad, don't mind a game of it every now and then, it's just nowhere near as good as its predecessor.
I really love Kingdom Builder. Not as much as Dominion, but it's great. But like DXV's said, it's a totally different style of game. It started as a spinoff but became its own thing.
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What do people call you IRL? Do you have a preference what we call you online? (e.g., you might hate being called DXV for whatever reason)
You don't have an avatar on here... so if you did, what Dominion card would you choose? Would you choose the Isotropic or Official artwork?
IRL people call me Donald X. Online, if you're talking to me, I prefer Donald X. If you're just talking about me rather than to me, DXV is fine, we'll all know who you're talking about. "That guy."
I've considered using the Nefarious cover guy as a BGG avatar. There's no Dominion card art I feel that special connection to.
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I really love Kingdom Builder. Not as much as Dominion, but it's great. But like DXV's said, it's a totally different style of game. It started as a spinoff but became its own thing.
Thanks, I am pretty pleased with it. I would have liked to have more scoring cards in the main set; I did not have the technology in time. And I would tweak the boards just slightly so that no arrangement can let you connect two buildings on turn one.
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IRL people call me Donald X. Online
Really?
Sorry, couldn't resist. :P
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Do you have any expansions planned for your other games that you can mention now (Kingdom Builder/Gauntlet of Fools/Nefarious/Monster Factory/Infiltration)?
Do you have any new games you are working on getting published or that are about to be published etc that you can mention now?
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Do you have any expansions planned for your other games that you can mention now (Kingdom Builder/Gauntlet of Fools/Nefarious/Monster Factory/Infiltration)?
Do you have any new games you are working on getting published or that are about to be published etc that you can mention now?
I made four total Kingdom Builder expansions. There was one large one originally, I split it into two because they wanted them smaller, and then when Kingdom Builder either got nominated for the SdJ or won it, they said they wanted more, and I made two more. I would not expect more than four but probably they will all come out eventually. The second one is possibly coming out at Nuremberg, it is on W. Eric Martin's list at least.
I made an expansion for Nefarious but I wouldn't get your hopes up there. It could happen if Ascora Games springs back to life, or if I find another publisher after the contract expires, which is in 2016.
I have not made expansions for Gauntlet of Fools, Monster Factory, or Infiltration. For Gauntlet of Fools and Monster Factory, if they're successful enough, a sequel seems more likely than an expansion.
I have two games placed with publishers that have not been announced. I was told one would come out at Nuremberg and well it has not been announced. The other one, they have been working on it and I imagine that means it will come out promptly, but that could easily mean Essen. They haven't tossed around a date so I don't really know. I can't really tell you much about them. One is a gamer's game and the other is a lighter family game.
I am always working on new games, and have older games that I want published. I can't really tell you much about these games.
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I can't really tell you much about them. One is a gamer's game and the other is a lighter family game.
Would you consider Dominion a "gamer's game" or more towards a family game? Obviously those definitions cannot be rigid, there's lot of crossover there. But can you say if this "gamer's game" is heavier or lighter than Dominion?
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What Dominion card(s) we already know do you think have the most depth, i.e., it takes more games and thought to get the whole juice out?
Currently Dominion has a really low variety of materials. Is mostly cards and in a small part some tokens and mats. Did you ever find a limitation there for an idea of a card? Did you thought about cards that used other materials but were not good enough to bother making those new materials (like a board, or counters)?
An example could be a Duration card that makes a variable amount of coin (or draws a variable amount of cards) on the next turn, so that you need something to track that amount. Especially if it depends on what many players do or don't during their turns. Another example would be to add another source of randomness other than shuffling.
How important is to you that every card works with 2 and with 3+ players exactly as written, without referring explicitly to how many players there are? For instance, there are things, like changing the order, which don't make sense in 2 player games. Would you completely rule out a card for that? How likely would it be to have a card that cannot be used in 2 player games (or ruled out for any other number)? How about having different rules, or exceptions, to handle a specific amonut of players?
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I can't really tell you much about them. One is a gamer's game and the other is a lighter family game.
Would you consider Dominion a "gamer's game" or more towards a family game? Obviously those definitions cannot be rigid, there's lot of crossover there. But can you say if this "gamer's game" is heavier or lighter than Dominion?
Dominion is a gamer's game, and it's gone over well with non-gamers, so there you go, what do these terms even mean.
The gamer's game is like at the level Race for the Galaxy would be at if it didn't have the icon issue.
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What Dominion card(s) we already know do you think have the most depth, i.e., it takes more games and thought to get the whole juice out?
I'm not sure I can give this a satisfying answer. Workshop gains a card. Deciding what to gain is like deciding what to buy; it's pretty deep relative to say the mess of choices Count gives you. The various Workshops and Remodels probably beat everything else in terms of how long you can spend getting better at them.
Aside from that unsatisfactory answer I would have to stare at the visual spoilers, and I don't want to end up saying, here are the cards I think you guys are mis-evaluating.
Currently Dominion has a really low variety of materials. Is mostly cards and in a small part some tokens and mats. Did you ever find a limitation there for an idea of a card? Did you thought about cards that used other materials but were not good enough to bother making those new materials (like a board, or counters)?
Well if you add components, you can have cards that interact with those components; it directly opens up possibilities for you. However this is better for spin-offs, because of the Alchemy issue - not slow-to-resolve cards, the other one, that some people don't like potions. Doing individual cards like Native Village and Embargo has the issue of, we can only include so many extra components for individual cards.
For the most part I have not ruled out cards due to needing components - I just haven't tried to think of cards that required components I wasn't going to get to have. I can think of one exception. I playtested "+1 handsize for the rest of the game" as an Alchemy card. It would have required a playmat - yes even if you personally wouldn't have needed one - and that killed it.
How important is to you that every card works with 2 and with 3+ players exactly as written, without referring explicitly to how many players there are? For instance, there are things, like changing the order, which don't make sense in 2 player games. Would you completely rule out a card for that? How likely would it be to have a card that cannot be used in 2 player games (or ruled out for any other number)? How about having different rules, or exceptions, to handle a specific amonut of players?
If a card wouldn't work in two player games I would not make it. It's okay for the card to refer to the number of players though, if it has to, although generally it wouldn't. Like, Tribute originally looked at the top card of each adjacent player. To work in two player games it just goes left. But at the time it put the card back on top. It could have ended up looking at the top card of each adjacent player and discarding them, and in two player games that would just mean their top two cards, with no special rules.
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If Dominion had been computerized from the start, are there mechanics you would have liked to have tried that would only work on a computer? (random numbers, etc)
Meh, not really. The big thing you get out of a computer is tracking; you can do more stuff like Pirate Ship and Monument without worrying about it. I did those cards anyway though. If I were really making a computer-only Dominion-like game though, it would probably end up nothing like Dominion. There's no real point in simulating cards on a computer, except you know, when there's a real-life card game you want on your computer.
This last sentence surprises me. Do you truly see "no real point in simulating cards on a computer"? Maybe I'm being too literal, but assuming I want to make a game that would, IRL, be a card game, I see a few benefits of doing that on a computer:
- Mutability. In your case, you wouldn't have a "Dominion Time Machine" post, since you could just implement those changes.
- There would be no physical limit to the number of cards you could create, since you're not constrained by physical publishing limitations.
Are these differences irrelevant or undesirable to you? Or do you simply think the flexibility of the computer design space would inevitably lead to a different game?
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I think his point is: why restrict yourself to simulated cardboard if you're designing a video game?
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I feel that cards like Harvest already effectively have random number built into them. But since the randomness comes from your deck, you can actually plan your strategy around increasing your expected value, which is neat.
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I feel that cards like Harvest already effectively have random number built into them. But since the randomness comes from your deck, you can actually plan your strategy around increasing your expected value, which is neat.
There is nothing random about Harvest, it just uses the randomness the shuffling provides. And it could be totally or partially non-random with some inspection or top-decking.
In any case, you can still think about expected value with a card that says "roll a dice, +$ equal to half of the rolled number, rounded up". This card in particular does not seem interesting, but I think some extra random may be nice. Especially for 2nd player :).
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This last sentence surprises me. Do you truly see "no real point in simulating cards on a computer"? Maybe I'm being too literal, but assuming I want to make a game that would, IRL, be a card game, I see a few benefits of doing that on a computer:
Blueblimp has it right. There's no point to limiting yourself to what cards can do if you're making a computer game. You can do it to cash in on something - you make a CCG that's digital only and you make it cards so people know it's a CCG. Players know what to expect from cards, and cards are a familiar way to display certain information. But you don't have to do cards.
Instead of cards we can consider "rules components." These are things in a game that have rules associated with them. They are typically cards for physical games, but don't have to be. For a computer game you can think of them as cards, but they aren't cards at all. For example there's no uh Medusa card in Heroes of Might and Magic III. There's a creature with associated rules, but it's not card-like. When I get a particular perk in Fallout 3, that's like a card in a tableau, but it's not doing anything to imitate a card. For a physical game you couldn't deal with making sure all your perks happened when they were supposed to. For a computer game it's no trouble.
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Would you give up creative control and ownership of Dominion if someone came in with an offer?
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Would you give up creative control and ownership of Dominion if someone came in with an offer?
Clearly Ozle wants to buy Dominion so that he can retheme it as Oland!
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Would you give up creative control and ownership of Dominion if someone came in with an offer?
Clearly Ozle wants to buy Dominion so that he can retheme it as Oland!
Not Oland! Thats where O lives!
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Would you give up creative control and ownership of Dominion if someone came in with an offer?
Probably it depends on the offer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeldwfOwuL8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeldwfOwuL8).
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Would you give up creative control and ownership of Dominion if someone came in with an offer?
Probably it depends on the offer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeldwfOwuL8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeldwfOwuL8).
Obviously. But I mean an offer that somebody would reasonably make rather than say £1,000,000 and a date with Halle Berry (Is Halle Berry still considered hot? I'm a little out of touch)
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I feel that cards like Harvest already effectively have random number built into them. But since the randomness comes from your deck, you can actually plan your strategy around increasing your expected value, which is neat.
There is nothing random about Harvest, it just uses the randomness the shuffling provides. And it could be totally or partially non-random with some inspection or top-decking.
In any case, you can still think about expected value with a card that says "roll a dice, +$ equal to half of the rolled number, rounded up". This card in particular does not seem interesting, but I think some extra random may be nice. Especially for 2nd player :).
How on Earth is there nothing random about Harvest? Yes, it uses the randomness from the shuffling. Why not use that randomness, since it's already there? Sure, you can use strategy to manipulate the probability distribution, but that's precisely what I said was cool about it. Or you can just use it to cycle or clear Rabble junk.
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Would you give up creative control and ownership of Dominion if someone came in with an offer?
Possibly; it would need to be a pretty fantastic offer though. Dominion is still raking in cash, and I already get to design games for a living.
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Would you give up creative control and ownership of Dominion if someone came in with an offer?
Clearly Ozle wants to buy Dominion so that he can retheme it as Oland!
Not Oland! Thats where O lives!
Oops, you are correct. My bad!
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Would you give up creative control and ownership of Dominion if someone came in with an offer?
Possibly; it would need to be a pretty fantastic offer though. Dominion is still raking in cash, and I already get to design games for a living.
Strong opening to negotiations!
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This last sentence surprises me. Do you truly see "no real point in simulating cards on a computer"? Maybe I'm being too literal, but assuming I want to make a game that would, IRL, be a card game, I see a few benefits of doing that on a computer:
Blueblimp has it right. There's no point to limiting yourself to what cards can do if you're making a computer game. You can do it to cash in on something - you make a CCG that's digital only and you make it cards so people know it's a CCG. Players know what to expect from cards, and cards are a familiar way to display certain information. But you don't have to do cards.
Instead of cards we can consider "rules components." These are things in a game that have rules associated with them. They are typically cards for physical games, but don't have to be. For a computer game you can think of them as cards, but they aren't cards at all. For example there's no uh Medusa card in Heroes of Might and Magic III. There's a creature with associated rules, but it's not card-like. When I get a particular perk in Fallout 3, that's like a card in a tableau, but it's not doing anything to imitate a card. For a physical game you couldn't deal with making sure all your perks happened when they were supposed to. For a computer game it's no trouble.
Yes, I agree you don't have to do cards. I didn't mean to suggest that video games *should* limit themselves to cards but, just as there is no point in limiting yourself to that, I also see no point in dismissing the design space.
I bring it up because, if Dominion were online-only, it'd be the core game we all love, but you'd be able to make all those changes you wanted and include all the cards you wanted. Maybe Dominion makes more money and is more popular with IRL publishing, but that's sort of besides my point. I see those online advantages as very compelling potential reasons to "simulate cards" instead of publishing IRL and I was just wondering if you agree. And, if not, why not?
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Yes, I agree you don't have to do cards. I didn't mean to suggest that video games *should* limit themselves to cards but, just as there is no point in limiting yourself to that, I also see no point in dismissing the design space.
I bring it up because, if Dominion were online-only, it'd be the core game we all love, but you'd be able to make all those changes you wanted and include all the cards you wanted. Maybe Dominion makes more money and is more popular with IRL publishing, but that's sort of besides my point. I see those online advantages as very compelling potential reasons to "simulate cards" instead of publishing IRL and I was just wondering if you agree. And, if not, why not?
I'm not limiting myself by not doing cards - it's the opposite. Cards are strictly a limitation.
I have already made two physical games that started out with deckbuilding and lost it. I doubt if I would find deckbuilding compelling for a digital-only game. I can build something more complex and the computer can handle it.
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You mentioned far back in the thread that you're not exactly well-recognised in the sense that people don't usually link your face (and sometimes even your name) to your games. Have you ever considered having your face show up in your games, possibly even on the cover (Copycat-style)?
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You mentioned far back in the thread that you're not exactly well-recognised in the sense that people don't usually link your face (and sometimes even your name) to your games. Have you ever considered having your face show up in your games, possibly even on the cover (Copycat-style)?
I have not.
Friedemann Friese explained once that the green hair and games that start with F made him more of a person, making him more of a brand. You know, you want people to buy your games because you made them, and it helps with that. That logic seems sound; probably I should go for D and blue. What can I say, I'm lazy.
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Dingdom Duilder?
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Sorry, Donald, I don't feel like my questions are being understood. Let me try one more time. If this doesn't work, I'll drop it.
1) If you could retroactively change, remove, and add Dominion cards at will, would you want to? For example, you could magically change the text on every printed copy of Throne Room.
2) Given that this is impossible with physical games, but possible in video games: Do you agree that this ability could be a valid reason to implement a card game exclusively as a video game? (Even if it doesn't appeal to you, personally). If not, I'm curious why not.
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Sorry, Donald, I don't feel like my questions are being understood. Let me try one more time. If this doesn't work, I'll drop it.
1) If you could retroactively change, remove, and add Dominion cards at will, would you want to? For example, you could magically change the text on every printed copy of Throne Room.
2) Given that this is impossible with physical games, but possible in video games: Do you agree that this ability could be a valid reason to implement a card game exclusively as a video game? (Even if it doesn't appeal to you, personally). If not, I'm curious why not.
Being able to tweak cards later would be nice, sure. That's no reason to make a video card game. I can make Starcraft and tweak units later, or whatever; I'm not giving up the ability to tweak things by not confining myself to cards.
If I made a card game, and decided it could only be done as a digital game, then the digital game could probably be further improved by making it even less like a card game. The only reason to make it a digital card game is to also sell the physical card game, in which case the cards at some point are set in stone by what's printed (although if the digital game was first there might be a window for tweaking them) (or like I said before, you might make it cards to cash in on the recognition people have of the CCG format).
Let's say you came up with Galaxy Trucker. Only you thought of it as a computer game. Maybe the spaceships are built in 3-D. Why confine them to tiles? If 3-D is too hard, they still don't need to be 2-D tiles all the same shape. Or a given spaceship piece might vary in size/shape depending on where you put it. The physical limitations don't apply to you, and there's no reason to cling to them (same caveats as before).
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Sorry, Donald, I don't feel like my questions are being understood. Let me try one more time. If this doesn't work, I'll drop it.
1) If you could retroactively change, remove, and add Dominion cards at will, would you want to? For example, you could magically change the text on every printed copy of Throne Room.
2) Given that this is impossible with physical games, but possible in video games: Do you agree that this ability could be a valid reason to implement a card game exclusively as a video game? (Even if it doesn't appeal to you, personally). If not, I'm curious why not.
Being able to tweak cards later would be nice, sure. That's no reason to make a video card game. I can make Starcraft and tweak units later, or whatever; I'm not giving up the ability to tweak things by not confining myself to cards.
If I made a card game, and decided it could only be done as a digital game, then the digital game could probably be further improved by making it even less like a card game. The only reason to make it a digital card game is to also sell the physical card game, in which case the cards at some point are set in stone by what's printed (although if the digital game was first there might be a window for tweaking them) (or like I said before, you might make it cards to cash in on the recognition people have of the CCG format).
Let's say you came up with Galaxy Trucker. Only you thought of it as a computer game. Maybe the spaceships are built in 3-D. Why confine them to tiles? If 3-D is too hard, they still don't need to be 2-D tiles all the same shape. Or a given spaceship piece might vary in size/shape depending on where you put it. The physical limitations don't apply to you, and there's no reason to cling to them (same caveats as before).
Ok, thanks, I appreciate the answer. For sure, you're "not giving up the ability to tweak things by not confining myself to cards". Totally agree with this. I'm thinking about the issue that you do give up some ability to tweak things by publishing a physical copy. The cat's out of the bag, as they say. CCGs aside, yes, you could print a new version of the same game, but that's complicated for consumers.
In other words, I'm not saying there's a reason to constrain your video game to cards. I'm saying I see reasons to constrain your card game to being virtual. Being virtual confers properties that are totally orthogonal to whether it's a card game or not.
Hopefully that clears up my point, even we don't see eye-to-eye. Again, appreciate your thoughts!
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In other words, I'm not saying there's a reason to constrain your video game to cards. I'm saying I see reasons to constrain your card game to being virtual. Being virtual confers properties that are totally orthogonal to whether it's a card game or not.
But once I constrain a card game to being virtual, I'm unlikely to keep it cards. Being cards is no longer relevant.
I make physical games instead of digital ones because it's so much easier. I can make a game over a weekend by myself and try it on Tuesday. I can make changes easily. Playtesting involves - I am not making this up - playing games. If a publisher wants one it's low-risk for them, even though most games don't sell well. If a publisher doesn't I've still got something, we still have fun playing the game.
Computer games cost millions of dollars, involve teams of people. People are less interested in taking risks, more interested in repeating previous successes. Richard Garfield got interested in doing computer games, and has spent years seeing them not get made. These days there are iPad etc. games, which one guy can program, but they are still way more work than a card game.
If Nintendo says, hey Donald X., give us some ideas for a new Mario game, man, I will think of some stuff. But I'm happy making physical games. It's not so bad that I can't tweak the cards once they're published.
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I'm not limiting myself by not doing cards - it's the opposite. Cards are strictly a limitation.
I don't mean to beat on this dead horse but this brings up a more abstract question about your game design philosophy.
Orson Welles had it that "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." And to me Dominion absolutely exemplifies this. Take Treasury, which as you mentioned earlier, is sort of like a permanent Duration card. Instead of writing up new rules for a new card type, you shoehorned it into the rules framework you had. And from this you get depth: it develops interesting interactions with discard attacks, it's a guaranteed target for Thrones or Graverobbers or whatever, all kinds of stuff. I think it's reasonable to say that a lot of the nuance in Dominion comes from stuff like this.
So this isn't a criticism of course; obviously however you think about game design, it works! And of course it's not like deckbuilders are the only game format that provides some basic structure to work from. But I'm surprised to hear that after your Dominion experience you find "limitations" to be a dirty word. Do you feel like pushing against boundaries is a major part of your design process? Or is it the sort of thing where like, your game mechanics are ultimately going to limit you no matter what you do, so you might as well carve out as big of a design space as you can?
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Orson Welles had it that "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." And to me Dominion absolutely exemplifies this. Take Treasury, which as you mentioned earlier, is sort of like a permanent Duration card. Instead of writing up new rules for a new card type, you shoehorned it into the rules framework you had. And from this you get depth: it develops interesting interactions with discard attacks, it's a guaranteed target for Thrones or Graverobbers or whatever, all kinds of stuff. I think it's reasonable to say that a lot of the nuance in Dominion comes from stuff like this, and of course you've been making Dominion cards long enough to appreciate it (though maybe long enough to get sick of it).
So this isn't a criticism of course; obviously you know more about game design than I do. And obviously it's not like deckbuilders are the only game format that provides some basic structure to work from. But I'm surprised to hear that after your Dominion experience you find "limitations" to be a dirty word. Do you feel like pushing against boundaries is a major part of your design process? Or is it the sort of thing where like, your game mechanics are ultimately going to limit you no matter what you do, so you might as well carve out as big of a design space as you can?
Mark Rosewater says, man how does he put it. Restrictions breed creativity. If you need inspiration, man, order some up. One way to be inspired is to box in your possibilities and that's fine. Sometimes you get inspiration some other way; that's fine too. It can be hard staring at a blank page, and in the end you will have something very specific on it; we can view the task as entirely one of cutting down the possibilities. And if you can get part of the way there that's better than uh not getting anywhere. Anyway you know, that's all well and good although it doesn't mean you constantly need restrictions. Sometimes you've just got good ideas, you leap right to some good stuff on that page. Restrictions in this sense are a tool but not the only one. I mean you're always restricting things but that's not always the clearest way to look at it.
My games tend to work with as little as possible; they are heavily restricted in that sense. In Dominion your VP go in your deck, your money is in your deck, your actions are in your deck. The reason I went that route was simply to try the most extreme version of the idea. In Kingdom Builder you place 3 pieces on your terrain, adjacent to you if possible, gain abilities when you play by them, can't use them the turn you get them, and draw a new card at end of turn. Most of my games are low on rules and can be taught very quickly. It's a trick because there are rules on cards, but you know, the framework is minimal. If there was something I didn't need, it's not there. And I see how much I can do with what little I've got.
In some of my games there will be this real question of, can you make enough cards for this. The number of cards you can make depends on the complexity of the cards and the amount of rules you have. When you don't have many rules, the pressure is on the card text, which tends to want to be simple too. I have tackled this so many times that I know a lot of basic things you can do with almost nothing. Let's say you have points of some kind, monkey points. Well you can gain monkey points. You can make the other players lose them. You can do both at once, always satisfying. If there are lots of ways to gain them, I can make a way to increase how many you gain, and if there are lots of ways to lose them, I can make a way to avoid losing as many. There aren't a lot of things you can do with just monkey points, but you know, a game without many rules can have more card variety than you might think.
But none of this has anything to do with "should I make a purely digital card game." That restriction isn't interesting or new or anything. There is better territory to stake out. Like, when you are trying to fill that blank page, deciding not to use the letter e is not a great start. It's a restriction but it's not doing good things for you. Someone already wrote something with no e's, and man no-one needs to read it.
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In other words, I'm not saying there's a reason to constrain your video game to cards. I'm saying I see reasons to constrain your card game to being virtual. Being virtual confers properties that are totally orthogonal to whether it's a card game or not.
But once I constrain a card game to being virtual, I'm unlikely to keep it cards. Being cards is no longer relevant.
That makes sense and I totally respect it. I just also see an opportunity for somebody to make virtual card games because they like card games and they like virtual things. It isn't likely to be you and I didn't mean to imply you should, but it does seem that there's valid design space there with some specific benefits (if a designer seeks those). The hurdles, complexity, cost, and risk you bring up all make a lot of sense to me, too.
But I'm happy making physical games. It's not so bad that I can't tweak the cards once they're published.
This is the essence of what I was looking for in my original question, btw. As somebody who probably values flexibility more than normal people, the draw of virtual is strong for me and it's probably why I'm a software engineer as opposed another type of engineer. I was hoping to get some insight into how you value that stuff and I did, so thanks!
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made him more of a person, making him more of a brand
These two are entirely different things.
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made him more of a person, making him more of a brand
These two are entirely different things.
And I mentioned both of them. And this is a post and it quotes your post.
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Computer games cost millions of dollars, involve teams of people. People are less interested in taking risks, more interested in repeating previous successes. Richard Garfield got interested in doing computer games, and has spent years seeing them not get made. These days there are iPad etc. games, which one guy can program, but they are still way more work than a card game.
The millions of dollars plus team is only really for publishing the game, though. For prototyping many types of games, a single full-time expert programmer can do the job. Of course, you probably know that already, given that isotropic exists.
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Magnets? How do they work?
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I know there are at least hints of this in the secret histories ("this card never changed" and "this took a long time to playtest and changed a lot"), but what cards were among the easiest/quickest to both come up with and playtest, and which ones were among the hardest/longest to both come up with and playtest? Are there whole expansions that were generally easier or harder to finish (expansion size notwithstanding)? I realize this question may not be answerable, but just in case. Thank you.
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The millions of dollars plus team is only really for publishing the game, though. For prototyping many types of games, a single full-time expert programmer can do the job. Of course, you probably know that already, given that isotropic exists.
Heh. dougz's personal text should be "an existence proof of awesomeness".
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Someone already wrote something with no e's, and man no-one needs to read it.
I don't know. I think lipogram is unfairly hit by too much criticism. I find just trying it ups my linguistic skills and assists in building my vocabulary.
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Someone already wrote something with no e's, and man no-one needs to read it.
I don't know. I think lipogram is unfairly hit by too much criticism. I find just trying it ups my linguistic skills and assists in building my vocabulary.
I mark what you did in that location.
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Someone already wrote something with no e's, and man no-one needs to read it.
I don't know. I think lipogram is unfairly hit by too much criticism. I find just trying it ups my linguistic skills and assists in building my vocabulary.
Myself? Elegant response sure. Equally challenging however express entire phrases ensuring e's everywhere.
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I know there are at least hints of this in the secret histories ("this card never changed" and "this took a long time to playtest and changed a lot"), but what cards were among the easiest/quickest to both come up with and playtest, and which ones were among the hardest/longest to both come up with and playtest? Are there whole expansions that were generally easier or harder to finish (expansion size notwithstanding)? I realize this question may not be answerable, but just in case. Thank you.
I will pick two cards from each set.
Main: Mine is a day one card where the only change was "up to +$3" rather than "copper to silver, silver to gold." It matters now but did not much with just the main set. Witch went from "$3, they gain Curse" through "$5, pay $1 to give them Curse" to what it is.
Intrigue: Masquerade is a good example of a nontrivial card that didn't change. It was carefully built to make the most of passing a card left. Secret Chamber started as "victory cards are also Copper this turn" for $4.
Seaside: Several of these were good to go - Merchant Ship, Caravan, Bazaar, Warehouse. None of these had so many versions; maybe Outpost has the record here. I'm going to say this set was the easiest.
Alchemy: Potion never changed. Vineyard just went from $4 to $P. Maybe Philosopher's Stone had the most versions; the oldest one was an action for $3, +1 buy, +$1 per 4 cards left in your deck (did not count discard).
Prosperity: Platinum never changed. The $7's all just changed in cost, plus the "may" on King's Court; Expand I think spent the most time as is. A bunch of discard attacks tried out for the Goons slot; that version may not have had multiple versions, but it feels like the most work went into that slot.
Cornucopia: Remake and Hamlet never changed. Remake got more playtesting focus. Tournament took the most work, but Horn of Plenty also has a long history, starting with "+$1 per card you played this turn" in Intrigue.
Hinterlands: Cache survived unchanged from the first month or so of Dominion, and even got to keep its name. The Margrave slot ate up the most time, depending on what you count. For a long time there was a discard attack that hit you the turn they bought it. There were multiple versions and well hooray they're gone. Margrave itself descended from another attack tried in a couple versions that didn't work out. Then Margrave itself didn't change once I had that particular card, but it was a focus of testing because of the old-Crossroads / Margrave deck.
Dark Ages: Probably this set took the most work over all. This set was last, so ideas that sounded good but hadn't worked out trickled down into it, to be worked on one last time. And it changed themes and is large. What month are the fewest children born in? February. Anyway Armory and Altar are cards that never changed. The Knights probably took the most work, although there was certainly some time spend on a bunch of these.
Attacks take the most work, both playtesting/changing and also just thinking of good ones that feel new. Very basic effects are easy to think of, but some of my initial cost guesses were way off, and sometimes the simple cards didn't start simple. Some of the easiest things I listed were Seaside's "do something basic but next turn also" and Prosperity's "do the big version of something basic." "Choose one of these basic things" wasn't hard either. Whereas "care about variety," you can quickly list the basic approaches (variety in your hand, in play, in your deck), but the cards didn't just happen.
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You've mentioned just now and in the past that Witch used to require you to pay $1 to give a Curse. Did this require you to play virtual money like Woodcutter first? Or could you pay with treasure during your buy phase? Or maybe it was effectively free if you hadn't gained coins from actions yet?
Did the ABC Action-Buy-Clean structure exist since the first night?
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You've mentioned just now and in the past that Witch used to require you to pay $1 to give a Curse. Did this require you to play virtual money like Woodcutter first? Or could you pay with treasure during your buy phase? Or maybe it was effectively free if you hadn't gained coins from actions yet?
You got to play treasures right then, as with Black Market.
Did the ABC Action-Buy-Clean structure exist since the first night?
Well yes and no. Day one, the rules were, "on your turn, you may play one action, then you may buy one card, then discard everything and draw a new hand." And getting to buy a card or pay for something let you play treasures. Calling it "ABC" and calling them phases was something Valerie and Dale did.
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So, Dominion was always medieval themed, but if Jay dropped by today and asked for a retheme ("anything except castles and knights and whatnot"), what would you want to do with it? Are there any mechanics you'd play with to suit this theme?
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So, Dominion was always medieval themed, but if Jay dropped by today and asked for a retheme ("anything except castles and knights and whatnot"), what would you want to do with it? Are there any mechanics you'd play with to suit this theme?
I expect I would be handed the theme too. I expect it would be a pure retheme and I would just pick ~25 cards that went together well; either I would try to keep it simple or that wouldn't be an issue. If I was expected to make new cards, well probably they would be unexciting; I have gone over this topic before, there are good reasons to stop making expansions and switch to spin-offs.
I pick themes for games all the time. If I'm picking a Dominion retheme theme, the question is, well what is there to consider here? Who is this retheme for, why are we doing it. Like I said odds are the theme has been chosen and that's the whole point. Hobby Japan did rethemes; they had licenses, they used them. If the idea is "we need kids to play Dominion" then I would be thinking, what's a good theme for kids. And so on. There is no in-a-vacuum automatic theme. When I could have whatever I wanted, I picked medieval. The most common theme among my games is 20s gangsters, I have been over that already.
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Why are so many of your games themed off of 20's gangsters?
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Why are so many of your games themed off of 20's gangsters?
- An early game had that theme and established a lot of goodwill towards that theme among my friends.
- Sometimes a game descends from another game, and sometimes more than one does, and sometimes the ancestor game had 20s gangsters.
- They lend themselves well to dungeon crawl type stuff without just doing D&D flavor.
- Bad guys are good flavor in general - gangsters, pirates, monsters, mad scientists, imperialists.
- You get to name all of the gangsters.
- Big Miller's Crossing fan.
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So, Dominion was always medieval themed
Is it really? At least some of the artwork (eg Monument, many Seasides images) hints at later ages, and platinum was not assigned any value in the Middle Age.
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How to you refer to Cities when no piles are empty, when 1 pile is empty, and when 2 piles are empty?
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How to you refer to Cities when no piles are empty, when 1 pile is empty, and when 2 piles are empty?
Oh man, this is hilarious. I was thinking, "I wish I could upvote this five times," and when I did someone else did at the same time too, so it looked like I did it twice...
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How to you refer to Cities when no piles are empty, when 1 pile is empty, and when 2 piles are empty?
In the past I usually just said "boomtown," regardless of the number of empty piles. If I wanted to refer to the number of empty piles I said how many, or something like "they didn't get going" or "the Menageries ran out," you know. I mean the empty pile may well be part of this story.
Okay I am looking through old posts on the secret forums. In one place onigame says "+2/+2;" in another Locus says "at max;" and once I say "super Boomtowns." Every other place the number of empty piles was either spelled out or not mentioned.
So, if we're your role models, and you decide against spelling it out, there's no special term to let you know it hasn't upgraded, but with one empty pile it's +2/+2 and with two it's max or super.
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Mad scientists are bad guys? I feel offended and sad.
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Mad scientists are bad guys? I feel offended and sad.
Shouldn't you feel... mad?
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I propose that we adopt "super Boomtowns" for when there are 2 empty piles.
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Don't know if this question has been asked yet as I'm sure you've been asked what your favorite card is a gazillion times, but this is a tad different.
What do you think is the card that embodies the spirit of Dominion best? Say someone where to ask you "Dominion, what's that all about?" and you could only show him one card, what would it be?
My pick would be Grand Market as it has all the vanilla bonuses, but also shows "hey, we can do wacky things with cards (no-Copper requirement)".
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What do you think is the card that embodies the spirit of Dominion best? Say someone where to ask you "Dominion, what's that all about?" and you could only show him one card, what would it be?
Well I haven't made any cards specifically so they'd sum up Dominion in one card, so I can only fail here. Which letter in Davio best sums you up as a person? We want the real Davio; that letter has to really embody your spirit.
The list of ideas for Golem included having it take turns with its own deck. "If you have a Golem deck, take a turn with it; otherwise, set one up. / At the end of the game, combine your Golem deck with your deck." There you go.
Dominion is a game of building a deck. You have resources, abilities, and VP, and they all go in your deck. Your options are on the table and vary from game to game. There aren't any cards that communicate enough of this to bother. Show someone Grand Market and they've got no clue what this game is about. It might as well be Curse.
I can pick a poster child for each set though.
Main: Laboratory
Intrigue: Nobles
Seaside: Wharf
Alchemy: Golem
Prosperity: Bank
Cornucopia: Fairgrounds
Hinterlands: Haggler
Dark Ages: Graverobber
I can see arguing for Village, Apothecary, or Squire.
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Well, I didn't mean to trap you here, I was just wondering what card would be a prolific Dominion card. Maybe the example with someone who doesn't know the game isn't so hot, it probably works better with people who already know the rules.
Like my parents, they have played a couple of games with me, but they haven't created any overly complex engines nor do they understand why I like the game that much. So I could show them Grand Market for instance and say "well, a card like this has a bit of everything you look for when you want to combine cards with each other, you can play another card off it with the +1 Action, you can draw a new card to replace the one you just played, it even gives you an extra Buy and 2 coins so you can easily get more cards! But there's a caveat, you can't spend any Coppers to buy it"
That's how I meant it, not that I thought that all of Dominion could be summed up in one card. Hey, I know that the game is about combining different cards, I was just looking for poster children as you rightly concluded. I thought it would be a fun different way to look at cards other than the usual "what's your favorite?"
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Main: Laboratory
Intrigue: Nobles
Seaside: Wharf
Alchemy: Golem
Prosperity: Bank
Cornucopia: Fairgrounds
Hinterlands: Haggler
Dark Ages: Graverobber
I can see arguing for Village, Apothecary, or Squire.
The fact that there is no Attack, no Curse-interaction card and no Reaction on this list, just reinforces the point of "no card sums up Dominion".
How about a Kingdom? What condiments should a Kingdom have to try to people get a feel at the greatest percentage of the game from just one game? (or better, several games with the same Kingdom). I'm not asking for a simple Kingdom, but the contrary:
Which 10 Kingdom cards would you take to a desert island? (assume you can take an unlimited supply of base cards)
EDIT: You can take Dominion partners as well, but just to play Dominion with them.
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How about a Kingdom? What condiments should a Kingdom have to try to people get a feel at the greatest percentage of the game from just one game? (or better, several games with the same Kingdom).
I would suggest a card like Cultist which can jam Curses or Ruins into your opponent's deck. You should have a card like Tournament which allows you to relish in your lead. But also a card like Saboteur which provides the new player an opportunity to ketchup. Colonies mayo may not be a good idea, depending on how much time you have for your game.
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My new stage name is Max Boomtown.
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This is a fun puzzle. In our previous discussion on this subject (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1861.0), I liked v3ck's definition of the sets:
The sets are really defined by how they put Curses in your deck.
Base: Witch
Basic curser
Intrigue: Torturer
Curser with a choice
Seaside: Sea Hag
Curser that affects the next turn
Alchemy: Familiar
Curser that costs a Potion and is better than a basic curser
Prosperity: Mountebank
Curser that gives treasure cards
Cornucopia: Young Witch
Curser that increases variety
Hinterlands: Ill-Gotten Gains
On-gain curser
I suppose it falters with Dark Ages, though.
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I suppose it falters with Dark Ages, though.
Dark Ages Ruins everything :'(
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But Cultist is perfect! It's a Witch that uses different 'base' cards (Like Shelters), has to do with trashing, and does a weird thing! It's Dark Ages in a can.
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How about a Kingdom? What condiments should a Kingdom have to try to people get a feel at the greatest percentage of the game from just one game? (or better, several games with the same Kingdom).
I would suggest a card like Cultist which can jam Curses or Ruins into your opponent's deck. You should have a card like Tournament which allows you to relish in your lead. But also a card like Saboteur which provides the new player an opportunity to ketchup. Colonies mayo may not be a good idea, depending on how much time you have for your game.
Sage and Mint, obviously.
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I can pick a poster child for each set though.
Main: Laboratory
Intrigue: Nobles
Seaside: Wharf
Alchemy: Golem
Prosperity: Bank
Cornucopia: Fairgrounds
Hinterlands: Haggler
Dark Ages: Graverobber
It's interesting to me that you chose Bank for Prosperity, considering it would have been an Alchemy card if the sets had come out in the intended order. If Philosopher's Stone were in Prosperity instead, would that still be your pick for the set?
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How about a Kingdom? What condiments should a Kingdom have to try to people get a feel at the greatest percentage of the game from just one game? (or better, several games with the same Kingdom). I'm not asking for a simple Kingdom, but the contrary:
Which 10 Kingdom cards would you take to a desert island? (assume you can take an unlimited supply of base cards)
This seems too much like busywork. In the desert island scenario I would try to pick cards suited to playing other games, because I will not want to play endless games of "Dominion with these ten cards." I would take Rats because there are twenty and Knights because there are 11 different cards there. If I take Young Witch do I get an extra pile? If Black Market do I get a Black Market deck? I take cards with different colors. Probably I don't take into account "will this make for a good game of Dominion" at all.
I teach people the game with 5 cards from the set I'm testing and 5 from the other set I brought today; if I go easy on them at all it's by not including anything in game one that requires remembering a wording change I haven't printed out. I want to make a good first impression but don't feel like I have to do anything special to do that.
You can try to pick 10 cards to show off as much of Dominion as possible; go for it.
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I can pick a poster child for each set though.
Main: Laboratory
Intrigue: Nobles
Seaside: Wharf
Alchemy: Golem
Prosperity: Bank
Cornucopia: Fairgrounds
Hinterlands: Haggler
Dark Ages: Graverobber
It's interesting to me that you chose Bank for Prosperity, considering it would have been an Alchemy card if the sets had come out in the intended order. If Philosopher's Stone were in Prosperity instead, would that still be your pick for the set?
Lab is a vanilla card that you buy a lot (so, better than a vanilla card you want less often). Nobles is a victory card that does something and has a choose-one. Wharf is a duration card where the effect is the same next turn (well as written, obv. not using an action on Wharf makes it different). Golem gets in the action chaining theme and the slow to resolve unintended theme, and has potion in the cost. Bank is a treasure, cares about treasures, and costs $7. Fairgrounds cares about variety in your deck directly, which is the broadest form of the variety caring-aboutness. Haggler doesn't have a when-gain for itself, but gives everything a when-gain. It when-gains the most. Graverobber upgrades cards and involves the trash.
Philosopher's Stone might not have cost $7. If it didn't I might pick Hoard - a treasure, involves treasures, costs $6 at least. I would represent treasures-that-do-things over costs-$7 and VP-tokens.
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Sorry if this has been asked already, but why did you have Trusty Steed "discard" your deck when you gain 4 Silvers? On the whole, I suppose that gets the Silver to you a bit quicker, without going so far as to top deck them. But what was the thought process? Perhaps I should be asking why you added 4 Silvers to the "discard" option.
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Sorry if this has been asked already, but why did you have Trusty Steed "discard" your deck when you gain 4 Silvers? On the whole, I suppose that gets the Silver to you a bit quicker, without going so far as to top deck them. But what was the thought process? Perhaps I should be asking why you added 4 Silvers to the "discard" option.
I wanted four options, and they needed to all be different. +2 Buys was paired with +2 Actions at one point but I only wanted one prize to give +buy. Anyway it wasn't cutting it as a separate option, even though there's a certain something to just mirroring Pawn. So, a 4th option, and well gaining cards is a go-to thing there, as a very basic thing you can do that's worth doing, and gaining Silvers is a simpler version of it. It was four Silvers to be enough to feel it and you flip your deck so that you get to them and your Steed faster. You don't get a Trusty Steed turn one, you often don't see it many times, which is why Tournament puts Prizes on your deck.
I am happy with the Silvers option, I pick it sometimes. If I were making the Prizes today I might put +3 Actions on Bag of Gold and then replace the +2 Actions option on Trusty Steed, I don't know what with.
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I don't think you weighed in on this yet....
For City, 1/2/3, or 0/1/2?
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Sorry if this has been asked already, but why did you have Trusty Steed "discard" your deck when you gain 4 Silvers? On the whole, I suppose that gets the Silver to you a bit quicker, without going so far as to top deck them. But what was the thought process? Perhaps I should be asking why you added 4 Silvers to the "discard" option.
I wanted four options, and they needed to all be different. +2 Buys was paired with +2 Actions at one point but I only wanted one prize to give +buy. Anyway it wasn't cutting it as a separate option, even though there's a certain something to just mirroring Pawn. So, a 4th option, and well gaining cards is a go-to thing there, as a very basic thing you can do that's worth doing, and gaining Silvers is a simpler version of it. It was four Silvers to be enough to feel it and you flip your deck so that you get to them and your Steed faster. You don't get a Trusty Steed turn one, you often don't see it many times, which is why Tournament puts Prizes on your deck.
I am happy with the Silvers option, I pick it sometimes. If I were making the Prizes today I might put +3 Actions on Bag of Gold and then replace the +2 Actions option on Trusty Steed, I don't know what with.
It's the option I use the least often, but I used it several times just now in a Feodum game. My Bands of Misfits acted as Tournaments until I got the Trusty Steed, then they acted as Scavenger to topdeck Trusty Steed for more Silver. It was fun, and made me wonder if I should take the Silver more often.
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Right here, Gendo:
How to you refer to Cities when no piles are empty, when 1 pile is empty, and when 2 piles are empty?
In the past I usually just said "boomtown," regardless of the number of empty piles. If I wanted to refer to the number of empty piles I said how many, or something like "they didn't get going" or "the Menageries ran out," you know. I mean the empty pile may well be part of this story.
Okay I am looking through old posts on the secret forums. In one place onigame says "+2/+2;" in another Locus says "at max;" and once I say "super Boomtowns." Every other place the number of empty piles was either spelled out or not mentioned.
So, if we're your role models, and you decide against spelling it out, there's no special term to let you know it hasn't upgraded, but with one empty pile it's +2/+2 and with two it's max or super.
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Right here, Gendo:
How to you refer to Cities when no piles are empty, when 1 pile is empty, and when 2 piles are empty?
In the past I usually just said "boomtown," regardless of the number of empty piles. If I wanted to refer to the number of empty piles I said how many, or something like "they didn't get going" or "the Menageries ran out," you know. I mean the empty pile may well be part of this story.
Okay I am looking through old posts on the secret forums. In one place onigame says "+2/+2;" in another Locus says "at max;" and once I say "super Boomtowns." Every other place the number of empty piles was either spelled out or not mentioned.
So, if we're your role models, and you decide against spelling it out, there's no special term to let you know it hasn't upgraded, but with one empty pile it's +2/+2 and with two it's max or super.
Did you seriously create your username to tie-in with this post?
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It's the option I use the least often, but I used it several times just now in a Feodum game. My Bands of Misfits acted as Tournaments until I got the Trusty Steed, then they acted as Scavenger to topdeck Trusty Steed for more Silver. It was fun, and made me wonder if I should take the Silver more often.
This is a wonderful story to relate, but does it work as a strategy? Given 3/4 openings, your opponent will have the first card to play as a tournament two turns ahead of you, which sounds as if the Trusty Steed may be handed to someone else later in the game.
Then again, I can see the point that you'd rather play another card than Tournament later in the game when the decks are rife with Provinces. I just cannot see playing this strategy and counting on having a Trusty Steed later. Also, heading for Provinces should collide with heading for Feodums.
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Then again, I can see the point that you'd rather play another card than Tournament later in the game when the decks are rife with Provinces. I just cannot see playing this strategy and counting on having a Trusty Steed later. Also, heading for Provinces should collide with heading for Feodums.
To get Tournament going you usually need to rush to the first province, but after 1 or 2, you can switch to Feodums, or whatever, especially if behind. This strategy switch can be great, for instance, if the opponent got Followers first being the only available Curser and you "settled" for Trusty Steed, because the extra economy of the Silvers will really help your clogged deck and it will make it easy to reach $4 for a Feodum despite the extra Curses, while your opponent will probably struggle to get 6 or 7 provinces with his extra Estates.
On top of that, if there is Trash for Benefit, rushing for provinces is completely compatible with switching to alt-VP strategies that score big (especially with Apprentice).
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I certainly wasn't stocking up on Feodums and Silvers before Trusty Steed. I was leaving my options open, since there wasn't great engine potential, but I could see myself potentially getting some high value Feodums if I got Trusty Steed while my opponent tried to finish the Provinces solo. One of the nice things about Band of Misfits is that it can give you that flexibility.
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This may have been asked already, but how do you play IRL? Assuming you're playing somewhere that requires you to take the cards with you, rather than having them right in your living room or whatever: do you just take a couple of expansions with you or do you carry the whole shebang?
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This may have been asked previously, but what is your favorite type of person to work with?
Also, what is your favorite Pokemon?
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Man, it's getting to the point where I can answer some of these questions.
This may have been asked already, but how do you play IRL? Assuming you're playing somewhere that requires you to take the cards with you, rather than having them right in your living room or whatever: do you just take a couple of expansions with you or do you carry the whole shebang?
He usually plays with 2 boxes at once, the one he's testing and another one. He'll start off with 5 cards from each, then rotate some out after each game.
Also, what is your favorite Pokemon?
Since I am regularly on the internet, I have seen names of pokemon, and have seen images of them, but I do not really have enough information to make an informed decision here. Is there one that makes copies of itself while destroying things?
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This may have been asked already, but how do you play IRL? Assuming you're playing somewhere that requires you to take the cards with you, rather than having them right in your living room or whatever: do you just take a couple of expansions with you or do you carry the whole shebang?
I carry the base cards plus either two large expansions, or a large expansion and two small expansions. If it's two large sets I deal out 5 from each, otherwise 5 from large sets and some amount from the small ones. In the Dark Ages days I would sometimes bring it by itself or with one small set.
After each game I take out four cards and add four cards, except when a particular card is staying in because testing is focusing on it.
For the most part if we're playing with Prosperity we use Platinum/Colony, and if we're playing with Dark Ages we use shelters.
In my living room I still just play with 2-3 sets, but Black Market can be a set not being used. In the early days we played with everything, but once I had several expansions I've mostly just played with two at once. Except online, where I typically just forced 3-5 cards from the set being tested, except for games using ten from that set, and the rest are random.
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This may have been asked previously, but what is your favorite type of person to work with?
I'm not sure what you're looking for here, what the types of people are.
I like playtesters who are fun to hang out with. It's good if some of them are good at games but they don't all have to be. They have to like my kind of game, but that's not something I have to check for, they filter themselves. I like to have some people I see all the time, so I can count on getting somewhere, and some people I rarely play with, so I see lots of different people try the same game.
I like game publishers that look at games promptly and communicate clearly. I like them to suggest things I should have thought of that make the game better. I like them to offer up everything for endless proofreading.
I don't really have enough experience with co-designs to say anything there.
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That is what I was looking for, thank you :)
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Would you play one game of Dominion with me on iso, just so I can cross it off my bucket list? Bonus points if I could record it. ZOMG I would just DIE.
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Would you play one game of Dominion with me on iso, just so I can cross it off my bucket list? Bonus points if I could record it. ZOMG I would just DIE.
Idea:
Something like the above for charity. DXV names sine charity. Anyone who donates more than X gets a game with him on iso (or goko) on a specific day. Or anyone who donates more than X gets a name in a hat, and one person gets a game with him on iso.
(just throwing it out there after reading that last message. Definitely not trying to put pressure on DXV. Sometimes talk of charities can do that)
Ed
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Would you play one game of Dominion with me on iso, just so I can cross it off my bucket list? Bonus points if I could record it. ZOMG I would just DIE.
It won't be anything special - the cards don't sparkle when I play them, the screen doesn't smell like cinnamon. You'll have the same chair you have already. Any amusing stories I tell, you'll know already from the secret histories and the TV movie.
I've played a few people on Goko; just whoever was on and wanted to play. I can make the trip to isotropic, but these days it will be like after midnight Pacific time.
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When you're designing a set, do you have a checklist or quotas that you need to meet? For example, what's the number of cards with +buy that you need in a set? What are some types of cards that you need to make sure are included in every set?
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When you're designing a set, do you have a checklist or quotas that you need to meet? For example, what's the number of cards with +buy that you need in a set? What are some types of cards that you need to make sure are included in every set?
These days for ~25 cards by default I want about 2.5-3 villages (counting thrones or expensive ones for less), 2-3 +buys, 2-4 remodels/vaults (trash or discard for benefit), 4 attacks (down from 5), 2-3 non-attack player interaction (up from 1), 1 victory card, 1 treasure, 6-7 cards with +1 card +1 action (up from 5, counting villages but not thrones), and a bunch of $5's.
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No specific regard for reactions and cost tiers other than $5?
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No specific regard for reactions and cost tiers other than $5?
I like to include a reaction since some people like them, but it's not a slot I feel I have to fill. Other than $5 I just like to have a mix of costs; I feel like people don't want to see a bunch of games with no $3 or whatever, but really, $5 is what matters. I can't have a bunch of cards at $6+ but I don't specifically aim for zero.
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Would you play one game of Dominion with me on iso, just so I can cross it off my bucket list? Bonus points if I could record it. ZOMG I would just DIE.
It won't be anything special - the cards don't sparkle when I play them, the screen doesn't smell like cinnamon. You'll have the same chair you have already. Any amusing stories I tell, you'll know already from the secret histories and the TV movie.
I've played a few people on Goko; just whoever was on and wanted to play. I can make the trip to isotropic, but these days it will be like after midnight Pacific time.
OMG. Name a time and I'll make it work. That would be so amazing. Of course if you don't want to that's totally cool. PM me or something. You are awesome.
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OMG. Name a time and I'll make it work. That would be so amazing. Of course if you don't want to that's totally cool. PM me or something. You are awesome.
Like I said, currently most likely is after midnight Pacific time. I am looking now and you don't seem to be on. I am "Donald X."
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OMG. Name a time and I'll make it work. That would be so amazing. Of course if you don't want to that's totally cool. PM me or something. You are awesome.
Like I said, currently most likely is after midnight Pacific time. I am looking now and you don't seem to be on. I am "Donald X."
DONALD X IS AMAZING. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATtBSeJyLpY) (and WanderingWinder too!) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLD6uXcfX0)
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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the screen smelled like cinnamon, didn't it?
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the screen smelled like cinnamon, didn't it?
I may or may not have gotten cinnamon from my kitchen and put it by my screen while I played these games...
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OMG. Name a time and I'll make it work. That would be so amazing. Of course if you don't want to that's totally cool. PM me or something. You are awesome.
Like I said, currently most likely is after midnight Pacific time. I am looking now and you don't seem to be on. I am "Donald X."
DONALD X IS AMAZING. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATtBSeJyLpY) (and WanderingWinder too!) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLD6uXcfX0)
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That was hilarious!
(I noticed the Swindler pile. Just saying.)
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When you are playtesting, how do you distinguish between "this card won't work as is" and "this isn't a set where this card will shine?"
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When you are playtesting, how do you distinguish between "this card won't work as is" and "this isn't a set where this card will shine?"
Also, how do you distinguish "this card won't work as is" and "this card won't work at all?"
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When you are playtesting, how do you distinguish between "this card won't work as is" and "this isn't a set where this card will shine?"
Well if the card "won't work as is" then probably there's no set I want it in as is. Putting it in another set with more cards that make it worth playing only works when you play a high frequency of cards from that set; you might do that when you first get the set, and you might only have one expansion, so sure it's good if a card works well in its set; but lots of the time the cards are mixed in with everything else and those combos are not there. It's good if a card from Cornucopia works well with other Cornucopia cards, but it has to be good enough to get use out of when it's the only card from Cornucopia in the game, and that's certainly the intention.
Also, how do you distinguish "this card won't work as is" and "this card won't work at all?"
Generally in the end by some argument that's card-specific, although sometimes I endlessly waste time on them first.
Some cards just die because people don't like them. It could be that the card is hated, or just has no fans. The Remodel from/to deck top just didn't have fans. It seemed fine but left for something that people would like more. The attack that made people discard down to 2 then draw was hated. It's not like I should have tried to add something so fun to it that the result wasn't hated; I can do the fun thing without the thing people hate.
Some cards have tracking issues or other problems with handling them. Dark Ages had "+$2 +1 Buy, copies of cards in the trash cost $1 less this turn." You spread out the trash. It's not great spreading out the trash. Graverobber / Rogue just make you divide the trash into $3-$6 and not; Forager just makes you have a pile of one of each unique treasure. This card also had rules confusion involving some cards being cheaper and others not, and cards moving to/from the trash during your turn. Then the other part of the card was, "setup: each player puts a supply card costing up to $6 into the trash." People spent forever making this decision; it was a classic, "the less it matters, the harder it is to decide" situation. Neither part wanted more work done on it.
Unsolvable power level issues are rarer and take longer to give up on. There was a card in the main set at one point that I finally gave up on in Guilds. "+$1 per action in play" started in Intrigue, and went through many iterations to become Horn of Plenty; the premise was fixable. Madman was too strong when you could buy it, but even that was fixable.
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Unsolvable power level issues are rarer and take longer to give up on. There was a card in the main set at one point that I finally gave up on in Guilds.
Hooray for Secret Histories teaser!
If you weren't a board game designer, do you think you'd still be a board game player?
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If you weren't a board game designer, do you think you'd still be a board game player?
Sure; I'm not sure how the answer could be otherwise.
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It seems like you frequently mention card concepts you gave up on. Are there card concepts you initially doubted, tried anyway, and found surprisingly good?
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OMG. Name a time and I'll make it work. That would be so amazing. Of course if you don't want to that's totally cool. PM me or something. You are awesome.
Like I said, currently most likely is after midnight Pacific time. I am looking now and you don't seem to be on. I am "Donald X."
DONALD X IS AMAZING. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATtBSeJyLpY) (and WanderingWinder too!) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLD6uXcfX0)
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"man look at all these bad cards I can make a statement with"
-Donald X., on his own game.
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Well, at least it was a highly interactive kingdom with Swindler. :)
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OMG. Name a time and I'll make it work. That would be so amazing. Of course if you don't want to that's totally cool. PM me or something. You are awesome.
Like I said, currently most likely is after midnight Pacific time. I am looking now and you don't seem to be on. I am "Donald X."
DONALD X IS AMAZING. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATtBSeJyLpY) (and WanderingWinder too!) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLD6uXcfX0)
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"man look at all these bad cards I can make a statement with"
-Donald X., on his own game.
Yeah, very entertaining matches. AdamH appeared a tad too starstruck for my taste, but well... it's fine I guess.
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OMG. Name a time and I'll make it work. That would be so amazing. Of course if you don't want to that's totally cool. PM me or something. You are awesome.
Like I said, currently most likely is after midnight Pacific time. I am looking now and you don't seem to be on. I am "Donald X."
DONALD X IS AMAZING. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATtBSeJyLpY) (and WanderingWinder too!) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLD6uXcfX0)
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"man look at all these bad cards I can make a statement with"
-Donald X., on his own game.
Yeah, very entertaining matches. AdamH appeared a tad too starstruck for my taste, but well... it's fine I guess.
I have no problem with him being starstruck, I would probably be very giddy myself if I got to play Donald.
But Donald's support for the game and its community IS amazing though.
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OMG. Name a time and I'll make it work. That would be so amazing. Of course if you don't want to that's totally cool. PM me or something. You are awesome.
Like I said, currently most likely is after midnight Pacific time. I am looking now and you don't seem to be on. I am "Donald X."
DONALD X IS AMAZING. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATtBSeJyLpY) (and WanderingWinder too!) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLD6uXcfX0)
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"man look at all these bad cards I can make a statement with"
-Donald X., on his own game.
Yeah, very entertaining matches. AdamH appeared a tad too starstruck for my taste, but well... it's fine I guess.
I have no problem with him being starstruck, I would probably be very giddy myself if I got to play Donald.
But Donald's support for the game and its community IS amazing though.
It definately is.
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Thanks guys, it is easy hanging out on forums but I would still like it to be recognized as one of the great achievements of our era.
It seems like you frequently mention card concepts you gave up on. Are there card concepts you initially doubted, tried anyway, and found surprisingly good?
There isn't going to be much like this, because I'm not great at trying stuff that sounds bad. There are always people to entertain; I don't want to be saying, "now let's try something that we'll hate, just in case we don't." Next week they'll be at someone else's table, playing Battlestar Galactica and laughing and laughing.
I decided against doing Bridge early on because it seemed like it would be too strong. Spoils was on the idea list for a long time before I decided, what, why not try it out. I think that might be it.
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Donald of the games you haven't designed, what is your favorite?
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Funny story, was playing some dominion with a new guy last night, and he kept name dropping Donald X's posts on BGG like they were personal conversations. Was very amusing.
"Oh yeah, well Donald X told me on BGG that this card is because of ......"
"Donald says that this card was originally in Prosperity ......"
All that knowledge at his fingertips and he was still rubbish at the game!
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Funny story, was playing some dominion with a new guy last night, and he kept name dropping Donald X's posts on BGG like they were personal conversations. Was very amusing.
"Oh yeah, well Donald X told me on BGG that this card is because of ......"
"Donald says that this card was originally in Prosperity ......"
All that knowledge at his fingertips and he was still rubbish at the game!
It's not very nice to make fun of new guys. >:(
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When I read ozle's post, I thought it was written by Donald. It made it much stranger.
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When I read ozle's post, I thought it was written by Donald. It made it much stranger.
Oh wow, I just imaged Donald X. using the third person when referring to himself. It was kawaii.
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Funny story, was playing some dominion with a new guy last night, and he kept name dropping Donald X's posts on BGG like they were personal conversations. Was very amusing.
"Oh yeah, well Donald X told me on BGG that this card is because of ......"
"Donald says that this card was originally in Prosperity ......"
All that knowledge at his fingertips and he was still rubbish at the game!
It's not very nice to make fun of new guys. >:(
What?
Not only did I not make fun of him, I was very polite to him. Just sharing that I thought it was funny someone came giving it the big talk and actually all it was just all through reading Donalds posts (which is how it linked to this thread because it was mentioned he posts here a lot above) and no real experience, showing that theory talk is no substitute for actually playing sometimes.
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Donald of the games you haven't designed, what is your favorite?
Magic: The Gathering by a significant margin. I played from 1994 to 2006, winding down in 2007 due to Dominion. I still read Mark Rosewater's tumblr and his Monday article on wizards.com, and look at the spoilers for the new sets. Gatecrash looks great, I have considered buying a commons/uncommons set for cubes in case I ever have a window where I play some more.
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What color is the Guild's box?
Why is Rats your favorite card?
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Was there a method to your madness when designing Dominion? How did you decide between whether you should take one solution to a problem over another?
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What color is the Guild's box?
Why is Rats your favorite card?
I am eager for absolutely any tidbit about Guilds.
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What color is the Guild's box?
Why is Rats your favorite card?
I have not seen the Guilds box.
I like that you hurt yourself with Rats but it may all work out (if it didn't work out then you wouldn't do it and so it wouldn't hurt you either). I like how it's a drastically different way to go from your starting to deck to your ending deck. I like how exotic it is. The combos are satisfying to execute.
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Was there a method to your madness when designing Dominion? How did you decide between whether you should take one solution to a problem over another?
Probably I've gone over this at length in something quoted in the forum full of my posts. Here is a summary anyway.
- I put everything in the deck just to pursue the deckbuilding idea in its most extreme form.
- You draw 5 cards a turn so you can actually see the deck you're building during the game.
- Money gets recycled because that was an obvious way to make money work; the even more obvious "put it on the table tracking itself and then discard it when you spend it" method would have the problem of "I can instantly get a tiny deck of my best cards." What could keep that deck from getting tiny instantly? Putting the money back in it, spent or not.
- The selection of cards to buy from is because I didn't have a good idea for what to do there. I initially considered a line of cards and when you buy one the more expensive cards slide down (becoming cheaper) and you add one. It seemed like, isn't the luck of what gets turned over too much? I didn't have a solution and for game one just put everything on the table, figuring at least this way we'd immediately figure out what was broken. And we liked how it played so that was that.
- You play one action because 1) that's a very simple thing, which I'd done before, and 2) it lets me make "play two actions."
- Using cards to gain cards, as the only way to do it, seemed potentially problematic, so you can buy a card without using a card. You can only buy one so I can make "+1 buy."
- The variety via different kingdom cards each game was just a natural way to provide variety. I am generally looking for a way to work in endless variety and the path here was obvious.
- There had to be VP cards every game so I put some on the table as base cards. I had three sizes initially thinking that would give you different possible goals. In the end that didn't work out as planned but the three sizes still worked out.
- Silver and Gold let you build up from Copper. Copper gives you something to buy in harsh conditions. Those harsh conditions mostly vanished, although they didn't quite.
- It was 5 Coppers 5 Estates in game one, and I tried different amounts over a few evenings before settling on 7/3 for the level of initial spending power and variety of openings it provides.
- The end condition was any empty pile because that neatly answered the question, what if a pile runs out? Normally the pile was Provinces, so it changed to any VP pile to save on cards and then to what it is to address the Duchy rush while still letting you have non-Province endings.
- Piles were 12 cards as a number that sounded like it would give everyone a chance to get a couple in a 4-player game. Later I lowered it to 10 but that was just like the original 12 because of the ending condition changing. Province stayed 12 since it was determining the game length, kingdom VP piles stayed 12 for when they were doing that, and then Duchy and Estate are 12 just to keep that rule simple.
- Curses are in the game sans Witch because maybe you have a tricky use for them and it's simpler. The pile was 45 cards when it first had a particular size; it got smaller and scaled as part of balancing Witch.
- I like icons in moderation and would have used some for the +'s but I didn't have good ones.
- I have a type line in lots of my games; they do good work. I got the idea from Magic.
- Things like "do as much as you can" come from trying over the years to work out a good general approach to the problem of how to make rules on cards work. Ditto the timing rules. Even "lose track" predates the game being published.
- Reactions initially worked the way I normally do them, which is, you can only play them at a certain time and otherwise they are like actions, they are played. Playing Moat made it weak and so Moat led to reactions just being revealed, and then Secret Chamber led to the rest of the weirdness to them. If I had it to do again I think I would stick with the initial played reactions.
- VP cards are green because I had a bunch of green paper. Reactions are blue because Moats have water in them. Sometimes it's like the decisions are made for you.
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- VP cards are green because I had a bunch of green paper. Reactions are blue because Moats have water in them. Sometimes it's like the decisions are made for you.
I'm glad you didn't have a bunch of pink paper. Calling it "Pinking" instead of "Greening" would be awkward.
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"Pinking" is Swenglish for urinating.
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Donald, do you have any pictures of your original version? (I'm talking about the one you printed and cut out to try that first time.)
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Donald, do you have any pictures of your original version? (I'm talking about the one you printed and cut out to try that first time.)
My plan is that some time after Guilds is spoiled, I will send theory a pile of images of Dominion outtakes. They will not be photos, they will just be the images I print out to make prototypes, probably shrunk so it feels less like anyone would complain about me using an image they own. It will include very early images. If a card changed early on, then I do not have the original; there was no point to saving those images, I just put the new image in the file where the old image was. In fact I may not have any day one images; it's hard to know for sure. Almost everything changed; even Copper didn't have a name originally.
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Since you are into Magic, what is your favorite color/color combination?
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Since you are into Magic, what is your favorite color/color combination?
Mostly I played limited, and obv. any given environment has different things you get out of the colors. In the old days blue and black got to do the most, followed by green, and that made them the most fun for constructed and casual decks, although it's not like I specifically played blue/black as a result. At the same time red and green were easily the best in limited for years, followed by black. These days they try to balance both power level in constructed/limited and how much fun you get to have with each color. I feel like red still isn't quite there but it's a lot better than it was. Anyway overall maybe black and green; I am a big fan of making tokens and sacrificing creatures. My favorite combo was Chronatog / Final Fortune; it looks like your opponent will get an extra turn, but then they don't.
For years I mostly drafted cubes; I would make a new one each month and we'd play it a bunch. Typically they would have rarities like normal sets - we would shuffle separate piles of commons/uncommons/rares. A classic cube is just a pile of the strongest Magic cards ever; I did that once but my cubes tended to be random themes, whatever I could come up with for a new environment. In later years I would have 20-40 commons that I made to flesh out the theme.
Back when I played casual constructed, my big thing was 3-card challenge decks. You pick 3 cards. You play 3 copies of each. Every other non-land card in your deck has to be a combo with one or more of those three cards., and there are no other duplicates. I also played superdecks, which is where you have a 30-card half-deck for each color plus artifacts with the same theme, and shuffle two together to get a deck.
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Are there anythings like the above (3-card challenge, cube, etc.) that you recommend for RL Dominion players to try out and have fun with?
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Are there anythings like the above (3-card challenge, cube, etc.) that you recommend for RL Dominion players to try out and have fun with?
Mental Dominion!
Step 1: If playing with Celestial Chameleon, you lose.
If still playing, play a card in your hand as any card in dominion with the same cost.
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Are there anythings like the above (3-card challenge, cube, etc.) that you recommend for RL Dominion players to try out and have fun with?
There are enough cards now that you can make a set of 25 - pick 25 cards, as many as a standalone expansion that doesn't squeeze in a 26th, and then play with that set as if it's a standalone - take 10 cards from it at a time. And you pick a theme and uh you know. I will post some examples later.
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What do you feel about Celestial Chameleon breaking Dominion in half? Or indeed the puzzles & challenges in general?
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Are there anythings like the above (3-card challenge, cube, etc.) that you recommend for RL Dominion players to try out and have fun with?
There are enough cards now that you can make a set of 25 - pick 25 cards, as many as a standalone expansion that doesn't squeeze in a 26th, and then play with that set as if it's a standalone - take 10 cards from it at a time. And you pick a theme and uh you know. I will post some examples later.
That sounds like a lot of fun! Thank you Donald! :] (can't thank you enough for all you've given back to this community ;))
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What do you feel about Celestial Chameleon breaking Dominion in half? Or indeed the puzzles & challenges in general?
They're fun in moderation. I've read a bunch and tried a few, but don't normally click on that forum these days.
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If you could get Dominion translated into a quirky language (like Klingon, Esperanto, Latin, whatever) just for shits and giggles, which would it be, and why? Which translation would amuse you the most?
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If you could get Dominion translated into a quirky language (like Klingon, Esperanto, Latin, whatever) just for shits and giggles, which would it be, and why? Which translation would amuse you the most?
Latin is quirky? Or do you mean ig-pay atin-lay? :P
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If you could get Dominion translated into a quirky language (like Klingon, Esperanto, Latin, whatever) just for shits and giggles, which would it be, and why? Which translation would amuse you the most?
I think we are veering into "which kind of tree would you like to be" territory. It was cool to see Dominion in a bunch of languages, but that's that, I will get no special pleasure from seeing Dominion in any particular additional language.
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What kind of tree would you like to be?
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What kind of tree would you like to be?
I think we are veering into "if you could get Dominion translated into a quirky language" territory. It would be cool to see Donald X. as several different trees, but I'd get no special pleasure from seeing Donald X. as any particular tree.
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What kind of tree would you like to be?
I'd like to be that tree that clones itself. You know, there's a whole forest of genetically identical trees which originated from a single seed. But well, clones aren't all that great maybe. If I could get some clones and they would be anything like me, they wouldn't listen to me anyway. I couldn't just make them to do daily chores or go to work for me. Most likely they would revolt and kill me.
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What kind of tree would you like to be?
I'd like to be that tree that clones itself. You know, there's a whole forest of genetically identical trees which originated from a single seed. But well, clones aren't all that great maybe. If I could get some clones and they would be anything like me, they wouldn't listen to me anyway. I couldn't just make them to do daily chores or go to work for me. Most likely they would revolt and kill me.
I would probably work out better if instead of enslaving them to do chores, you are just friends with them. In any way, the agre difference between you and your clones would probably get in the way.
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What kind of tree would you like to be?
I'd like to be that tree that clones itself. You know, there's a whole forest of genetically identical trees which originated from a single seed. But well, clones aren't all that great maybe. If I could get some clones and they would be anything like me, they wouldn't listen to me anyway. I couldn't just make them to do daily chores or go to work for me. Most likely they would revolt and kill me.
What if a wild fire was to start in the Hunting Grounds you have created? Would you not all be destroyed?
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What kind of tree would you like to be?
I'd like to be that tree that clones itself. You know, there's a whole forest of genetically identical trees which originated from a single seed. But well, clones aren't all that great maybe. If I could get some clones and they would be anything like me, they wouldn't listen to me anyway. I couldn't just make them to do daily chores or go to work for me. Most likely they would revolt and kill me.
What if a wild fire was to start in the Hunting Grounds you have created? Would you not all be destroyed?
Then he'd be left with a duchy or 3 estates...
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If you could take any one kingdom card and wipe it out of existence, which would it be?
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If you could take any one kingdom card and wipe it out of existence, which would it be?
Well the card that I could change in order to improve its set the most is Scrying Pool (dropping the Spy part), but I wouldn't get rid of it, just fix it.
The card that has the least going for it overall is Saboteur: it's an attack that doesn't give you resources, which seemed fine at the time but it turned out people don't like that and it's not like there's any reason I need such cards, yes I still made Sir Michael; it's an attack that trashes cards, which I think are worth making in moderation but they have to really please the people that enjoy them, since some people hate them; it's weak, so it's doing less for the people that might like it, and contributing less to possible strategies in a game; it's wordy; and Intrigue already has a trashing attack that makes resources, is strong enough and fun enough to be worth doing, and it even manages to be simpler.
The card that I personally acquire the least often is Secret Chamber, and it causes rules confusion too. I would certainly replace both cards if I were working on Intrigue today.
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When you playtested Dominion, you probably came across some of the crazy combos out there, but which ones came up once Dominion was released that you had not seen in playtesting? and were there any strong ones that you were surprised people didn't recognize earlier?
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When you playtested Dominion, you probably came across some of the crazy combos out there, but which ones came up once Dominion was released that you had not seen in playtesting? and were there any strong ones that you were surprised people didn't recognize earlier?
I'm sure there are whatever combos that I hadn't seen or still haven't, since you can't see everything, but the only one that stands out that I hadn't seen is King's Court / Masquerade / discard attack.
I don't really have a timeline on people recognizing combos, and obv. if you aren't staring at the spoilers looking for them you probably won't spot the interaction until you see the cards come up together in a game. So it's hard to say, here is something you could have spotted earlier. There are individual cards that I was surprised people didn't immediately see the power of, although in this community someone catches on pretty quick. Remake is a good example. Like, Ambassador and Masquerade are weird cards; we didn't immediately know how powerful they were, and I expect many people initially undervalue them. But once you get to Cornucopia, surely Remake immediately looks scary. It didn't though, to the public I mean.
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what made you decide to put count in dark ages instead of intrigue? (assuming it had been created at the time that intrigue was released). it goes well with the mischievous theme in intrigue, and the theme of cards that give you a choice.
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You said you would replace Sab and Secret Chamber if you were working on Intrigue today. What would you've replaced them with? :o
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what made you decide to put count in dark ages instead of intrigue? (assuming it had been created at the time that intrigue was released). it goes well with the mischievous theme in intrigue, and the theme of cards that give you a choice.
Count does fit well with Intrigue, but postdates it. It looks like it's from August 2010, so it could have gone into Cornucopia or Hinterlands. I never considered it for those sets, but Hinterlands was trying to be simple and Cornucopia didn't have room for it. For Dark Ages I tried lots of ideas that looked like they might be good that I hadn't done yet, and one of those was "two choose-one's, one good one bad."
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You said you would replace Sab and Secret Chamber if you were working on Intrigue today. What would you've replaced them with? :o
I don't know dude, it's not like I had cards that they specifically bumped out.
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Doug wanted to be precise and so was. And hey for all he knew I would spring "when you would draw a card" on him someday.
Do you have a card (future, or former) that uses this mechanic?
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Doug wanted to be precise and so was. And hey for all he knew I would spring "when you would draw a card" on him someday.
Do you have a card (future, or former) that uses this mechanic?
I'm not all about letting one person spoil things for everyone, but I mean if people are just going to say "okay which tree do you want to be" or "what's in Guilds" then we're done here right? There have been a lot of questions, maybe people have run out of other things they want to know, it's all trees and spoilers now.
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Well, the interview was meant to be for Christmas, it's mid-February now, that's 2 months beyond when this topic was designed for :P.
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I think that you shouldn't feel obligated to answer every question, but it would be nice to have the thread open going forward. Sometimes a person just wants to ask you a question and doesn't want to make a whole new thread for it. I guess they could just PM you, but still…
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You mean this isn't Truth Or Dare, where Donald has to answer questions that we all know he doesn't want to answer just because we ask them in this thread?
But, but, come on, Donald, you have to tell us: Is there anybody at school that you totally want to do kisses with (giggle giggle giggle)?
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I just have one more question. Do you ever get tired of people asking you questions?
Do you?
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I just have one more question. Do you ever get tired of people asking you questions?
Do you?
It's not so bad, it's something to do. I haven't turned down an interview yet, and they're no trouble. Well the written ones are no trouble; I'm not as fond of the audio ones, although I do them. People tend to ask the same questions a lot, but that way you get good at figuring out an answer that gets fewer people saying how awful you are in the comments. And I mean I type up the secret histories, when no-one's even asked for any of those answers yet.
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If we lived in a universe without game designing, what area of work would you most likely be in instead?
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If we lived in a universe without game designing, what area of work would you most likely be in instead?
I would most likely be a computer programmer trying to break into writing.
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Doug wanted to be precise and so was. And hey for all he knew I would spring "when you would draw a card" on him someday.
Do you have a card (future, or former) that uses this mechanic?
I'm not all about letting one person spoil things for everyone, but I mean if people are just going to say "okay which tree do you want to be" or "what's in Guilds" then we're done here right? There have been a lot of questions, maybe people have run out of other things they want to know, it's all trees and spoilers now.
Perhaps I should have phrased the question better: Did you ever try to use this mechanic in playtesting? In that spirit, were there any basic mechanics you tried that really did not work at all?
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Have you ever had one of these moments? If so, what is it? if not, why not?!?
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=254.0 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=254.0)
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Would you be interested in playing a recorded game with me for my YouTube channel? I've got my 100th Dominion video coming up.
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The answer to this was yes. Game in progress. GL HF everyone!
edit: I beat you all 2/3 8) Donald came in 2nd. HF continuing playing, I gtg now :)
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Perhaps I should have phrased the question better: Did you ever try to use this mechanic in playtesting? In that spirit, were there any basic mechanics you tried that really did not work at all?
I will probably give theory a bunch of images of endless outtakes, most of which you can read about in secret histories already, after Guilds is out. I mean if I say I tried something and it didn't work out, that's me saying it's not in Guilds. For the moment you will have to settle for all the things the secret histories already tell you about what's not in Guilds.
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Have you ever had one of these moments? If so, what is it? if not, why not?!?
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=254.0 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=254.0)
"If not why not," wtf. I have not really had those moments. I could be feasting on a militia or hanging out at the bureaucrat festival and I don't even notice. The cards are named with words, they are not all Frobb of Grubnatz or Sword of the Glivivi or whatever, so of course they come up.
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Would you be interested in playing a recorded game with me for my YouTube channel? I've got my 100th Dominion video coming up.
Only if you record at least 3, and we play with 1-2 other guys.
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The cards are named with words, they are not all Frobb of Grubnatz or Sword of the Glivivi or whatever, so of course they come up.
Despite Donald's best intentions, we now know there is NOT a card in Guilds named "Frobb of Grubnatz." ;D
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Will we ever see a PBF hosted by you?
I recall you expressing some interest in doing this earlier. Any idea on a format?
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Will we ever see a PBF hosted by you?
I recall you expressing some interest in doing this earlier. Any idea on a format?
It would probably need to be a game that wasn't published that I felt I wasn't going to try to get published unless it got some encouragement. I mean if it's got a publisher then I'm not showing anything off, that's up to the publisher. If it's published then what's the point, you can run those if you want. And if it doesn't have a publisher then probably I don't want it quite so public on the grounds that maybe I will find a publisher and maybe they won't like that. At the same time I have to like the game, it's not like I want to show off something awful. So, it could happen, but the situation is kind of narrow.
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Will we ever see a PBF hosted by you?
I recall you expressing some interest in doing this earlier. Any idea on a format?
It would probably need to be a game that wasn't published that I felt I wasn't going to try to get published unless it got some encouragement. I mean if it's got a publisher then I'm not showing anything off, that's up to the publisher. If it's published then what's the point, you can run those if you want. And if it doesn't have a publisher then probably I don't want it quite so public on the grounds that maybe I will find a publisher and maybe they won't like that. At the same time I have to like the game, it's not like I want to show off something awful. So, it could happen, but the situation is kind of narrow.
You can rest assured you'd have plenty of people lining up to play.
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Frobb of Grubnatz ... Sword of the Glivivi
I don't know why but I can't stop laughing at this...
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Will we ever see a PBF hosted by you?
I recall you expressing some interest in doing this earlier. Any idea on a format?
It would probably need to be a game that wasn't published that I felt I wasn't going to try to get published unless it got some encouragement. I mean if it's got a publisher then I'm not showing anything off, that's up to the publisher. If it's published then what's the point, you can run those if you want. And if it doesn't have a publisher then probably I don't want it quite so public on the grounds that maybe I will find a publisher and maybe they won't like that. At the same time I have to like the game, it's not like I want to show off something awful. So, it could happen, but the situation is kind of narrow.
You can rest assured you'd have plenty of people lining up to play.
So basically we can play a game which wasn't good enough to become an actual game?
/in!
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Would you please ask the CEO of Goko who put the word filter in and then ask to speak to the guy privately, and then call him a 'mustard encrusted rat fancier'? :)
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When you playtested the cards, how much time did you spend testing them in 2 person games vs. 3-4 person games? Did you spend a significant amount of time testing cards for 5+ player games?
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Has it ever been asked what the X. stands for?
And why did you choose Donald X. Vaccarino as your main handle instead of simply Donald Vaccarino?
I'll agree that the X. is fun for marketing purposes as it adds something mysterious, but does it have a personal touch as well?
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What does the X stand for?
It's a variable. The unknown.
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What does the X stand for?
It's a variable. The unknown.
So it's still a mystery!
Any guesses? Xavier?
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When you playtested the cards, how much time did you spend testing them in 2 person games vs. 3-4 person games? Did you spend a significant amount of time testing cards for 5+ player games?
I have done more playtesting with three to five than with two.
Typically my goal for a game is to support three to five, and I focus on four because, that will be close. Four will tend to be in the middle of three and five, I mean this seems obvious but probably we could find counterexamples. Anyway I focus on four. And I go for three to five because that's how many people I'll have; I don't generally have just one other person there. Now it's great to support two if you can and I find out once it's working if it does support two. Other games I may aim for two to four or just two but normally I am aiming higher because I want to deal with the actual groups I am playing with. If six is no problem then I include it, but at the high end the game tends to get slower (even with simultaneous decisions) and you start having to include too many components.
For Dominion it was immediately clear it would work with two and so overall the game aims to support two to four, which means balancing it for three (though maybe a card will cause issues at one end and I will have to deal with that). But then there I am at a game night, I am setting up the game and people want to play. If the game handles them I let them play, I don't say, "no I really want to test three-player in particular." So I have played plenty of five-player Dominion even though I prefer three and then four and then two. I decided six was too many and wouldn't bring the cards for six, to make sure I didn't get suckered into it.
I have played a lot of two-player Dominion anyway, especially online. Online we wouldn't play with five; you aren't getting as much social aspect as irl and the slower play starts to bother you more. And it's easy enough to start two separate games and then see if someone leaves or shows up.
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Has it ever been asked what the X. stands for?
Yes, many times.
And why did you choose Donald X. Vaccarino as your main handle instead of simply Donald Vaccarino?
I'll agree that the X. is fun for marketing purposes as it adds something mysterious, but does it have a personal touch as well?
I like the X., I don't know what to tell you here. I'm not being blackmailed into using it; I didn't lose a bet. There isn't treasure buried in my name; stop after the second d. It's not a Malcolm X reference. I'm not Donald the 10th. It does distinguish me from other Donald Vaccarino's, that's nice.
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Fair enough, heck, if you used DXV as your main handle, people could think you're the 515th!
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t does distinguish me from other Donald Vaccarino's, that's nice.
Why would you NOT want to be confused with this guy!
http://www.facebook.com/donald.vaccarino
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Four will tend to be in the middle of three and five, I mean this seems obvious but probably we could find counterexamples.
Best quote of this thread.
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Set of odd integers, set of primes, set of Fibonacci numbers. To name but a few.
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also: geometric mean, harmonic mean...
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Sudokus
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Who decides what color each expansion will be? Is there any sort of discussion about this, or is just "eh, let's make it purple."?
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Who decides what color each expansion will be? Is there any sort of discussion about this, or is just "eh, let's make it purple."?
Jay decides. I don't think I've been in on any discussions there, although I've sometimes known what color it was going to be.
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Cards that give +2 actions are referred to as "villages" but only part of them are named "Some Village". I tried to find a reason behind which are and which are not, but all I tried failed (cost 4 or less idea was disproven by Wandering Mistrel and Border Village, +1 card idea was disproven by Fishing Village and Bandit Camp, and so on). Is there any way you use to decide if a +2 actions card should be named "Some Village", or is it just chance?
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I presume that Bandit Camp and Hamlet are close enough in that they are dwellings (but Nomad Camp!), Crossroads only by some stretch. For Bazaar, Donald already said that he took the name b/c the card art was available. Bazaar is my pet peeve in naming inconsistency. Every market should net a Buy.
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Cards that give +2 actions are referred to as "villages" but only part of them are named "Some Village". I tried to find a reason behind which are and which are not, but all I tried failed (cost 4 or less idea was disproven by Wandering Mistrel and Border Village, +1 card idea was disproven by Fishing Village and Bandit Camp, and so on). Is there any way you use to decide if a +2 actions card should be named "Some Village", or is it just chance?
The original idea was "groups of people" rather than villages specifically. You have people, doing things for you - some nobles, some bandits, maybe a whole city of people. Wandering Minstrel wandered into that name, as a card that wasn't always a village, and it never sounded inappropriate to me. Obv. the "village" identifier does good work. Possibly if I were doing it again I would rename Festival, Nobles, Bazaar, and Wandering Minstrel, although I'm still pleased with Squire and Madman and Necropolis and Crossroads and University and Trusty Steed and Inn and Fortress and Bandit Camp, in addition to City and Shanty Town and Hamlet. And I still like Ruined Village's exception. And then like Ironmonger and Tribute, they're not bothering anybody.
@iopfanes: Yes Bazaar was because we had extra Market art to use.
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t does distinguish me from other Donald Vaccarino's, that's nice.
Why would you NOT want to be confused with this guy!
http://www.facebook.com/donald.vaccarino (http://www.facebook.com/donald.vaccarino)
Dude that's the wrong Donald. T (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?action=profile;u=19)his is the Donald you are looking for.
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What's your favorite card art? Least favorite? Are there any cards that looking back, you would keep it the same mechanically but change the name?
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What's your favorite card art? Least favorite? Are there any cards that looking back, you would keep it the same mechanically but change the name?
There are only a few Dominion artists that I wouldn't ask to do an entire game of mine, if I were making those calls - there is a lot of good or great art. I'm not so comfortable singling out the worst artists, but as it happens I think I can stomach saying that either Shanty Town or Pearl Diver is the very worst. A lot of people don't like Kalusky's Dominion art; it's nice to have a variety of styles but that stuff is just too cartoony in this context.
I also don't like it when the picture has something that physically doesn't work or make sense, which there are a few of. I try to catch that stuff in the sketches, but I don't always get to see them and it isn't always clear from the sketches.
Like I said there is a lot of great art. I will single out Marcel-Andre Casasola-Merkle and Claus Stephan as favorite artists. As an example of really nailing a tricky concept, I will single out Ill-Gotten Gains.
Aside from those villages I just mentioned, there are probably a few things from the first couple sets I would rename; I spent more time on names later. Harem I would probably call Farm, although I would try to fit in some other card called Harem. I might move Smithy to a Workshop-type card; I don't know what I call Smithy then. Feast isn't great, although if I don't do the card that problem goes away.
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Well, the art on IGG suggests that the person buying/finding it is Cursed, not the other way around. :)
Kind of like...... Blood Money! ;D Or is the extra Copper a Curse?
I think Harem is the worst, unsurprisingly also by Kalusky. Those are some ugly women and the red haired one is so out of tone. Is she the patroness or does she live there as well? I like the composition, but the coloring and cartoony style are just way off.
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I think Harem is the worst, unsurprisingly also by Kalusky. Those are some ugly women and the red haired one is so out of tone. Is she the patroness or does she live there as well?
She's Valerie! And Navigator is Dale. And Pearl Diver is Wei-Hwa, who won a tournament at the Gathering of Friends for that privilege.
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So you're going to do a Secret History of the Card Art next? :D
But poor, poor people. All of them on cards by Kalusky and Wei-Hwa is even on one of the most useless cards. :'(
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So you're going to do a Secret History of the Card Art next? :D
But poor, poor people. All of them on cards by Kalusky and Wei-Hwa is even on one of the most useless cards. :'(
PD isn't useless, it's the card I have the highest win rate with!
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On the subject of art:
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/67/Native_Village.jpg/200px-Native_Village.jpg)
Does the tree growing out of the roof (and nothing below it where it'd be if you follow the trunk down) on that card bother you?
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Nah, it's clearly an antenna.
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Does the tree growing out of the roof (and nothing below it where it'd be if you follow the trunk down) on that card bother you?
Feel free to talk about any such things you can find; it's not so awesome for me to badmouth my games, when you think about it, especially the parts that I didn't do.
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I just looked through the art, and saw that the ruined versions were each made by the original artist. Library/Ruined Library, Walled Village/Ruined Village, Grand Market/Ruined Market, Mine/Abandoned Mine, and even Estate (Base Cards)/Overgrown Estate and Village/Pillage. Are there any other pairs like that?
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I just looked through the art, and saw that the ruined versions were each made by the original artist. Library/Ruined Library, Walled Village/Ruined Village, Grand Market/Ruined Market, Mine/Abandoned Mine, and even Estate (Base Cards)/Overgrown Estate and Village/Pillage. Are there any other pairs like that?
Native Village / Pirate Ship / Island are all Vohwinkel and connect up to make one big image. Scrying Pool shows Village but is a different artist. Hermit/Madman are the same artist, Urchin/Mercenary are the same artist, and of course those relate. The Sirs have male artists and the Dames have female artists.
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Have you read much of Arthur Conan Doyle's works? He seems to use a lot of the more interesting vocabulary in Dominion such as Counting House and Ill Gotten Gains. If not, what do you enjoy reading?
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Can we see the 'one big image'? Especially for those of us without Seaside :(
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Can we see the 'one big image'? Especially for those of us without Seaside :(
It's the front of the Seaside rules (http://www.riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_326_gameRules.pdf)
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Have you read much of Arthur Conan Doyle's works? He seems to use a lot of the more interesting vocabulary in Dominion such as Counting House and Ill Gotten Gains. If not, what do you enjoy reading?
I read some of the stories and maybe one of the novels in my youth; I don't really remember them.
Counting House is from a nursery rhyme, Sing a Song of Sixpence. When your first language is English, you get some English culture. Ill-Gotten Gains is an idiom; it's old-timey so maybe it's also specifically English. Anyway the game is set in Europe in the middle ages, so it specifically has some old stuff. And it's fun to give a card a name like Margrave.
I haven't read much non-online stuff in the last few years; I enjoy reading wikipedia. Pre-Dominion I read more sci-fi/fantasy than uh not those things. I will recommend some stuff.
Short stories:
- In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka
- The Death of Dr. Island by Gene Wolfe
- Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut by J.D. Salinger
- Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison
- The Secret Miracle by Jorge Luis Borges
- The Wind-up Bird And Tuesday's Women by Haruki Murakami
Novels:
- Little, Big by John Crowley
- Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (starts with Shadow of the Torturer)
- Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
- The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
- Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
- Permutation City by Greg Egan
Nonfiction:
- Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond
- Labyrinths of Reason by William Poundstone
- Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
- Trouser Press Record Guide 4th edition by Ira Robbins
Humor:
- Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
- Without Feathers by Woody Allen
- Deeper Thoughts by Jack Handey
The Anubis Gates is my go-to recommendation; it's just a crowd-pleaser, the Raiders of the Lost Ark of sci-fi/fantasy.
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Have you read much of Arthur Conan Doyle's works? He seems to use a lot of the more interesting vocabulary in Dominion such as Counting House and Ill Gotten Gains. If not, what do you enjoy reading?
I read some of the stories and maybe one of the novels in my youth; I don't really remember them.
Counting House is from a nursery rhyme, Sing a Song of Sixpence. When your first language is English, you get some English culture. Ill-Gotten Gains is an idiom; it's old-timey so maybe it's also specifically English. Anyway the game is set in Europe in the middle ages, so it specifically has some old stuff. And it's fun to give a card a name like Margrave.
I haven't read much non-online stuff in the last few years; I enjoy reading wikipedia. Pre-Dominion I read more sci-fi/fantasy than uh not those things. I will recommend some stuff.
Short stories:
- In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka
- The Death of Dr. Island by Gene Wolfe
- Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut by J.D. Salinger
- Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison
- The Secret Miracle by Jorge Luis Borges
- The Wind-up Bird And Tuesday's Women by Haruki Murakami
Novels:
- Little, Big by John Crowley
- Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (starts with Shadow of the Torturer)
- Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
- The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
- Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
- Permutation City by Greg Egan
Nonfiction:
- Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond
- Labyrinths of Reason by William Poundstone
- Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
- Trouser Press Record Guide 4th edition by Ira Robbins
Humor:
- Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
- Without Feathers by Woody Allen
- Deeper Thoughts by Jack Handey
The Anubis Gates is my go-to recommendation; it's just a crowd-pleaser, the Raiders of the Lost Ark of sci-fi/fantasy.
Murakami! Bonus points for you. 1Q84 is tremendous.
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Well, the art on IGG suggests that the person buying/finding it is Cursed, not the other way around. :)
Kind of like...... Blood Money! ;D Or is the extra Copper a Curse?
I think Harem is the worst, unsurprisingly also by Kalusky. Those are some ugly women and the red haired one is so out of tone. Is she the patroness or does she live there as well? I like the composition, but the coloring and cartoony style are just way off.
I don't get the hate on Pearl Diver - I think it's fine. However, Navigator and Shanty Town are just not the right tone for Dominion at all.
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Not sure if this been discussed further back in the thread, but are you thinking of doing anything else for Dominion after Guilds is released? This game is enjoyed so much by my family and friends that it will be a sad day when new expansions are no longer being released. Also, how do you find Dominion plays differently when playing with 2, 3, 4, and 5+ players? Do you prefer 2 player games or multiplayer games and why? Thanks!
Warrior
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I think he said he might do more expansions if RGG wants it because he likes to make people happy, but I don't think he has any more predesigned.
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I think he said he might do more expansions if RGG wants it because he likes to make people happy, but I don't think he has any more predesigned.
We want the expansions.
-RGG
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Not sure if this been discussed further back in the thread, but are you thinking of doing anything else for Dominion after Guilds is released? This game is enjoyed so much by my family and friends that it will be a sad day when new expansions are no longer being released. Also, how do you find Dominion plays differently when playing with 2, 3, 4, and 5+ players? Do you prefer 2 player games or multiplayer games and why? Thanks!
I would like to do a Dominion spin-off - a similar game that's different in whatever ways. It's possible I will get talked into doing another expansion someday, but I will try not to be, and it wouldn't be any time soon. The expansions, I have given this speech many times, the expansions go down in value as you do more of them; they are doing less to give you variety, they get more complex, you can only carry so much. Making expansions means not working on other projects, or expansions for those projects. OTOH it's nice to have a project you know people want.
The number of provinces per player shifts down when you go from 3 to 4, which makes games faster (in terms of number of turns), which shifts strategies. You have less ability to buy cards you want with 4-5 players; if everyone wants Fishing Villages you may find yourself opening Fishing Village / Fishing Village to get yours. Some cards change functionally with more players; Thief gains more cards, multiple Ambassador-ing opponents flood you with junk faster, etc.
I prefer 3 and then 4 and then 2 and then 5. I like the increased player interaction of 3-4 player games, and like the longer turn-wise 3-player game and reduced downtime vs. 4 players. I only play with 5 to be nice; I'm not nice enough to play with 6.
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Not sure if this been discussed further back in the thread, but are you thinking of doing anything else for Dominion after Guilds is released? This game is enjoyed so much by my family and friends that it will be a sad day when new expansions are no longer being released. Also, how do you find Dominion plays differently when playing with 2, 3, 4, and 5+ players? Do you prefer 2 player games or multiplayer games and why? Thanks!
I would like to do a Dominion spin-off - a similar game that's different in whatever ways. It's possible I will get talked into doing another expansion someday, but I will try not to be, and it wouldn't be any time soon. The expansions, I have given this speech many times, the expansions go down in value as you do more of them; they are doing less to give you variety, they get more complex, you can only carry so much. Making expansions means not working on other projects, or expansions for those projects. OTOH it's nice to have a project you know people want.
The number of provinces per player shifts down when you go from 3 to 4, which makes games faster (in terms of number of turns), which shifts strategies. You have less ability to buy cards you want with 4-5 players; if everyone wants Fishing Villages you may find yourself opening Fishing Village / Fishing Village to get yours. Some cards change functionally with more players; Thief gains more cards, multiple Ambassador-ing opponents flood you with junk faster, etc.
I prefer 3 and then 4 and then 2 and then 5. I like the increased player interaction of 3-4 player games, and like the longer turn-wise 3-player game and reduced downtime vs. 4 players. I only play with 5 to be nice; I'm not nice enough to play with 6.
Thanks! If you invent a spin-off of Dominion, I will definitely buy it. I usually play two player on isotropic, but play 3-4 player in real life, and I can definitely tell the difference between the way strategies play out with different numbers of players.
Warrior
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Of the games you've published so far, how would you rate them? (Categorization of rating is up to you)
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Of the games you've published so far, how would you rate them? (Categorization of rating is up to you)
Instead, I'll rate the publishers by how much I want them to continue liking me.
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What is your favorite type of megaturn?
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Of the games you've published so far, how would you rate them? (Categorization of rating is up to you)
Instead, I'll rate the publishers by how much I want them to continue liking me.
Fine. Do it your way, this is your thread we are talking in and these are your games we are talking about.
User was warned for this post.
edit:Sigh...
The post was said in my mind in a different tone than it was read. I actually meant that it is fine, you can answer that any way you like as it is your thread you made, your games we are talking about, and a site made to talk about them. I meant no harm or insult, although I see now how that was read wrong. Who knows, what I just wrote might've just came off sarcastic or something. :-\
I'm sorry if I came off as a prick.
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What is your favorite type of megaturn?
I'm not sure I have a concrete-enough set of things to rank here. I like the stuff you do with Cornucopia - getting Menagerie to pay off multiple times in a turn, getting big Horns, winning multiple Tournaments with one Province. I like trashing Colony or Dark Ages cards to Apprentice; I like Apothecary and Golem a lot. I like playing Madman multiple times, or doing crazy things with Procession. I like emptying a pile for City in mid-turn, and did not get tired of building multiple-Goons decks when playing that campaign.
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Of the games you've published so far, how would you rate them? (Categorization of rating is up to you)
Instead, I'll rate the publishers by how much I want them to continue liking me.
Fine. Do it your way, this is your thread we are talking in and these are your games we are talking about.
I'm not sure I understand you, so I'm going to guess you don't understand me.
The number of times a publisher has complained to me about me comparing one of my games to another in public, in terms of how much I like them, is nonzero. I would like to minimize that number.
Try not to be the guy that makes someone say "this is why we can't have nice things," that's my advice.
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Oh ok. I was confused by it.
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Hello Donald X,
I’m new to Dominion and board gaming in general. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your amazing work. :) Dominion is my favourite game. I love it so much that just yesterday I started teaching it to my 7-year old daughter despite the fact that she doesn’t understand english, so she has to memorize what the cards do (I’ve only used some of the simpler base set cards so far though). Despite this, she loves it. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to pursuade my game-loathing wife to play it yet.
I read through this entire thread so I’m fairly confident that I’m not repeating questions from earlier in the thread. If I missed something, I apologize. :D
1) According to the BGG ratings, Prosperity is the most universally loved expansion. Have you got any thoughts on why that is so? Do you think it is fair or do you think the set is overrated?
2) Is there any expansion you feel is underrated - not getting properly recognized for its qualities?
3) How did you feel about Kingdom Builder winning Spiel Des Jahres? (sorry for the blatant attempt at sports ”journalism” here).
4) Which of your games would you most recommend that one tried to introduce non-gaming friends to?
5) Do you watch the video reviews of your games (or other games for that matter) posted on BGG? If so, do you have any favourite video reviewers?
6) Idea: On the 10 year anniversary of Dominion, Rio Grande Games puts out an anniversary edition ”complete Dominion” with the base set and every expansion in one nice looking box at an affordable price. Good idea or bad idea?
7) Idea #2: On the 10 year anniversary of Dominion, Rio Grande Games wants you to compile a ”definitive Dominion” set comprising a number of ”essential” kingdom cards (could be 25, could be 50, could be 100). Do you agree to this? (don’t worry, I won’t ask you which cards you’d pick). Do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea?
Sorry for the large amount of questions. :D
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Oh ok. I was confused by it.
this is why we can't have nice things.
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A lot of numbers in Dominion are 10 (starting deck size, number of kingdom piles, number of cards in action/treasure kingdom piles, number of curses in two player games, numbers like that). How much did you prefer the number 10 in these cases just because it happens to be 10?
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Has theory given you any kind of modding power (like to pin your own threads)?
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1) According to the BGG ratings, Prosperity is the most universally loved expansion. Have you got any thoughts on why that is so? Do you think it is fair or do you think the set is overrated?
I don't have any real data but can think of some things.
- The BGG ratings will be skewed towards earlier sets, because as time goes by fewer people stay on the every-expansion plan.
- Platinum/Colony are crowd-pleasers.
- The set is low attack, high non-attack interaction. It is my experience in general that, people who uh don't play Magic tend to be more uppity about losing their stuff, their precious stuff. Like, I will make a game, and it will have a card that makes other people lose stuff, and it seems fine and normal to me, nice as a thing to have that's different from other things in the game, but some people will specifically dislike it, perhaps being used to games where nothing remotely like that is possible. I am used to losing my stuff; in Magic you lose stuff constantly, it is a pillar of the game. But like I will tone down a game to having just a few ways to make people lose stuff, completely balanced as far as I am concerned, and then a publisher will say, we didn't like that one card. Anyway so. I think Dominion players in general, there are a lot of Magic players yes, but there are a lot of people who do not play Magic, and among those people I think losing stuff is less popular, and uh let's reset this sentence. I think Dominion players in general like attacks less than I do. So, Prosperity got fewer attacks specifically to make going for Colonies easier, and then it turns out people liked that. Later Dominion sets tone down attacks a little as a result. Now this may all seem silly when two of the three attacks in Prosperity are Mountebank and Goons, but still.
- The set has three themes: "spendy," treasures, and VP tokens. Spendy turns out to be pretty popular, including stuff like King's Court (yes a card some people hate), where you get these huge turns. Treasures, I dunno, I thought they would be popular but it's hard to say. They don't hurt. The VP tokens again are popular.
- The set has a secret sub-theme of, go ahead and buy everything. This falls out of the treasure theme. There are a lot of treasures and a fair number of +1 card +1 action things, plus some trash/discard-for-benefit. Add it all up and an all-Prosperity game may see you able to buy most of what's out without worrying about terminal collisions. I haven't heard people comment on this, but they do like the encouragement to buy everything in Cornucopia, so possibly this helps here.
I personally basically like the sets in inverse order of release - Dark Ages best, then Hinterlands, etc. However I think that Seaside, Prosperity, Hinterlands, Dark Ages, and Cornucopia are all so good that whatever, you can't go wrong. Alchemy is too slow and not everyone appreciates Potions, and then I was not as good at balancing the cards with the main set and Intrigue.
2) Is there any expansion you feel is underrated - not getting properly recognized for its qualities?
I most often see people recommend Seaside and Prosperity, but that's usually for people who don't have any expansions, so that's sensible, the later sets are more complex. It's kind of a hard question to answer without some hard data for me to critique. If Dark Ages isn't the most popular then it's underrated.
3) How did you feel about Kingdom Builder winning Spiel Des Jahres? (sorry for the blatant attempt at sports ”journalism” here).
It was good times. As I have said, after Dominion won there was a small amount of interest in specifically publishing Donald X. games, but man, not so much as I would have liked. It went up noticeably with Kingdom Builder. Some companies immediately contacted me as of the Kingdom Builder nomination/win, and those contacts have resulted in at least one game getting published (I don't have a date for it yet but am optimistic for this year). It's great overall to uh get this particular level of respect in your field.
4) Which of your games would you most recommend that one tried to introduce non-gaming friends to?
These kinds of questions are really better aimed at players. Make a thread in the "other board games" forum, see what you get.
5) Do you watch the video reviews of your games (or other games for that matter) posted on BGG? If so, do you have any favourite video reviewers?
I have seen some tiny number of video reviews. For the most part it's too much trouble to watch them; it takes too long and I can't listen to music at the same time. I do not have the data to rate reviewers.
6) Idea: On the 10 year anniversary of Dominion, Rio Grande Games puts out an anniversary edition ”complete Dominion” with the base set and every expansion in one nice looking box at an affordable price. Good idea or bad idea?
It sounds bad to me. It's really only a product for people who play Dominion with other people's sets and then know they like it so much they want everything. It's an unwieldy product, hard to carry, no room on a game store shelf for it. I could see doing a second "big box" product, the same size as the first one (the existing one is Dominion, Prosperity, Alchemy).
7) Idea #2: On the 10 year anniversary of Dominion, Rio Grande Games wants you to compile a ”definitive Dominion” set comprising a number of ”essential” kingdom cards (could be 25, could be 50, could be 100). Do you agree to this? (don’t worry, I won’t ask you which cards you’d pick). Do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea?
You really have to consider who your audience is for this. People who own all of the Dominion sets don't want it because they have all the cards. People who own multiple Dominion sets don't want it because it's partially redundant, and they can just buy a regular set they don't have and get no redundancy. So it's just an introductory product, and then an introductory product really wants to be introductory, it wants to have a bunch of simple stuff rather than be a best-of.
An introductory product isn't out of the question but isn't really what you were talking about. There are also rethemes, like the Japanese ones. I am not sure how well those work out, if enough people want a retheme for a particular theme, but they aren't out of the question. A retheme could be a best-of.
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A lot of numbers in Dominion are 10 (starting deck size, number of kingdom piles, number of cards in action/treasure kingdom piles, number of curses in two player games, numbers like that). How much did you prefer the number 10 in these cases just because it happens to be 10?
I like round numbers when they work out; it's just for aesthetics but I think some people do think "what's this nonsense" when you have an 11 somewhere.
- Starting deck size isn't intentionally ten; it's just twice the hand size. The hand size matters in various ways and I did not experiment with different sizes, but five cards wasn't chosen for roundness and that ten wasn't either.
- The number of kingdom cards is intentionally round. I totally would have used 8 or 12 if they had been better, but did not consider 9 or 11. I played a bunch with 8 to try it out, and it might have been 8 if we needed to cut back on the total number of cards, but we didn't so it's 10. The number wants to be small since it determines how much you need to read at the start and how often you see each card, so 12 was never really in contention.
- Piles were originally 12 cards. This was based on wanting everyone to be able to get at least 2 copies of a card. The end condition was an empty pile, so really the piles were 10 cards - no-one would get to use the last copy since it ended the game, and the second-to-last copy had to sit in the pile preventing players from just buying the last copy to end the game. To cut down on cards, I changed the end condition and lowered the piles to 10 (except for VP piles which were part of the new end condition - any empty VP pile ended the game), which was thus functionally very similar to having 12 under the previous end condition. So, this particular 10 is really 12 minus 2.
- Initially I printed more Curses each time we ran out, intending Witch to stay functional for a long time; I stopped at 45 because you have to stop somewhere and it's a multiple of 9 - I print cards 9 to a page. The size of the pile had to scale to balance Witch properly, and again the total number of cards in the game was a concern. That 10 is round and again is certainly specifically not 9 or 11, but I didn't just start with 10.
Gardens was always 10. If it had been necessary for balancing, it could have been 9 or 11, though I wouldn't have done that unless I had to. Vineyards / Feodum / Silk Road are 3-4, and then Fairgrounds is 2.5 because that's what it took.
Colony was 8 VP originally, when Province was 5 VP. When Province went to 6 VP, Colony could have been 9 or 10, and I made it 9. Valerie and Dale really wanted the round number, and I eventually tested it and it was fine, so it's 10 VP.
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Has theory given you any kind of modding power (like to pin your own threads)?
I have modding powers in the Bible forum. I have flirted with asking for them in the Rules forum.
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Has theory given you any kind of modding power (like to pin your own threads)?
I have modding powers in the Bible forum. I have flirted with asking for them in the Rules forum.
Done.
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7) Idea #2: On the 10 year anniversary of Dominion, Rio Grande Games wants you to compile a ”definitive Dominion” set comprising a number of ”essential” kingdom cards (could be 25, could be 50, could be 100). Do you agree to this? (don’t worry, I won’t ask you which cards you’d pick). Do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea?
You really have to consider who your audience is for this. People who own all of the Dominion sets don't want it because they have all the cards. People who own multiple Dominion sets don't want it because it's partially redundant, and they can just buy a regular set they don't have and get no redundancy. So it's just an introductory product, and then an introductory product really wants to be introductory, it wants to have a bunch of simple stuff rather than be a best-of.
An introductory product isn't out of the question but isn't really what you were talking about. There are also rethemes, like the Japanese ones. I am not sure how well those work out, if enough people want a retheme for a particular theme, but they aren't out of the question. A retheme could be a best-of.
As a non-sleever, I, for one, would not mind an edition of all cards that tend to wear faster because they are bought on a regular basis, such as Minion, Scrying Pool etc.
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What are your thoughts/feelings when you see Celestial Chameleon emptying the supply in 4 turns? Are you as shocked and amazed as we are, or did you know/suspect that such a thing was possible?
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Are there any planned Promo cards to follow Guilds?
How averse are publishers to publishing promos that reference games they do not publish? I know it happens occasionally (7 Wonders has a Catan promo board). If they were ok with it, would you be interested? Maybe between two of your own games?
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I have modding powers in the Bible forum. I have flirted with asking for them in the Rules forum.
Done.
Fear my wrath, question askers!
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What are your thoughts/feelings when you see Celestial Chameleon emptying the supply in 4 turns? Are you as shocked and amazed as we are, or did you know/suspect that such a thing was possible?
It's cool. I wouldn't have guessed you could empty the supply on turn four. You knew Procession / Fortress, was good, but not that it could do that. I've never tried to work out such things. The game intentionally avoids having infinite combos, but it has crazy things like King's Court and Procession. I have seen people gain a pile of cards and then play them all the same turn, generally with broken cards, although you get a little of that action with just regular card-gainers.
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Are there any planned Promo cards to follow Guilds?
How averse are publishers to publishing promos that reference games they do not publish? I know it happens occasionally (7 Wonders has a Catan promo board). If they were ok with it, would you be interested? Maybe between two of your own games?
Jay would like another promo, and Goko wants an online-only one (which again would only happen if it were the kind of thing that couldn't be done with cardboard). I've got something to try on Goko but have put off offering it up until more of the things that aren't done get done. I don't have anything picked out for a real-life promo.
If publishers didn't specifically ask for promos I would never do them. The promo is either good enough to be in an expansion or the main game, in which case it should be there so everyone can have it, or else it isn't, in which case why does this thing exist. To try to resolve this you can do something too wacky for the normal game, but then those things have too many rules issues to want to be promos.
So uh a cross-promotional promo would only exist if a publisher wanted it, which was the case with Walled Village. I don't mind, I like Carcassonne, although Hunters & Gatherers is the superior fixed version. I don't know if publishers wouldn't want to do a cross-promotional promo for a game that wasn't theirs; man, ask a publisher. I wouldn't be asking, I don't like promos.
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How did you decide which abilities could be stackable with TR/KC (e.g., Bridge) and which ones couldn't (Highway, Princess, and Goons being the obvious examples)?
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How did you decide which abilities could be stackable with TR/KC (e.g., Bridge) and which ones couldn't (Highway, Princess, and Goons being the obvious examples)?
I guess Bridge would not be stackable if it would be redone today...
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The other prototypical non-stackable is Tactician. The "if you discard a card this way" clause is there to prevent doubling the effect from Throne Room. Of course, there is still that obscure edge case where Golem can cause multiple Tactician effects.
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How did you decide which abilities could be stackable with TR/KC (e.g., Bridge) and which ones couldn't (Highway, Princess, and Goons being the obvious examples)?
IIRC, Donald has said Bridge would be worded differently (same as Highway) if he made it today.
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How did you decide which abilities could be stackable with TR/KC (e.g., Bridge) and which ones couldn't (Highway, Princess, and Goons being the obvious examples)?
I'm gonna guess that Highway, Princess, and Goons aren't stackable mainly for tracking purposes rather than for balance purposes (i.e., you only have to check how many copies are in play, and not remember how many times you played them), and the only reason this isn't the case for Bridge and Coppersmith is that the while-in-play clause hadn't occurred to him yet.
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How did you decide which abilities could be stackable with TR/KC (e.g., Bridge) and which ones couldn't (Highway, Princess, and Goons being the obvious examples)?
I'm gonna guess that Highway, Princess, and Goons aren't stackable mainly for tracking purposes rather than for balance purposes (i.e., you only have to check how many copies are in play, and not remember how many times you played them), and the only reason this isn't the case for Bridge and Coppersmith is that the while-in-play clause hadn't occurred to him yet.
This is a silly reason. The Throne Room is still right there. It's no different than remembering to double the buys and coins from a Throned Woodcutter. If anything, the exception makes it more confusing for new players.
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The other prototypical non-stackable is Tactician. The "if you discard a card this way" clause is there to prevent doubling the effect from Throne Room. Of course, there is still that obscure edge case where Golem can cause multiple Tactician effects.
Madman and Treasure Map also.
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How did you decide which abilities could be stackable with TR/KC (e.g., Bridge) and which ones couldn't (Highway, Princess, and Goons being the obvious examples)?
Every action should be Throne-able unless there's a good reason for an exception. There are two main exceptions.
First there are cards where the ideal phrasing makes the card not Throne-able. This is the case for cards with below-the-line text like Highway, and also Treasure Map. It's just fallout from caring more about good wordings. Scheme went back and forth, but the wording I went with happens to allow Throne.
Second there are cards where being Throne-able was such an issue that they specifically have anti-Throne clauses. The cards in this category are Tactician, Madman, and Outpost. Princess might have had an anti-Throne clause if the ideal phrasing didn't already make it non-Throne-able, although it might not have. Possession at one point had an anti-Throne clause, but it didn't fit, and it would have been more about fun than power level.
There are of course also cards where you naturally get no meaningful advantage from Throning them, like Counting House. Tournament has a "you need another Province" clause (which is to say you discard the Province) but that was more because of the potential to play multiple Tournaments rather than Throne specifically.
It is cool that you can Throne Bridge and Coppersmith. It's nice that that's in the game even though I have no regrets on making Highway with my preferred wording.
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To what extent did you design cards to fit the themes of expansions, vs. having the cards pre-designed and then assigning them to expansions that fit them? So like, did you say "I'm doing an expansion with a next-turn theme; how about an attack that top-decks curses" or "I've got an attack that top-decks curses; I'll put that in the expansion with a next-turn theme"? Except, not just Sea Hag specifically, I mean.
Or could I just figure out the answer to this by rereading the secret histories?
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To what extent did you design cards to fit the themes of expansions, vs. having the cards pre-designed and then assigning them to expansions that fit them? So like, did you say "I'm doing an expansion with a next-turn theme; how about an attack that top-decks curses" or "I've got an attack that top-decks curses; I'll put that in the expansion with a next-turn theme"? Except, not just Sea Hag specifically, I mean.
Or could I just figure out the answer to this by rereading the secret histories?
I made most cards for the expansions they ended up in, though some have moved.
The broad story that I have told many times but focusing on this goes like:
- I made a pile of cards; none of these were made for a particular expansion.
- I divided them into a main set and two 15-card expansions.
- I made cards for these specific expansions to expand them to 20 cards.
- I made three more 20-card expansions; all cards went right into the expansion they were made for, no moving.
- I made a batch of random new cards and reconfigured everything into eight smaller 16-card expansions (splitting Seaside/Hinterlands).
- I shifted things around again into six 25-card expansions, with work left to do on many of them.
- As I worked on each expansion in its day, I stole cards from later sets if I wanted them, and made new cards specifically for the current expansion.
So there were two big time periods in which cards moved around, and otherwise some cards moved in the direction of the current set (or out of it if they didn't fit). Lots of cards were made for the sets they're in though.
I will consider just Prosperity. Trade Route, Quarry, Bank, and Peddler are from other sets. Grand Market is partially from another set; Monument was from the batch prior to the 16-card expansions. You can quibble about Vault but it's basically a Prosperity card. The other cards are native to Prosperity.
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1) According to the BGG ratings, Prosperity is the most universally loved expansion. Have you got any thoughts on why that is so? Do you think it is fair or do you think the set is overrated?
I don't have any real data but can think of some things.
...
- The set is low attack, high non-attack interaction. It is my experience in general that, people who uh don't play Magic tend to be more uppity about losing their stuff, their precious stuff. Like, I will make a game, and it will have a card that makes other people lose stuff, and it seems fine and normal to me, nice as a thing to have that's different from other things in the game, but some people will specifically dislike it, perhaps being used to games where nothing remotely like that is possible. I am used to losing my stuff; in Magic you lose stuff constantly, it is a pillar of the game. But like I will tone down a game to having just a few ways to make people lose stuff, completely balanced as far as I am concerned, and then a publisher will say, we didn't like that one card. Anyway so. I think Dominion players in general, there are a lot of Magic players yes, but there are a lot of people who do not play Magic, and among those people I think losing stuff is less popular, and uh let's reset this sentence. I think Dominion players in general like attacks less than I do. So, Prosperity got fewer attacks specifically to make going for Colonies easier, and then it turns out people liked that. Later Dominion sets tone down attacks a little as a result. Now this may all seem silly when two of the three attacks in Prosperity are Mountebank and Goons, but still.
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This is a really interesting point and I, for one, really appreciate you taking the time and energy to go into weird details like this. It also occurs to me that losing things in Magic often either:
1) is specifically a choice of the player losing their stuff (e.g. "I choose to block or I choose to sacrifice".) Even if it's a false choice, it gives the player the illusion of control.
2) costs something on the part of the attacker (i.e. they have to actually spend a card so at least they won't do it every turn).
That's not always the case and I haven't really played magic in a while, so I could be also be misremembering. In Dominion, on the other hand, most attack cards get played over and over; their only "cost" is the Action they consume. Does this seem like a relevant distinction? And, as a designer, do you think this has a material impact on the psychology of the mechanics?
Another related question that popped into my head:
Did you ever toy with the idea of a reaction that trashed the cards they react to? Is this a particularly bad idea or am I venturing too far into potentially-spoilery territory?
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...Watchtower.
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Did you ever toy with the idea of a reaction that trashed the cards they react to? Is this a particularly bad idea or am I venturing too far into potentially-spoilery territory?
Donald's essay on "why not have a reaction that hurts the attacker" can be found here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=71.0).
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That's not always the case and I haven't really played magic in a while, so I could be also be misremembering. In Dominion, on the other hand, most attack cards get played over and over; their only "cost" is the Action they consume. Does this seem like a relevant distinction? And, as a designer, do you think this has a material impact on the psychology of the mechanics?
These things don't mean the same thing between the two games.
Magic has both "I use my card to trash your card and now they're both gone" and "My card sits there killing stuff of yours turn after turn." They do way more of the former these days, because reusable removal dominates Magic games and can be no fun. You sit there with cards you can't play because they will just die.
Attacks in Dominion are multi-use but then so is everything (except the things that aren't, which includes attacks). I get Saboteur, you get Workshop, we're even. It's similar to in Magic when I play a card and you play a one-use card to destroy it, except that in Dominion we both still have our thing (unless of course the Saboteur hits the Workshop). If you need to compare Dominion's "removal" directly to Magic's multi-use removal, then the cards you remove are like tokens made by token-making artifacts etc. in Magic - the multi-use removal is up against multi-use generation (not a typical case in Magic).
When I said, "I will make a game, and it will have a card that makes other people lose stuff," I meant, those other games, that aren't Dominion, that have those cards. In those games the removal that I was describing was one-for-one, like in Magic - I lose a card to make everyone else lose a card - and nevertheless that thing will be what some people cite as "what is this nonsense." Being one-for-one does not solve the problem for those people, they really just don't want to lose stuff.
So overall: 1) being reusable just isn't the same thing between Magic and Dominion, such that Dominion's attacks are not actually analogous to Magic's reusable removal; and 2) Magic-style one-for-one removal is exactly the thing I was describing that bothers some people.
Did you ever toy with the idea of a reaction that trashed the cards they react to? Is this a particularly bad idea or am I venturing too far into potentially-spoilery territory?
That's a more extreme version of something already bad: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=71.0
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As I usually tell people who want to show me cards, the obvious ideas are obvious to me too, and I had a big head start. For example Richard Garfield suggested 3 cards while he was playtesting Seaside. One was already in a set and has survived; one was already in a set but currently isn't in one although I have an idea for fixing it up. The third card was the reaction that reflects the attack, which I had had suggested so many times that I had already written up an essay on why it doesn't work.
The quote is from the linked bit on DXV's response to reactions that hurt the attacker. My question is: what were/are the first two cards that Richard Garfield suggested?
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The quote is from the linked bit on DXV's response to reactions that hurt the attacker. My question is: what were/are the first two cards that Richard Garfield suggested?
Bank and a Throne Room for treasures. Prosperity had the Treasure Throne but it didn't work out (not popular enough); as you know I got it to work in Dark Ages by having it trash the treasure.
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It is my experience in general that, people who uh don't play Magic tend to be more uppity about losing their stuff, their precious stuff.
They should try playing chess.
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It is my experience in general that, people who uh don't play Magic tend to be more uppity about losing their stuff, their precious stuff.
They should try playing chess.
Or shogi. In shogi the soldiers you lose are actually captured by the enemy and turned against you in some sort of twisted betrayal. As your castle crumbles around your king, you can't help but look at the traitors who once fought by your side and ask, "why?! Please.... Why?"
Also this appears to be your first forum post. Welcome! :D
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No Harakiri?
Would love to see a game like that which involves Harakiri (or Seppuku).
Like, you don't actually capture a piece, but the piece that is about to be captured commits Harakiri instead. :)
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If you were making Moat and Lighthouse today, would you phrase them in a way so they protect from IGG's and Noble Brigand's on gain/buy effects? or was it intended from the beginning that they wouldn't protect against everything?
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It is my experience in general that, people who uh don't play Magic tend to be more uppity about losing their stuff, their precious stuff.
They should try playing chess.
They also won't like how hard it is to see what your possible moves are, and the potential to see many moves in advance.
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If you were making Moat and Lighthouse today, would you phrase them in a way so they protect from IGG's and Noble Brigand's on gain/buy effects? or was it intended from the beginning that they wouldn't protect against everything?
The idea wasn't to specifically make un-Moatable attacks, but I also wouldn't make Moat confusing in order to have it cover those cases. Moat looks at attack cards being played. Saying "When an another player plays or buys an attack card" would be too weird, unless the main set had an attack card that did something to you when bought.
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If you were making Moat and Lighthouse today, would you phrase them in a way so they protect from IGG's and Noble Brigand's on gain/buy effects? or was it intended from the beginning that they wouldn't protect against everything?
The idea wasn't to specifically make un-Moatable attacks, but I also wouldn't make Moat confusing in order to have it cover those cases. Moat looks at attack cards being played. Saying "When an another player plays or buys an attack card" would be too weird, unless the main set had an attack card that did something to you when bought.
Did you consider "when an attack card would affect you"? If you did, what was your reasoning to go for the actual wording?
Though, I'm perfectly fine with Lighthouse not preventing IGG.
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If you were making Moat and Lighthouse today, would you phrase them in a way so they protect from IGG's and Noble Brigand's on gain/buy effects? or was it intended from the beginning that they wouldn't protect against everything?
The idea wasn't to specifically make un-Moatable attacks, but I also wouldn't make Moat confusing in order to have it cover those cases. Moat looks at attack cards being played. Saying "When an another player plays or buys an attack card" would be too weird, unless the main set had an attack card that did something to you when bought.
Did you consider "when an attack card would affect you"? If you did, what was your reasoning to go for the actual wording?
Though, I'm perfectly fine with Lighthouse not preventing IGG.
Your wording has no effect on IGG, though, right? It's just a treasure card, I thought.
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Well, you then could easily add the word Attack to IGG.
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Well, you then could easily add the word Attack to IGG.
Then each play would trigger Horse Traders and Secret Chamber as well. The "would affect you" is not clear enough, everything affects you as long as it affects the game state.
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Did you consider "when an attack card would affect you"? If you did, what was your reasoning to go for the actual wording?
No, that's not as good and I didn't consider it. In general you want to avoid "would" when you can because it's confusing. "When another player plays an attack card" is straightforward. It creates the question of "is this before or after it resolves" but answers it on the card with "well this card does nothing if it's afterwards so what are the odds."
As I always say, Moat has no obligation to prevent anything bad from happening to you. You can't Moat them buying a Province. I never felt like Moat had to do something about Masquerade or Possession, which were around before Moat was finalized, or IGG or Noble Brigand, which postdate it. At some points you could Moat Noble Brigand when bought because it was "when you buy this play it," and I would have done that if the wording had worked out, but it didn't.
Moat originally went into play when reacting, all reactions did, and I have explained before that that would probably be better. That has no bearing on the question but that's what I might do differently with Moat. I changed it to revealing specifically to make Moat more powerful, and don't know exactly what Moat would look like the other way, since I haven't had to do that work.
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You can't Moat them buying a Province.
Zoning Ordinance
$5 Treasure-Reaction
+$2
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When another player would gain a Province, you may reveal this card. That player gains a Duchy instead.
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Now, I've never played Magic, but I know that some cards have italicized flavor text at the bottom. Did you ever consider doing the same in Dominion?
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Now, I've never played Magic, but I know that some cards have italicized flavor text at the bottom. Did you ever consider doing the same in Dominion?
Fun community challenge! Wonder what Chancellor's ft looks like.
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"I'm better than Silver. No, really, I am."
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"I'm better than Silver. No, really, I am."
In the voice of Droopy Dog, or Jon Stewart's Lieberman impression.
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There's flavour text in the German Intrigue rulebook.
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Now, I've never played Magic, but I know that some cards have italicized flavor text at the bottom. Did you ever consider doing the same in Dominion?
I did not. I haven't ever done a game with flavor text. I've had games where I named abilities for flavor.
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When is theory going to put up the Q+A Part 2? Not that it is completely necessary, but if there is a part1, there should be a part2...
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When is theory going to put up the Q+A Part 2? Not that it is completely necessary, but if there is a part1, there should be a part2...
it's in the queue right behind his post of the greatest isotropic moments of 2011.
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What are you referring to? There's Part I, II, and III published on the blog.
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Oh right. I forgot the first set was in 3 parts :P. I meant to ask when the next set would be posted, or if you are planning on it.
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Donald, do you ever regret making simple cards because it meant it was harder to make similar, but more complex ones? For instance, you decided not to publish a card that had "+1 Card, +1 Action, +$1", which made it easier to justify Oasis, Treasury, Market, Tournament, Peddler, etc. Do you regret making, say, Smithy?
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Donald, do you ever regret making simple cards because it meant it was harder to make similar, but more complex ones? For instance, you decided not to publish a card that had "+1 Card, +1 Action, +$1", which made it easier to justify Oasis, Treasury, Market, Tournament, Peddler, etc. Do you regret making, say, Smithy?
I don't have any such regrets for the various vanilla cards. Some people complain about Hunting Party or Stables vs. Lab, but I am happy to have done all three. I would probably replace Woodcutter if I were making the main set today, but not because of the space it takes up, it neatly leaves space for better versions at $4. Smithy means +3 Cards with a bonus and no penalty has to cost $5, but $5 is a fine price to pay for those cards.
The "vanilla cards problem" is a real issue, but Dominion in the end just doesn't have very many vanilla cards.
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This forum has gone through a lot of discoveries about what issues matter in the game. For instance, it took us a while to figure out that cycling faster was a good thing in the early game. Other issues on this list could be things like: average coin value, the value of sifting, greening and game longevity, etc.
When you were developing the game, what issues were the most surprising discoveries for you? Are there any discoveries you've made into strategic topics that the forums haven't figured out yet?
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If you could pick 25 cards to make the base set today, what 25 would they be?
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Are there any discoveries you've made into strategic topics that the forums haven't figured out yet?
I believe that Donald has previously said that he doesn't answer strategy questions for us, so I wouldn't expect an answer to this one! ;)
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This forum has gone through a lot of discoveries about what issues matter in the game. For instance, it took us a while to figure out that cycling faster was a good thing in the early game. Other issues on this list could be things like: average coin value, the value of sifting, greening and game longevity, etc.
When you were developing the game, what issues were the most surprising discoveries for you? Are there any discoveries you've made into strategic topics that the forums haven't figured out yet?
I went through learning the deal with Chapel like anyone else. I'm not sure "surprising discoveries" is how I'd describe anything else. On day one I thought +2 Actions and +1 Buy would be much better than they are, but it's not like it was a "surprising discovery" that they weren't, it was just how things turned out to actually work. Ho hum, I made Village and Market stronger. Similarly on day one I thought I would make all three base victory cards worth going for, but that didn't work out because you want the game to be long enough to have fun.
I generally avoid giving strategic advice because well it's lose-lose. Either I'm wrong and dumb, or I'm right and spoiling the Journey of Discovery. I wrote that essay about fighting attacks because it seemed like some of the casual players that Dominion was selling to could use that essay; I don't regret that. I've mentioned that a few obv. weak cards are weak, here in the company of you guys; recently someone on BGG quoted me saying here that Pirate Ship sucked, and I felt like, yeah, don't ever say things like that, we aren't actually at someone's house here after all. No-one needs to hear me saying bad things about Pirate Ship, it's not helping anyone, it's not increasing net human happiness. Have fun hilariously quoting this but really.
People have had years to catch up to my lead, so I wouldn't worry too much about my precious strategy secrets. I could probably show you some tricks with Dark Ages; probably not so many with Intrigue.
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If you could pick 25 cards to make the base set today, what 25 would they be?
I would like to be friendly and give people lots of exciting question answers. But this question is asking me to spend hours figuring out something that has no value other than answering this question. It is too much, it is beyond the scope. I have gone over what cards I might take out; I would take those out. I would replace them with you know good cards. Not too complex. Ideally I would get to make new cards, especially, simpler versions of existing cards that I might otherwise want.
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You've said in the past that you don't like promos because if they're good enough to exist, you're depriving an expansion of a good card. Now that there are no more expansions forthcoming, does that change the equation? Specifically, there has been talk of a "Treasure Chest" expansion, but an objection is that such a product would only be really desirable for players who have all of the expansions. Why not create cards for such an expansion and just distribute them separately? You could make two new Seaside cards and sell/distribute them together as the Seaside mini-expansion, etc.
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You've said in the past that you don't like promos because if they're good enough to exist, you're depriving an expansion of a good card. Now that there are no more expansions forthcoming, does that change the equation? Specifically, there has been talk of a "Treasure Chest" expansion, but an objection is that such a product would only be really desirable for players who have all of the expansions. Why not create cards for such an expansion and just distribute them separately? You could make two new Seaside cards and sell/distribute them together as the Seaside mini-expansion, etc.
Well the main problem with Treasure Chest would be, that some other thing would be better. Even for the people who like Treasure Chest. Let's say Treasure Chest happens instead of Cornucopia. Is that better or worse? Well you don't get to look at Treasure Chest to make that call so it's unfair, but it gives a clearer picture than "what if we got Treasure Chest instead of nothing at all."
It's true that requiring you to have bought all the expansions would be a downside, but that's not really the case except for the tokens and Potions, and I could avoid using tokens, the Prosperity cards could just be a treasure and something that costs $7. And I could pass up doing a new Prize, or I could make another card that uses Prizes. So, the best case scenario is, there's one card that you can't use if you didn't buy Alchemy or Base Cards, and the rest of it works fine for anyone. The rulebook covers duration cards etc.
You can also argue that probably any 9th expansion is only for people who bought 8 expansions (or maybe 6-7 leaving out 1-2 that sounded bad to them), no matter what the contents.
The big advantage of Treasure Chest is that it would be easier to make than a new small set. That is how it is a topic at all.
Promos aren't sold, they are promotional, so, not to be greedy but realistic, we would not just make 13 promos to give away if they could be an expansion instead. I don't know how small you can get and still have a product; I bet it's not great going smaller than 13.
Your basic premise that a lack of expansions means promos aren't missing out on expansions is fine though.
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Those are many good points. The only one I would argue is that most people would prefer a new thing to Treasure Chest. Personally, I'd rather have the new thing, but judging by a sampling of fan cards, there's a lot of people very interested in new Potion-cost cards, new cards costing $7, new Action/Victory cards, and—more than anything else—new Duration cards. Pretty much every Dominion player I know in real life loves Duration cards and wishes there were more of them. (Personally, I don't understand the huge appeal. They're just cards that do something on your next turn and therefore have the Duration type.)
I suppose the argument for more promos also carries over to an argument for online-only cards. Even if printing a card/expansion in real life is judged not to be economically viable, "printing" it online might fall on the right side of the cost/benefit equation. You'd have to pay for art, obviously, but still. If it turns out to be a big enough hit online, it could then be printed.
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Those are many good points. The only one I would argue is that most people would prefer a new thing to Treasure Chest. Personally, I'd rather have the new thing, but judging by a sampling of fan cards, there's a lot of people very interested in new Potion-cost cards, new cards costing $7, new Action/Victory cards, and—more than anything else—new Duration cards. Pretty much every Dominion player I know in real life loves Duration cards and wishes there were more of them. (Personally, I don't understand the huge appeal. They're just cards that do something on your next turn and therefore have the Duration type.)
If what people really want is duration cards though then an expansion to Seaside would make the most sense.
And well it's not out of the question. But when I had to do an extra small expansion, I thought of that, and mentioned it to Jay. And he didn't rule it out, but said, wouldn't a new thing be better? And I made Guilds instead. And well again, I can't compare this hypothetical expansion, but I like Guilds. It's more interesting than I imagine more duration cards would be.
I suppose the argument for more promos also carries over to an argument for online-only cards. Even if printing a card/expansion in real life is judged not to be economically viable, "printing" it online might fall on the right side of the cost/benefit equation. You'd have to pay for art, obviously, but still. If it turns out to be a big enough hit online, it could then be printed.
I can't make an online-only thing unless it's impossible to do irl - too many people would scream.
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Donald, I just wanted to say thank you for all of your work with Dominion. Our group has gotten quite a lot of enjoyment out of the game, and I anxiously await Guilds!
On the topic of a "Treasure Chest" style set, I would like to see one set that combines the mechanics of all of the previous sets, so Duration cards with Potion in the cost (actually lots of cards with potion in the cost :p), things of that nature. Whatever happens in the future for Dominion, you know that we fans will love it, thank you again for the job well done!
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With all this talk about promos and treasure chest and specific card types...
What about mini-sets of say, 4 new cards? (i.e 4 new Durations, 4 new Treasures, 4 new Attacks) These could all be very similar cards and could satisfy the expansion-hungry audience. I think the only one I'd avoid is a set of only alt-Victory cards. I think people would spend $8-$10 on such packs. Heck, maybe include redemption codes for people to use one of those new cards on Goko or something.
Oh, and you've mentioned you'd prefer to do Dominion 2. Do you have a game design you're working on to fill that space?
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A Potion-cost Duration-Action-Victory that hands out Victory tokens and Ruins, adds an extra Kingdom pile, and has an on-gain effect.
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What about mini-sets of say, 4 new cards? (i.e 4 new Durations, 4 new Treasures, 4 new Attacks) These could all be very similar cards and could satisfy the expansion-hungry audience. I think the only one I'd avoid is a set of only alt-Victory cards. I think people would spend $8-$10 on such packs. Heck, maybe include redemption codes for people to use one of those new cards on Goko or something.
I don't see the beauty of small sets like that. Like, a store has shelves with the Dominion expansions. They want this product in the same place so that the right people see it. It's not a good size for that space though. And then, like, the plastic insert has got to be too expensive for a small product like that, but surely it would bother the publisher to have provided that plastic insert for all other products but not these (yes many people might not care but they aren't the publisher).
But whatever, here is the thing to focus on. There were good reasons to stop making Dominion expansions. They apply to smaller expansions and Treasure Chests too. I have talked about this before and here is a link: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=73.0
Oh, and you've mentioned you'd prefer to do Dominion 2. Do you have a game design you're working on to fill that space?
Kingdom Builder started out as a Dominion spin-off, as proof that I have worked on one. I would like to make a Dominion spin-off but it seems bad to talk about beyond that. I'd prefer people to assume there will never be one and then be pleasantly surprised if there is.
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What about mini-sets of say, 4 new cards? (i.e 4 new Durations, 4 new Treasures, 4 new Attacks) These could all be very similar cards and could satisfy the expansion-hungry audience. I think the only one I'd avoid is a set of only alt-Victory cards. I think people would spend $8-$10 on such packs. Heck, maybe include redemption codes for people to use one of those new cards on Goko or something.
I don't see the beauty of small sets like that. Like, a store has shelves with the Dominion expansions. They want this product in the same place so that the right people see it. It's not a good size for that space though. And then, like, the plastic insert has got to be too expensive for a small product like that, but surely it would bother the publisher to have provided that plastic insert for all other products but not these (yes many people might not care but they aren't the publisher).
I'll be honest. I wasn't even thinking of the plastic inserts that come with the games. I just assumed a box like poker cards come in. I think I actually forgot the boxes had inserts in them because I consolidated to one box so quickly.
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Squire is a 2 cost card that gives you 1 of something and 2 of something else, and you're often inclined to throw it in the trash.
Squire in Magic: The Gathering fits this same description? Coincidence?
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Squire is a 2 cost card that gives you 1 of something and 2 of something else, and you're often inclined to throw it in the trash.
Squire in Magic: The Gathering fits this same description? Coincidence?
Well I used the art for Magic's Squire, and they are both concepted as squires. Those are connections. My Squire was originally "+1 card +1 action, you may buy a silver or play an attack."
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So it let you buy a Silver during your action phase, with the whole Black Market baggage?
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So it let you buy a Silver during your action phase, with the whole Black Market baggage?
Yes, that was less weird back then as there were no phases, so a few cards did it.
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I've mentioned that a few obv. weak cards are weak, here in the company of you guys; recently someone on BGG quoted me saying here that Pirate Ship sucked, and I felt like, yeah, don't ever say things like that, we aren't actually at someone's house here after all. No-one needs to hear me saying bad things about Pirate Ship, it's not helping anyone, it's not increasing net human happiness. Have fun hilariously quoting this but really.
I think it increases human happiness. I don't think that I quoted you, but I was in that thread, and it was some typically "O my god Pirate Ship totally destroys the game"-thing, and if it makes someone break out of their groupthink that forces them into ugly games (in their opinion), then that is a good thing...
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Cant remember if I have asked this before...
Roughly how many physical copies of your games do you think you have sold ?
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Cant remember if I have asked this before...
Roughly how many physical copies of your games do you think you have sold ?
It seems like this is the kind of thing you have to ask the companies. I don't know how public they want it to be. At one point Jay said in public that more than a million copies of Dominion had sold (counting all languages and expansions). So, more than a million.
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Cant remember if I have asked this before...
Roughly how many physical copies of your games do you think you have sold ?
It seems like this is the kind of thing you have to ask the companies. I don't know how public they want it to be. At one point Jay said in public that more than a million copies of Dominion had sold (counting all languages and expansions). So, more than a million.
I'm sure you don't want to get too much into the business side of things, but do you directly make money off of more people buying sets? Like does a percentage of the sales go to you, or did Rio Grande just pay an overall license fee and keeps the actual profits?
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I'm sure you don't want to get too much into the business side of things, but do you directly make money off of more people buying sets? Like does a percentage of the sales go to you, or did Rio Grande just pay an overall license fee and keeps the actual profits?
Like most deals with smaller game companies - which is to say, all of them except the giant ones like Hasbro, which just buy you out - mine is for a royalty, a percentage of the take. Every copy of Dominion sold makes me money. I don't get anything for promos. And it's the same for my other games.
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Cant remember if I have asked this before...
Roughly how many physical copies of your games do you think you have sold ?
It seems like this is the kind of thing you have to ask the companies. I don't know how public they want it to be. At one point Jay said in public that more than a million copies of Dominion had sold (counting all languages and expansions). So, more than a million.
I figured you had a ballpark figure, and more than a million is easily more than enough for me to win a bet with a friend (I went over 500k total games sold with your name on it, he went under)
What? Dont judge me people, its a long ride home in the car pool!
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Cant remember if I have asked this before...
Roughly how many physical copies of your games do you think you have sold ?
It seems like this is the kind of thing you have to ask the companies. I don't know how public they want it to be. At one point Jay said in public that more than a million copies of Dominion had sold (counting all languages and expansions). So, more than a million.
The WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324338604578326653482287568.html) has Ticket to Ride at 2 million physical copies plus 1.8 million digital copies sold.
Do you think Goko Dominion will be as popular or more popular than the physical expansions once it is released on all platforms? To what extent do you think sales of one platform drives sales of the other?
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Do you think Goko Dominion will be as popular or more popular than the physical expansions once it is released on all platforms? To what extent do you think sales of one platform drives sales of the other?
I have no idea. I have no data.
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Cant remember if I have asked this before...
Roughly how many physical copies of your games do you think you have sold ?
It seems like this is the kind of thing you have to ask the companies. I don't know how public they want it to be. At one point Jay said in public that more than a million copies of Dominion had sold (counting all languages and expansions). So, more than a million.
The WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324338604578326653482287568.html) has Ticket to Ride at 2 million physical copies plus 1.8 million digital copies sold.
Do you think Goko Dominion will be as popular or more popular than the physical expansions once it is released on all platforms? To what extent do you think sales of one platform drives sales of the other?
The PA Report had a pretty good article (http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/days-of-wonder-ceo-explains-how-ipad-ticket-to-ride-boosted-sales-of-the-re) about how Ticket to Ride's virtual sales helped boost the physical sales of the game and vice versa. You might be interested if you've not seen it already?
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What percentage of luck and skill would you estimate goes into winning a game of Dominion?
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What percentage of luck and skill would you estimate goes into winning a game of Dominion?
It depends on the board.
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Cant remember if I have asked this before...
Roughly how many physical copies of your games do you think you have sold ?
It seems like this is the kind of thing you have to ask the companies. I don't know how public they want it to be. At one point Jay said in public that more than a million copies of Dominion had sold (counting all languages and expansions). So, more than a million.
The WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324338604578326653482287568.html) has Ticket to Ride at 2 million physical copies plus 1.8 million digital copies sold.
Do you think Goko Dominion will be as popular or more popular than the physical expansions once it is released on all platforms? To what extent do you think sales of one platform drives sales of the other?
The PA Report had a pretty good article (http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/days-of-wonder-ceo-explains-how-ipad-ticket-to-ride-boosted-sales-of-the-re) about how Ticket to Ride's virtual sales helped boost the physical sales of the game and vice versa. You might be interested if you've not seen it already?
Good article. I had not seen it.
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What percentage of luck and skill would you estimate goes into winning a game of Dominion?
It depends on the board.
Let's say a board involving Familiars and Tournaments ::)
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What percentage of luck and skill would you estimate goes into winning a game of Dominion?
It depends on the board.
Let's say a board involving Familiars and Tournaments ::)
There's a thread you can look up that will tell you the effect each card has on your ability to predict the winner using trueskill. Wait I'll look it up for you. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2798.msg47781#msg47781
By that measure it turns out that Familiar and Tournament are better-than-average predictors, meaning higher-skill.
Of course luck and skill aren't opposites. Dominion overall is high-luck high-skill, like poker.
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Thanks, Donald, I expected Goons near the top but not Familiar and Tournament to be that high.
In a list like that I would expect the cards that are never picked up by good and bad players alike at the bottom, and the hard-to-play cards as well as the trap cards at the top. Grand Market is the only card at the top I'd recognise as a trap card.
As for high-luck-high-skill: Yes, some games, like Backgammon or (even more so) Poker, have so many luck elements that it takes skill to single out those that favour you.
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Hi Donald,
I think I've read everything that you've had to say on this thread and others about your preference not to do any further dominion expansions but rather to do other variant games probably with dominion in the title but not compatible with the original game.
From memory the main reasons were:
Diminishing returns by which I guess you meant that most of the good ideas have been done and so a further expansion would contain less good ideas and variations on ideas which had already been done.
Increasing complexity - the ideas which have not been done yet are at the more complicated end of the spectrum and thus would appeal to mostly the hard core fans rather than the more casual players that make up most of the buying public.
I find myself wondering does this mean you actually have enough good but really complicated ideas to make up another expansion (but feel that there would be no market for such an expansion, or that such an expansion would alienate casual gamers from the game)? Or are there simply not enough good ideas for cards left to do another a-grade expansion whatever the level of complexity?
If it is the later and there are just not enough good card ideas to make an a-grade expansion then I think it is sensible and honourable that you decline to make further (potentially substandard) expansions.
If it is the former and you have enough good ideas left to make an a-grade expansion but it probably won't happen because it will probably be too complicated for the general public - then that seems like a real pity.
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Diminishing returns by which I guess you meant that most of the good ideas have been done and so a further expansion would contain less good ideas and variations on ideas which had already been done.
No, diminishing returns means, when you have 25 cards, adding 25 with Intrigue doubles your number of cards and drastically increases your variety; but once you have 200 cards, you have a crazy amount of variety, and adding 25 more adds a lot less. You still get to explore the expansion itself, see what the new cards do and have those experiences, but in terms of giving the game variety, there are diminishing returns.
I find myself wondering does this mean you actually have enough good but really complicated ideas to make up another expansion (but feel that there would be no market for such an expansion, or that such an expansion would alienate casual gamers from the game)? Or are there simply not enough good ideas for cards left to do another a-grade expansion whatever the level of complexity?
There is also the insularity issue. A typical direction to go for an expansion is more like Alchemy than Intrigue. Let's say there's a Puerto Rico expansion; it adds plantations and corn and indigo and stuff. This game there's only one card from it and no-one bothers with it and people say what is this nonsense, worst expansion ever. But a spin-off can just make the plantations etc. a main part of what's going on.
If complexity and insularity aren't issues then you can make expansions forever. It isn't just the casual gaming public that doesn't want hyper-complex insular expansions though. Alchemy isn't too complex (it's too slow but that's obv. not the same thing) but it's too insular for too many people, despite struggling not to be. We don't have the data on the level of complexity Guilds (a non-insular expansion) has yet; obv. I am hoping it's not too complex, but it certainly points the direction that things to come would go in.
It's not that there's a big list of ideas and I can just say, too complex, too complex, too complex. There's a big list of ideas; I gave a sample in response to an earlier question (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg149323#msg149323). A typical idea just wasn't worth doing; there are a variety of possible reasons. There are ideas that probably would be fine but wouldn't be the exciting thing in their set; I could scrounge up a dull expansion. There is also a list of general mechanics; there most things are too insular, though they may have other issues.
If I were making a new expansion, it would mostly be new ideas, not stuff from the list. Maybe I would take a few things from the files, but just a few. And I did this, I made a new expansion, just like you want me to; it's Guilds. There were "only" going to be seven expansions, but I "needed" a small expansion to go between Hinterlands and Dark Ages (which then didn't go there due to Base Cards). I picked the most promising mechanic on my list and made some cards and well I expect the expansion to go over well with Dominion fans. And it's mostly new cards, with a few Dark Ages or earlier cards that I either moved there or finally fixed up there. And it's the most complex expansion. It's not "old ideas on the list that were too complex," it's, "try to do something good that isn't too redundant with what's already out there, hey look at that, it's complex."
Another item you left off your list is, that making a Dominion expansion means not doing whatever else. I had fun making the expansions but would like to make other games too.
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I have every expansion and love them all and would buy more if more were made and am disappointed in a way that I will not be able to look forward to seeing more expansions.
That said, I want to thank Donald for not making more expansions just to be able to offer more expansions.
Over time, it would water down enthusiasm for the game. A game with some great expansions and some just okay expansions would not have as much integrity as Dominion possesses today.
I believe that Donald is doing the right thing in saying "no" to more expansions despite the interest that many have in seeing them and buying them and enjoying them.
The Beatles wouldn't be as loved today if they kept putting records out under the "Beatles" name all through the 1970s.
Rob
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Diminishing returns by which I guess you meant that most of the good ideas have been done and so a further expansion would contain less good ideas and variations on ideas which had already been done.
No, diminishing returns means, when you have 25 cards, adding 25 with Intrigue doubles your number of cards and drastically increases your variety;
By a factor of 3142.
but once you have 200 cards, you have a crazy amount of variety, and adding 25 more adds a lot less.
A factor of 3.3.
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Diminishing returns by which I guess you meant that most of the good ideas have been done and so a further expansion would contain less good ideas and variations on ideas which had already been done.
No, diminishing returns means, when you have 25 cards, adding 25 with Intrigue doubles your number of cards and drastically increases your variety;
By a factor of 3142.
but once you have 200 cards, you have a crazy amount of variety, and adding 25 more adds a lot less.
A factor of 3.3.
The total number of possible sets of 10 isn't a good measure of how much variety you have. As someone once said, a lot of those variations involve swapping Feast with Scout or what have you. But the relevant thing here is, at 200 cards, you are already never seeing everything; adding 25 cards doesn't change that. At 25 cards, you will eventually see everything, despite not having seen every possible set of 10.
You do get variety from cards #201-225, but it's in the new experiences the new cards offer, not in the increase in the number of possible sets of 10. But cards #26-#50 gave you both things.
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I think the real difference is adding 100% more cards instead of 12% more cards. As much as I'd enjoy more cards, I haven't hardly used the ones I have.
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The total number of possible sets of 10 isn't a good measure of how much variety you have. As someone once said, a lot of those variations involve swapping Feast with Scout or what have you.
If a new expansion would mean more variations of Feast and Scout it would add little to variety and I would also see no need releasing one.
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The total number of possible sets of 10 isn't a good measure of how much variety you have. As someone once said, a lot of those variations involve swapping Feast with Scout or what have you.
If a new expansion would mean more variations of Feast and Scout it would add little to variety and I would also see no need releasing one.
I'm not sure why you're saying this; do you think I would be likely to make such an expansion? I'd like to think I've learned a thing or two over the years. Anyway your post isn't an actual argument against my point, that's my point. Hooray, my point stands (the previous one, not this one, but give it a chance, it could be fine).
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I am going to take a break from the interview. I'd almost answered everything anyway. The remaining answers were: I'm not sure, maybe 120 or so; I can't tell you until Guilds comes out; and it seemed kind of interestingly different at the time, and there were the Throne Room and Workshop combos, but obv. in the end it has not proven to be so interesting. You get better as you go along.
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The total number of possible sets of 10 isn't a good measure of how much variety you have. As someone once said, a lot of those variations involve swapping Feast with Scout or what have you.
If a new expansion would mean more variations of Feast and Scout it would add little to variety and I would also see no need releasing one.
I'm not sure why you're saying this;
pulling a leg here.
do you think I would be likely to make such an expansion?
No, I think you are unlikely too release any further expansion, as I would think you'd stand by your words.
I'd like to think I've learned a thing or two over the years.
The new card rankings testify to that, cards from the latest expansions tend no to be ranked at the very top or bottom.
Anyway your post isn't an actual argument against my point, that's my point. Hooray, my point stands (the previous one, not this one, but give it a chance, it could be fine).
I think we can agree over that. My point is any of the recent expansions avoids kingdom cards being exchangeable or irrelevant. Of course a Squire looks sorry with no attack on the board and Rats withour TfB or Watchtower would likely be ignored, but that's nowhere near Feast without $5 cards or Scout without multicolour VP cards. Even Tunnels without discards get grabbed at the end of the game with an extra buy.
Thanks very much for your long string of answers in this thread. This was enlightening and entertaining, yet I also think we get diminishing returns from questions and answers (while I'd still be curious what species of tree you'd prefer to be).
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Thanks Donald.
You've been more than generous. I think I can speak for everyone here and say we really appreciate the amount of time and effort you put into answering questions from the community.
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Of course a Squire looks sorry with no attack on the board and Rats withour TfB or Watchtower would likely be ignored, but that's nowhere near Feast without $5 cards or Scout without multicolour VP cards. Even Tunnels without discards get grabbed at the end of the game with an extra buy.
Squire is good even without attack cards! And having attack cards on the board doesn't make Squire better -- depends on the attacks and if there is a way to trash Squire... and if they're expensive enough to go to the trouble of trashing Squire for them. :P
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I'd like to think that if I were to release a fantastic game such as this, I would be patient enough to wade through 35 pages of interview questions, often repeated because people didn't want to read back 30 pages and often plain silly or uninteresting. But I don't think I would.
So I tip my hat to you, sir.
I'm looking forward to Guilds as is anyone here to see your final tricks up your sleeve and a lot of "I didn't know you could do that with a card" moments!
Good luck with your future Dominion-esque spinoffs!
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What's your favorite Guilds card?
..
(I suppose this answer won't appear for a few months. :P )
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I am going to take a break from the interview. I'd almost answered everything anyway.
How long will that break be? :P
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What percentage of luck and skill would you estimate goes into winning a game of Dominion?
It depends on the board.
Let's say a board involving Familiars and Tournaments ::)
There's a thread you can look up that will tell you the effect each card has on your ability to predict the winner using trueskill. Wait I'll look it up for you. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2798.msg47781#msg47781
By that measure it turns out that Familiar and Tournament are better-than-average predictors, meaning higher-skill.
Of course luck and skill aren't opposites. Dominion overall is high-luck high-skill, like poker.
There is an important thing to note here: This includes games between relatively low-skill players. It's not surprising that a middling player would thrash a newbie with Goons. I would love to see this list split into games between players in the 30-50 range vs. the 10-30 range (throwing out the 0-10 entirely because they are either new or objectively bad at Dominion).
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The code and the data is there. If you'd love to see it that much, make it happen!
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I actually have a great question for whenever Donald X decides to start answering again:
Why did you decide to let Scheme be Throned, but Herbalist not? Was it too powerful for its cost to be able to put two Treasures on your deck from one Throned Herbalist?
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I actually have a great question for whenever Donald X decides to start answering again:
Why did you decide to let Scheme be Throned, but Herbalist not? Was it too powerful for its cost to be able to put two Treasures on your deck from one Throned Herbalist?
If Scheme activated when you discarded it, like Herbalist, it couldn't be used on itself. That might have something to do with it.
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I actually have a great question for whenever Donald X decides to start answering again:
Why did you decide to let Scheme be Throned, but Herbalist not? Was it too powerful for its cost to be able to put two Treasures on your deck from one Throned Herbalist?
He's alluded to this in the past. He looked for the simplest wording. Scheme was released later than Herbalist, and it had the added issue of needing to behave nicely with Duration cards (Herbalist didn't need to since there are no Duration-Treasure cards). If Scheme had the same wording as Herbalist, then you would be able to topdeck a Duration card before it's finished with its role of reminding you to do something next turn. Probably, all things being equal, Donald X. would have preferred that the wordings sync up, but Scheme needed a more careful wording. In particularly, it doesn't seem that Donald X. spent much time worrying about whether Scheme was eiher thronable or self-schemable.
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Well, I mean, Herbalist, as worded, cannot have its effect Throned. It could have been "at the start of Clean-up this turn, put a Treasure in play on top of your deck."
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Well, I mean, Herbalist, as worded, cannot have its effect Throned. It could have been "at the start of Clean-up this turn, put a Treasure in play on top of your deck."
Yeah, and I don't think that was intentional. I'm pretty sure he just had the rough idea "this card let's you put a treasure back on top to use again next turn" and experiment with the precise phrasing to make it as simple as possible.
I feel like those of us who spend every day contributing to a forum on dominion strategy, write code to simulate and refine strategies, and pore through the accumulated data of million of recorded logs for insight -- well, we generally don't value clear wording and simplicity as much as your average Dominion player. For instance, we might be tempted to think that Donald avoided letting Scheme topdeck a fresh Duration card because the increased likelihood of a Duration missing a reshuffle is integral to the game's balance. Nah, I'm pretty sure it's just because having the Duration card present is useful for tracking purposes when playing the physical game. The reshuffle business is rather esoteric, and way beyond the scope of your average Dominion player's experience or interest.
But hey, this was a question for Donald, not for me. I just thought it could be fun to discuss while waiting for Donald to return to the interview. I hope you don't mind me responding.
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(I read this thread as it developed, and don't remember seeing this question answered here or anywhere else, so if it has been I would appreciate being pointed in the right direction; if not I'll just leave this here in case Donald revisits the thread)
Did cards like Village ever say something other than +2 Actions? Like, for instance, +2 Mana (http://boardgamegeek.com/article/12125852#12125852)? Or even just +2 Action Points? Was there ever any concern that people might intuit that "+X Action" meant "play X other Actions now, before finishing the rest of this card," or should those people have just RTFM'd?
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(I read this thread as it developed, and don't remember seeing this question answered here or anywhere else, so if it has been I would appreciate being pointed in the right direction; if not I'll just leave this here in case Donald revisits the thread)
Did cards like Village ever say something other than +2 Actions? Like, for instance, +2 Mana (http://boardgamegeek.com/article/12125852#12125852)? Or even just +2 Action Points? Was there ever any concern that people might intuit that "+X Action" meant "play X other Actions now, before finishing the rest of this card," or should those people have just RTFM'd?
I remember him saying at one point that it used to say "You may play two more actions this turn." Later, when they made coin symbols, they thought of making all vanilla bonuses have symbols. They just settled with +Cards, +Actions, and +Buys.
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In the rules forum it was noted that some of the rules were mistranslated. I asked a question about that but it got snowed under, and perhaps it is better here.
Sometimes stuff gets mistranslated - I think it's a bad thing (who doesn't) but hey, people are people and mistakes happen.
But in some game translations, entire sections of rulebooks are altered, removed and/or added. Not just for Dominion, but I remember seeing it for other games as well.
Donald, could you tell us a bit about how the translating business works? I can't imagine that game designers such as yourself rejoice in translators changing the rules; but this has to balance with you probably not being able to verify the translations yourself (simply because it is impossible or at least impractical for you to learn every language in existance) and publishers probably simply not having the resources to explore every nook and cranny of game-rulesets. Who OK's the translations? etc. etc.
I tried to leave the question as non-judgemental as I could on purpose, to open up the possibility for you to share as much as you can without pissing off the game publishers your income depends on :)
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I don't know how it actually works (I'm not in the business), but I expect it is as follows, at least for the Dutch versions:
1. A game designer makes an English game and proposes it to an English (American) publisher
2. The publisher likes and publishes the game
3. The game becomes popular and a Dutch publisher is now interested
4. The Dutch publisher contacts the original publisher about obtaining a license to make the game available for the Dutch market
5. The original publisher says "sure", they draw up a contract and pay some money, either a fixed amount or a per-copy amount
6. The Dutch publisher, through its licensing rights, translates the game and may use the original art to resell it to their target audience
What I'm curious about is how far the influence of the game designer reaches. Does it stop at the original publisher or does it overflow to the local publisher?
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I would be interested in the design of the very first ten dominion cards (the cards you used in your first game). Do you have any pictures of the cards or do you have any similar files?
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I would be interested in the design of the very first ten dominion cards (the cards you used in your first game). Do you have any pictures of the cards or do you have any similar files?
This is probably close to what you want:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5905.0
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Thank you, I already read the article.
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Hey Donald,
Did you request from the artists that Guilds feature so many bald people, or was that a coincidence?
Also, did you request from Jay that the Guilds rules use feminine pronouns?
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What's your favorite Guilds card?
..
(I suppose this answer won't appear for a few months. :P )
I'm tentatively going with Herald.
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How long will that break be? :P
However long it is, it will be over before you know it.
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Donald!! Welcome back! We've missed you. ;D
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Why did you decide to let Scheme be Throned, but Herbalist not? Was it too powerful for its cost to be able to put two Treasures on your deck from one Throned Herbalist?
Both cards just got the best wording they could have. In neither case did I really care if you could Throne it. By default I would like cards to be Throne-able, but Herbalist's best wording was to have below-the-line text. Scheme went through a bunch of wordings, at various points you could Throne it or couldn't, it could be used on itself or not. It had to be clear what happened with duration cards and trickier things like Thrones used on duration cards. In the end it worked out that you can get back Scheme and can Throne it.
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Well, I mean, Herbalist, as worded, cannot have its effect Throned. It could have been "at the start of Clean-up this turn, put a Treasure in play on top of your deck."
It's just, if things happen at two times, I think it's best to have the dividing line. And with Herbalist that was easy. Scheme wanted a dividing line but the best wording turned out not to have one.
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Did cards like Village ever say something other than +2 Actions? Like, for instance, +2 Mana (http://boardgamegeek.com/article/12125852#12125852)? Or even just +2 Action Points? Was there ever any concern that people might intuit that "+X Action" meant "play X other Actions now, before finishing the rest of this card," or should those people have just RTFM'd?
At the very beginning, there were no +'s at all. Village said "you may play an additional two Actions this turn," Market said "you may buy an additional card this turn," card-drawing was "Draw a card." +coins was "You have an additional $1 to spend this turn," but was only on one card.
When I decided to go to +'s, I might have used symbols, but I didn't have good symbols for everything. I might have used "-card" for discarding, as I have in other games such as Nefarious, but there just wasn't enough of it.
It's bad to "overload" terms and it would be nice if Action and Action weren't the same word (similarly it would be nice if Curse wasn't the type for the card Curse). There was no concern about Action prior to the game being released. I knew Curse was a mistake but at the same time I knew it didn't matter much and I didn't have a better word. At one point in the prototype it was a Token.
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Donald, could you tell us a bit about how the translating business works? I can't imagine that game designers such as yourself rejoice in translators changing the rules; but this has to balance with you probably not being able to verify the translations yourself (simply because it is impossible or at least impractical for you to learn every language in existance) and publishers probably simply not having the resources to explore every nook and cranny of game-rulesets. Who OK's the translations? etc. etc.
For translating into languages other than English, I am normally not involved at all. Georg, who did the German translations for HiG, asked for clarifications a few times, and asked could I rename Trickster, they had used that name already for Swindler. At least once another translator caught an error in the rulebook in time to fix it, IIRC it was the Korean translator. Normally it's just, Hobby Japan is translating Dominion stuff into Japanese, they do it, they're happy with it, that's that.
For translating into English, I struggle to get the publisher to let me endlessly proofread and correct the English version. I vary in success there; I didn't get to proofread Kingdom Builder: Crossroads at all, resulting in a bunch of mistakes, but I just finished endlessly proofreading Greed.
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Pretty much exactly one year gap from F.DS. Sounds like you planned this one :P.
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Donald!
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Great to have you back !
As a sidenote, the French translation for Kingdom Builder is beyond awful, but Queen is known for their awful translations (in France at least). I can't imagine how bad the Crossroads ones must be if you specifically heard about them (I only have Nomads).
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Can you explain (or link to somewhere else) what's fresh about Greed, why we should buy it or support the kickstarter campaign?
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Is there a reason why every action card that draws and has +$ in dominion is non-terminal? In your secret history, you said at one point that you made a chart of all of the combinations of pluses to possibly consider. So, why has no bonus like +2 cards +2$, or any variation of it ever made it?
The only exception to this rule is mercenary, but, well he only draws if you give him something to trash first, so he doesn't really draw. Trusty steed and pawn can choose to do it, and it doesn't seem so bad.
Also, it's so great that you're back, I've always been disappointed that I only came to the forum when you already left.
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The only exception to this rule is mercenary, but, well he only draws if you give him something to trash first, so he doesn't really draw. Trusty steed and pawn can choose to do it, and it doesn't seem so bad.
As a note, compare Mercenary to Steward and you might notice another reason as to why Mercenary does do both (answer: Mercenary gives all three Steward options at once, although it's an 'all or none' choice. And he attacks on top of course)
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I would be interested in the design of the very first ten dominion cards (the cards you used in your first game). Do you have any pictures of the cards or do you have any similar files?
I didn't keep the very first cards; what were the odds anyone would ever want to see those. They roughly looked like:
- Village, $5, +2 Actions
- Market, $5, +1 Buy
- Witch, $3, Each other player gains a Curse
- either Knight, ~$6, each other player trashes their top card, or Thief, ~$1, each other player discards 1-2 cards
- Moat, $2, play to stop an attack
- Chapel, $2, trash any number of cards from your hand
- either Library, $4, draw an extra 2 cards at end of turn, or Lab, same but discard 2 afterwards
- Mine, $5, turn Copper to Silver or Silver to Gold, rather than working on any treasure
- Tower, $2, +1 card +1 action +$1
- possibly Remodel or Cellar or Throne Room
I know there were two attacks plus Moat. I'm sure about Village and Market and Tower. I know the card-drawing was something weak, I was initially scared of card-drawing.
Images of the oldest surviving pics are in the outtakes article, skipping ones that would just have the same text as the final version. I didn't save Village etc., I edited the images as I tweaked the cards. When I cut a card, I put a new card in its slot; I didn't immediately start saving outtakes. So Dungeon is the first image in the oldest file, but it wasn't in the first game, whatever was there didn't last.
Over the course of the evening, we played with the cards at different costs, marking the piles with dice. I printed out new versions for next game night, plus ten new cards, which I know included two attacks (including $3, +1 card, each other player gains a Confusion), Battlements (reaction that draws you cards), and whatever ones from above weren't actually in the first ten. Probably also Vault ($4, victory cards are Copper this turn) and Dungeon ($3, discard a card from your hand, trash a card from your hand, draw 3 cards). Possibly Feast (+$3, trash this) or Trading Post (trash a card from your hand to gain a card with the same cost). Possibly the VP Tower ($4, 1 VP per 3 Actions).
You can only play one action per turn, buy one card per turn. It's fair to say that those rules went hand-in-hand with having cards that were exceptions; part of the beauty of the rules is that then you can break them. Replacing cards with other cards directly was an obvious way to build up separately from buying things. Attacks obviously were going to give out junk, trash cards, cause discarding (Spy came a lot later); whatever one wasn't there the first night, it just didn't make it into the first ten, it was on the schedule. Reactions were part of the premise, although as cards you played at a special time, rather than the reveal thing that made it out. You could get rid of cards and there was something you obviously wanted to get rid of, so I immediately had Chapel. It took a bit longer to get Workshop. You could draw more cards, but maybe drawing your deck would be too easy, so at first it was harder to draw cards. The idea to Tower was to give you a little of multiple things, I was not thinking of it as chaining until I saw it in action. Cellar was obvious from the start but initially didn't have +1 Action. And then Throne Room, that's something automatically possible in many games without having much you've decided on. You play cards; you could play the same card twice.
The chaining Tower was fun, and over the first few weeks I came around on card-drawing and action-chaining. Village needed to draw a card to increase your chance of having extra actions to play; Market had to give you $ to increase the chance you could really buy two things. Once I had chaining +actions and +$/buy, I added Lab as we know it. At the same time I got less scared of card-drawing and put in Smithy. And then I made more complex cards.
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Did you request from the artists that Guilds feature so many bald people, or was that a coincidence?
Also, did you request from Jay that the Guilds rules use feminine pronouns?
The bald people was just something I noticed when I was writing the previews. I had artist notes for Guilds (something we started doing after Intrigue because the card title hadn't always communicated enough), but they don't mention hair or lack thereof.
Jay did the "she" thing in the Guilds rulebook on his own; you'd have to ask him why.
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As a sidenote, the French translation for Kingdom Builder is beyond awful, but Queen is known for their awful translations (in France at least). I can't imagine how bad the Crossroads ones must be if you specifically heard about them (I only have Nomads).
Well I don't know about French etc. translations of Crossroads, but the English translation had multiple rules problems. One ability was completely wrong. One tile was given the same name as an existing tile. The task cards looked like you could score them multiple times, when once each is what's correct. The meeples were removed before scoring, which was not the intention and matters.
They printed fixed versions and if you buy one now I expect that's what you'll get; I got correct English copies. The problems delayed the general release of the English version, except at a few cons and I think in Europe, where people got wrong ones.
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Can you explain (or link to somewhere else) what's fresh about Greed, why we should buy it or support the kickstarter campaign?
I made Greed in 2003. It was very sad when 7 Wonders was announced; I immediately got the publisher that was going to take months to make a decision to send Greed back to me, so I could give it to another publisher that wouldn't play it. A key lesson there is, just say "btw someone else will be looking at this too" and let them keep it.
I have never played 7 Wonders but I am sure Greed will always be compared to it. In Greed you have a hand of 3 cards - you draft for 2 turns, then draft/play for 10 turns. So you can plan for the future; you can take something early that you won't play until late, although hand space is precious. It's a game of interacting rules on cards; you can see examples on the kickstarter page. So uh you get combos, you know. I don't think that's so much what goes on in 7 Wonders.
Greed is in some ways the quintessential Donald X. game - not among my published games, but among all of my games. It's a card game with interacting rules on cards; it lasts 30-40 minutes; we all make decisions at the same time. That is me all over.
I think Greed will go over well with uh the strategy-game-fans among Dominion players, like you people. It might be too much for the more casual Dominion players, the people who play with their parents or kids. I mean turn one, read 12 cards, turn two, read 11 cards, that's a lot to ask.
The kickstarter is just promotional, and had a tiny funding level it instantly reached; it doesn't need support. There is no reason not to wait for reviews. It should be out at Origins.
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Is there a reason why every action card that draws and has +$ in dominion is non-terminal? In your secret history, you said at one point that you made a chart of all of the combinations of pluses to possibly consider. So, why has no bonus like +2 cards +2$, or any variation of it ever made it?
The only exception to this rule is mercenary, but, well he only draws if you give him something to trash first, so he doesn't really draw. Trusty steed and pawn can choose to do it, and it doesn't seem so bad.
Also, it's so great that you're back, I've always been disappointed that I only came to the forum when you already left.
How do you think I felt, all that time that you hadn't started posting yet?
One of the cards from the early days was "+2 Cards +$2" for $5. You can see it in the outtakes article on the front page (Highway). For a while that card seemed like it would make it, but it's strong and just not that interesting. At the same time I wanted conditional cards that were in that territory, e.g. Tribute, and the vanilla card makes them look a lot worse.
Things like "+1 Card +$2" and "+2 Cards +$1" never sounded appealing at all. It just seems wonky; surely I can commit to the full +$3 or +3 Cards. "+1 Card +$1" is similar. I don't see what I get out of it, it just takes an extra line. I'd rather have "+2 Cards" or "+$2."
The general exception of course if when the "+1 Card" is really part of a "+1 Card +1 Action." Then the card replaces itself, that's the concept there. And if the rest of the card gains $ that's fine.
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Now that Dark Ages has been out for a while, what are your thoughts on Rebuild?
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Now that Dark Ages has been out for a while, what are your thoughts on Rebuild?
It's too powerful for how interesting it is. More at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/14094365#14094365
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Greed kind of sounds like that 4 seasons game thing I played (someone correct me on the name I complained about it on this forum). Is it a lot like that? Once you draft your starting cards do you add random cards onto that?
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Greed kind of sounds like that 4 seasons game thing I played (someone correct me on the name I complained about it on this forum). Is it a lot like that? Once you draft your starting cards do you add random cards onto that?
I know nothing of this "4 Seasons" of which you speak. You don't draw cards in Greed unless something tells you to. We start with 12, there are 2 turns of drafting, then 10 of "draft, then play one of your drafted cards," then it's over. A few cards have you draw a card when you play them, but just a few.
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Pretty much exactly one year gap from F.DS. Sounds like you planned this one :P.
Never deny the cool stuff, of course he planned it!
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Greed kind of sounds like that 4 seasons game thing I played (someone correct me on the name I complained about it on this forum). Is it a lot like that? Once you draft your starting cards do you add random cards onto that?
I know nothing of this "4 Seasons" of which you speak.
It's most probably Seasons (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/108745/seasons)
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I made Greed in 2003. It was very sad when 7 Wonders was announced; I immediately got the publisher that was going to take months to make a decision to send Greed back to me, so I could give it to another publisher that wouldn't play it. A key lesson there is, just say "btw someone else will be looking at this too" and let them keep it.
I have never played 7 Wonders but I am sure Greed will always be compared to it. In Greed you have a hand of 3 cards - you draft for 2 turns, then draft/play for 10 turns. So you can plan for the future; you can take something early that you won't play until late, although hand space is precious. It's a game of interacting rules on cards; you can see examples on the kickstarter page. So uh you get combos, you know. I don't think that's so much what goes on in 7 Wonders.
Greed is in some ways the quintessential Donald X. game - not among my published games, but among all of my games. It's a card game with interacting rules on cards; it lasts 30-40 minutes; we all make decisions at the same time. That is me all over.
I think Greed will go over well with uh the strategy-game-fans among Dominion players, like you people. It might be too much for the more casual Dominion players, the people who play with their parents or kids. I mean turn one, read 12 cards, turn two, read 11 cards, that's a lot to ask.
The kickstarter is just promotional, and had a tiny funding level it instantly reached; it doesn't need support. There is no reason not to wait for reviews. It should be out at Origins.
Went to the kickstarter just out of curiosity, I mean why should I back something pyhsical there and add $20 of shipping costs, but then:
Includes shipping to the United States, Germany,Belgium, and Netherlands.
<3 whoever descision this was, instantly backed without knowing anything of the game beside the quoted post and the free shipping...
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Hi Donald,
I'm really glad you're back.
It always felt wrong it a subtle and strange way that you were gone.
Hope you will find a better balance this time between 'gone' and being the helpful guy that answers everyone's questions, remarks and just plain nonsense.
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Well, I feel a bit sorry for the guy that he designed his new game Greed when the drafting system wasn't catapulted by 7 Wonders yet. But oh well, that's how it goes in the game designing business it seems.
At least he doesn't rant like Scott Nicholson. :)
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Well, I feel a bit sorry for the guy that he designed his new game Greed when the drafting system wasn't catapulted by 7 Wonders yet. But oh well, that's how it goes in the game designing business it seems.
At least he doesn't rant like Scott Nicholson. :)
I am sure the space on drafting techniques is not exhausted, 7 Wonders didn't originate this technique, and 7 Wonders would have shone even if Greed had been out in 2005, by merit of theme (not to say it is much more thematic than Dominion, but the culture development theme is more popular than establishment of shady business) and artwork.
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They printed fixed versions and if you buy one now I expect that's what you'll get; I got correct English copies. The problems delayed the general release of the English version, except at a few cons and I think in Europe, where people got wrong ones.
I'm a little confused. What language is the English version translated from?
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I know the card-drawing was something weak, I was initially scared of card-drawing.
Interesting. The friend who introduced me to Dominion is a good Magic player. Being unfamiliar with Magic, I recently started playing some with him and other friends, but I consistently fail to get my engines going for lack of carddraw. It's really frustrating, you have this large deck with juicy things, but most of them you'll never see? Magic really needs some Smithies and Wharves.
Something else: I recently read an old comment of yours where you referenced Invitation to a Beheading. Are you a big Nabokov fan? Which work is your favorite?
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Magic really needs some Smithies
Like Harmonize and Concentrate?
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I consistently fail to get my engines going for lack of carddraw. It's really frustrating, you have this large deck with juicy things, but most of them you'll never see? Magic really needs some Smithies and Wharves.
You better check yourself before you deck yourself.
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Hope you will find a better balance this time between 'gone' and being the helpful guy that answers everyone's questions, remarks and just plain nonsense.
Well I will try to avoid arguing about statistics or if people should boycott RGG for getting screwed over or whether or not Possession was a cliche idea. Already I have passed up giving someone advice on how to play the first few turns of Kingdom Builder.
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Hope you will find a better balance this time between 'gone' and being the helpful guy that answers everyone's questions, remarks and just plain nonsense.
Well I will try to avoid arguing about statistics or if people should boycott RGG for getting screwed over or whether or not Possession was a cliche idea. Already I have passed up giving someone advice on how to play the first few turns of Kingdom Builder.
... but maybe we can finally resolve if 0.999...=1?
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I am sure the space on drafting techniques is not exhausted, 7 Wonders didn't originate this technique, and 7 Wonders would have shone even if Greed had been out in 2005, by merit of theme (not to say it is much more thematic than Dominion, but the culture development theme is more popular than establishment of shady business) and artwork.
My first drafting game was from 1998. Of course I got the idea from Magic and Magic got the idea from sports.
You can make multiple drafting games in the same way that you can make multiple games where people draw from a deck, and there are different ways to draft, but drafting games come with the baggage of lots of reading (unless they're textless), and uh a sense of wanting to know all the cards to play well. I'm not sure it's great to do a bunch of them. And other people are making them. There's one that has been my most popular unpublished game for a while, that publishers never liked, that I'm probably not submitting anywhere else; possibly I will work out a way to take the drafting out of it. I do have an exotic textless drafting game that I may still give a few more chances (the one from 1998).
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I'm a little confused. What language is the English version translated from?
German! For the Queen Games stuff, my English is translated/rewritten into German and then back into English. That's how you have a card in Kingdom Builder called Discoverers.
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I'm a little confused. What language is the English version translated from?
German! For the Queen Games stuff, my English is translated/rewritten into German and then back into English. That's how you have a card in Kingdom Builder called Discoverers.
Um, why? Do they burn your original English version or something?
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I'm a little confused. What language is the English version translated from?
German! For the Queen Games stuff, my English is translated/rewritten into German and then back into English. That's how you have a card in Kingdom Builder called Discoverers.
(http://cdn.memegenerator.net/images/160x/20.jpg)
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My first drafting game was from 1998. Of course I got the idea from Magic and Magic got the idea from sports.
Sports?
Oh! Drafting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_(sports))! ...You know, I never put that together before.
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My first drafting game was from 1998. Of course I got the idea from Magic and Magic got the idea from sports.
Sports?
Oh! Drafting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_(sports))! ...You know, I never put that together before.
Are we sure that Sports didn't get the idea from Magic?
;)
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I am sure the space on drafting techniques is not exhausted, 7 Wonders didn't originate this technique, and 7 Wonders would have shone even if Greed had been out in 2005, by merit of theme (not to say it is much more thematic than Dominion, but the culture development theme is more popular than establishment of shady business) and artwork.
My first drafting game was from 1998. Of course I got the idea from Magic and Magic got the idea from sports.
You can make multiple drafting games in the same way that you can make multiple games where people draw from a deck, and there are different ways to draft, but drafting games come with the baggage of lots of reading (unless they're textless), and uh a sense of wanting to know all the cards to play well. I'm not sure it's great to do a bunch of them. And other people are making them. There's one that has been my most popular unpublished game for a while, that publishers never liked, that I'm probably not submitting anywhere else; possibly I will work out a way to take the drafting out of it. I do have an exotic textless drafting game that I may still give a few more chances (the one from 1998).
From Magic? How did Magic have drafting? Or was that a tournament/match style, instead of people bringing their premade decks?
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I'm a little confused. What language is the English version translated from?
German! For the Queen Games stuff, my English is translated/rewritten into German and then back into English. That's how you have a card in Kingdom Builder called Discoverers.
Um, why? Do they burn your original English version or something?
Probably because translating things enriches the language. Just think, without translations we would never have come up with "All your base are belong to us." Imagine that world, if you can.
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I was just thinking to myself "why is this interview thread pinned when it's basically dead?". It's alive!
Hmmm...I guess I need to ask a question.
I sensed some frustration on your part recently from this thread: http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?4199-Wait-on-playing-these-that-s-my-advice I was wondering, how satisfied are you with your level of involvement with the online implementation of Dominion? Would you like more involvement/control, or are you happy with the current situation. (and come to think of it, how involved have you been over the last year or so?)
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Something else: I recently read an old comment of yours where you referenced Invitation to a Beheading. Are you a big Nabokov fan? Which work is your favorite?
I wouldn't say I was a big fan; I had a girlfriend who had to read a bunch of Nabokov for a class, and so I read the ones that were lying around. They were good enough to keep reading them. My favorite was King Queen Knave. It has a lesson for all of us.
For those of you uninterested in Nabokov, he had synesthesia, and saw letters in different colors.
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I'm a little confused. What language is the English version translated from?
German! For the Queen Games stuff, my English is translated/rewritten into German and then back into English. That's how you have a card in Kingdom Builder called Discoverers.
Um, why? Do they burn your original English version or something?
I think it is just people doing what they normally do. Normally they have some German rules and they have someone translate them into English. Why buck the system just because the prototype was in English?
Their translator often does not do better than Google. "Sanctuary" for Crossroads was translated as Place of Refuge.
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From Magic? How did Magic have drafting? Or was that a tournament/match style, instead of people bringing their premade decks?
Magic has had drafting as a major element since 1996. There is drafting at Pro Tours, there are people drafting at your local game store. The basic draft is, you open a booster, take a card, pass it left; second booster goes right instead, third goes left again. You take your 45 cards, add basic lands, play it out. Usually with 8 players.
For some years they were doing "Rochester" drafts, which is where you lay out the pack on the table and go around and then back (so player 1 goes first and last, player 8 gets the middle two picks). They take a lot longer and people didn't like them as much, so they don't do those at Pro Tours anymore.
Here's a website that simulates Magic drafts, see how you like it: http://draft.bestiaire.org/index.php
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From Magic? How did Magic have drafting? Or was that a tournament/match style, instead of people bringing their premade decks?
Magic has had drafting as a major element since 1996. There is drafting at Pro Tours, there are people drafting at your local game store. The basic draft is, you open a booster, take a card, pass it left; second booster goes right instead, third goes left again. You take your 45 cards, add basic lands, play it out. Usually with 8 players.
For some years they were doing "Rochester" drafts, which is where you lay out the pack on the table and go around and then back (so player 1 goes first and last, player 8 gets the middle two picks). They take a lot longer and people didn't like them as much, so they don't do those at Pro Tours anymore.
Here's a website that simulates Magic drafts, see how you like it: http://draft.bestiaire.org/index.php
Oh I see, I guess that's around the same time that I stopped playing. I think I vaguely remember hearing about drafting, but I always only played where people bring their own constructed decks.
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Donald, in the first pages of this two-year-long interview you mentioned German players and German families explicitly, as opposed to American families. I cannot think of what you could have referred to regarding different preferences between Germans and Americans when playing board games. I'm German and German board game players are the only board game players I know.
I don't think I have any advice that will change someone from a failed game designer to a successful one, except possibly, you have to go to cons to show your games to publishers. That's what I needed to hear (and didn't). If you want to specifically focus on "ambition" - that is, making something especially successful, rather than having to keep your day job - then it seems clear that there are two big audiences for games: German families and American families. They overlap some, with Dixit being a good example. I am a little ambitious these days, I would like the respect and admiration of my peers, but ultimately I have to make games my friends and I want to play, whether or not that's what will sell.
PS: Thank you for creating Dominion! I also enjoy Kingdom Builder and reading your stuff on the forum which is always quite witty^^
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Hmmm...I guess I need to ask a question.
No need really, the thread is here for a variety of posting needs.
I sensed some frustration on your part recently from this thread: http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?4199-Wait-on-playing-these-that-s-my-advice I was wondering, how satisfied are you with your level of involvement with the online implementation of Dominion? Would you like more involvement/control, or are you happy with the current situation. (and come to think of it, how involved have you been over the last year or so?)
Well I have been too involved overall, way too involved, given how things have gone so far. I spent zero hours on the online implementation of Kingdom Builder; it has a major bug I've heard about that they don't seem interested in fixing (you can gain an ability from the same spot after losing it), and that's that; there are people enjoying it and I did nothing. If only more things in life could be like that. I mean it wasn't so bad testing the expansions as they programmed them, but like, spending hours picking sets of 10 cards so that people could play awful games with them, ugh. Or like, spending hours saying "really could these adventures please not suck" was not great either.
Ideally I would call the shots and it would take no time and that would be that. Probably that's how anyone would like it.
I have not been able to log in since the big update a few weeks ago (XP, Chrome; works in Firefox, but I don't use Firefox). So I can't even see how laggy it is to comment on that. So uh the new guys haven't quite impressed me yet. I will be meeting them Friday though.
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From Magic? How did Magic have drafting? Or was that a tournament/match style, instead of people bringing their premade decks?
Magic has had drafting as a major element since 1996. There is drafting at Pro Tours, there are people drafting at your local game store. The basic draft is, you open a booster, take a card, pass it left; second booster goes right instead, third goes left again. You take your 45 cards, add basic lands, play it out. Usually with 8 players.
For some years they were doing "Rochester" drafts, which is where you lay out the pack on the table and go around and then back (so player 1 goes first and last, player 8 gets the middle two picks). They take a lot longer and people didn't like them as much, so they don't do those at Pro Tours anymore.
Here's a website that simulates Magic drafts, see how you like it: http://draft.bestiaire.org/index.php
Oh I see, I guess that's around the same time that I stopped playing. I think I vaguely remember hearing about drafting, but I always only played where people bring their own constructed decks.
I am told that cube draft is the platonic ideal of what Magic: the Gathering is supposed to be about.
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Donald, in the first pages of this two-year-long interview you mentioned German players and German families explicitly, as opposed to American families. I cannot think of what you could have referred to regarding different preferences between Germans and Americans when playing board games. I'm German and German board game players are the only board game players I know.
I was talking about casual gamers rather than serious gamers. I don't know that there's any significant different for serious gamers, although European publishers have historically leaned more towards less text-heavy games, which obv. is nice for when you're making a game for multiple languages.
I feel like the hit German casual gamer games tend to be more strategic than the American ones, with certain flavor restrictions.
Okay I am looking at the first page of board games (24 games) for amazon and amazon.de (they change by the minute). There is some overlap (Settlers, Qwirkle, Dominion, Carcassonne), and there are games I'd have to research to know what they are. But it seems to me that the German list is more game-y. The American list has some things that aren't even games (Rory's Story Cubes and a commercial version of Telephone Pictionary). There are two Monopolies on the German list and none on the American one. But the American list has Candy Land, Hungry Hungry Hippos, and a commercial version of 20 Questions. The German list has some SdJ winners/nominees.
Anyway I don't really know anything about this, but I imagine that a big hit in America is often more of a party game.
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I am told that cube draft is the platonic ideal of what Magic: the Gathering is supposed to be about.
I highly recommend cube drafts, although I have almost always had rarities (so, one rare per pack, 3 uncommons, 11 commons) rather than just flat rarity like most cubes. And I recommend making cubes with themes that aren't always just "the most powerful cards I have access to." So uh given those things, I've made dozens of cubes; we would draft one for a month and then I'd make a new one.
And of course cube drafts get you away from the issue of, who could afford the powerful cards for their deck.
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From Magic? How did Magic have drafting? Or was that a tournament/match style, instead of people bringing their premade decks?
Magic has had drafting as a major element since 1996. There is drafting at Pro Tours, there are people drafting at your local game store. The basic draft is, you open a booster, take a card, pass it left; second booster goes right instead, third goes left again. You take your 45 cards, add basic lands, play it out. Usually with 8 players.
For some years they were doing "Rochester" drafts, which is where you lay out the pack on the table and go around and then back (so player 1 goes first and last, player 8 gets the middle two picks). They take a lot longer and people didn't like them as much, so they don't do those at Pro Tours anymore.
Here's a website that simulates Magic drafts, see how you like it: http://draft.bestiaire.org/index.php
Somehow, despite knowing how Magic drafts work (though not having done one) and having played a couple dozen games of 7 Wonders, I had never clicked to the fact that they're almost exactly the same thing.
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Somehow, despite knowing how Magic drafts work (though not having done one) and having played a couple dozen games of 7 Wonders, I had never clicked to the fact that they're almost exactly the same thing.
They are not. I would say that they are similar in a similar sense that Magic is similar to Dominion because both have deck-building. 7-wonders has the drafting interleaved with the playing (playing in the sense that choosing the card is not the only thing you do in a turn) while Magic has drafting and then playing. Dominion of course has the deck-building and the playing the deck interleaved, unlike Magic.
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In the past you've mentioned a possible future online-only promo, and I just read your response in the thread about diggers and playability issues in real-life games, which made me wonder whether you have any cool ideas for an online-only expansion?
I'm not asking you to actually release something like that (though I'd be the absolute last to object), but more like: what sort of mechanics spring to mind when you're no longer constrained by physical issues, what crazy ideas would you love to play-test?
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I was playing with Noble Brigand last night when I was playing IRL, and I started thinking about how Noble Brigand and Thief work. I understand that Thief needs to trash the money in case you don't actually want it. But why does the silver or the gold have to technically be trashed? What made you come to that wording?
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On to the important questions:
Were Mint(e)/Mine(t) designed just to mess with us?
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Donald X.
Dominion is my favoite game, and after other games have risen and fallen in my estimation over the last few years, Dominion remains at the top for me. There are so many things I like about the game and very few things I don't and it has endless replayability without getting stale for me over about 1500 plays.
[end fanboy section]
One of the things I like so much is the immense strategic depth the game provides, particularly in 2P. A lot of this is by design, but I understand about a million hours of playtesting went into all the cards to help this along. The dynamics of 2P games and 3+P games are so different and as a result it makes me wonder: did you focus on one more than the other?
2P Dominion is SO GOOD, man. It's like totes the bee's knees. I enjoy it a lot, but from what I've read you prefer games with more players. Did you focus your design on 3+ player games and this AMAZING 2P game fell into your lap because of good design, or did you get rid of cards that would have been silly/unfun in 2P games only?
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In the past you've mentioned a possible future online-only promo, and I just read your response in the thread about diggers and playability issues in real-life games, which made me wonder whether you have any cool ideas for an online-only expansion?
I'm not asking you to actually release something like that (though I'd be the absolute last to object), but more like: what sort of mechanics spring to mind when you're no longer constrained by physical issues, what crazy ideas would you love to play-test?
I haven't considered an online-only expansion. It probably wouldn't be hard coming up with cards, themed around "a computer is handling this." The online version would have to be drastically more popular for it to be a worthwhile project in terms of uh pay-off; it would have to be the kind of thing I just did because it was a fun project. Probably it will never be sufficiently compelling. And if I did decide to go for it, surely Jay would lobby for a physical expansion instead.
I don't know if the promo will even happen, it's up to them. I came up with a card to try and who knows, maybe they'll program it. It seems like it would be good for them. If they do one and it works out I might offer them another one later.
I don't want to spoil any potential online promos, but the main things you get from going online-only are tracking and uh speed. The computer can store information that would be a pain to track manually, and it can do things quickly that would be time-consuming irl. Long ago Magic had an online-only expansion (not for MTGO, for a much older product), and there they focused on random-number generation, but I think that's not so exciting for Dominion.
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I was playing with Noble Brigand last night when I was playing IRL, and I started thinking about how Noble Brigand and Thief work. I understand that Thief needs to trash the money in case you don't actually want it. But why does the silver or the gold have to technically be trashed? What made you come to that wording?
It's all about having clear interactions with potential future cards, some of which I had already. Thief steals a Cache; do you get the Coppers? What if Thief hits a treasure that does something when trashed? Thief explicitly trashes and gains so that all such future things are covered.
Oh I see, Noble Brigand. It still applies though; for example for a long time Haggler was when-gain, and would trigger on stealing a Gold with Noble Brigand. Plus Noble Brigand wanted to match Thief's wording if that worked out.
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On to the important questions:
Were Mint(e)/Mine(t) designed just to mess with us?
No card names were specifically chosen in order to create confusion. A few are jokes, but not confusing jokes.
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I was playing with Noble Brigand last night when I was playing IRL, and I started thinking about how Noble Brigand and Thief work. I understand that Thief needs to trash the money in case you don't actually want it. But why does the silver or the gold have to technically be trashed? What made you come to that wording?
It's all about having clear interactions with potential future cards, some of which I had already. Thief steals a Cache; do you get the Coppers? What if Thief hits a treasure that does something when trashed? Thief explicitly trashes and gains so that all such future things are covered.
Oh I see, Noble Brigand. It still applies though; for example for a long time Haggler was when-gain, and would trigger on stealing a Gold with Noble Brigand. Plus Noble Brigand wanted to match Thief's wording if that worked out.
I assume the heart of the question is, "Why do the cards stop off at the trash instead of being gained directly from other players' decks?" I assume the answer is, "So that it's obvious where they end up in the case where you don't actually gain the card," like if you trashed someone's Gold with Noble Brigand and then revealed a Trader for some reason.
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Long ago Magic had an online-only expansion (not for MTGO, for a much older product), and there they focused on random-number generation, but I think that's not so exciting for Dominion.
I agree with this assessment. Harvest uses your deck as a sort of random number generator, but allows you to skew or even outright fix the odds based on how you build your deck. I find this to be a more engaging use of randomness, particularly in a deck builder.
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Long ago Magic had an online-only expansion (not for MTGO, for a much older product), and there they focused on random-number generation, but I think that's not so exciting for Dominion.
I agree with this assessment. Harvest uses your deck as a sort of random number generator, but allows you to skew or even outright fix the odds based on how you build your deck. I find this to be a more engaging use of randomness, particularly in a deck builder.
I really hope any online-only promo card can revolve around the idea of evaluating infinite sums.
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One of the things I like so much is the immense strategic depth the game provides, particularly in 2P. A lot of this is by design, but I understand about a million hours of playtesting went into all the cards to help this along. The dynamics of 2P games and 3+P games are so different and as a result it makes me wonder: did you focus on one more than the other?
2P Dominion is SO GOOD, man. It's like totes the bee's knees. I enjoy it a lot, but from what I've read you prefer games with more players. Did you focus your design on 3+ player games and this AMAZING 2P game fell into your lap because of good design, or did you get rid of cards that would have been silly/unfun in 2P games only?
I normally aim for 3-5 and then am happy if a game works with 2 or 6-8. There are problems at both ends.
It was obv. early on that Dominion was good with 2, and I did play a bunch with 2. The VP piles vary in size to handle 2 better. Some cards were obv. going to vary in power level between 2-5 players; if they survived, they are aimed at 3 players, which is the best I can do without cutting them (expecting that 5 players comes up less often than 2-4) (I do not recommend playing with 6).
So uh the game is focused on 3 players, but I didn't ignore 2. The experience is obv. different in various ways, but I enjoy those differences. It would be nice if Witches were weaker with 2, which could be as simple as a more complex Curse-pile-size rule.
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Long ago Magic had an online-only expansion (not for MTGO, for a much older product), and there they focused on random-number generation, but I think that's not so exciting for Dominion.
I agree with this assessment. Harvest uses your deck as a sort of random number generator, but allows you to skew or even outright fix the odds based on how you build your deck. I find this to be a more engaging use of randomness, particularly in a deck builder.
I really hope any online-only promo card can revolve around the idea of evaluating infinite sums.
-$1/12
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I assume the heart of the question is, "Why do the cards stop off at the trash instead of being gained directly from other players' decks?" I assume the answer is, "So that it's obvious where they end up in the case where you don't actually gain the card," like if you trashed someone's Gold with Noble Brigand and then revealed a Trader for some reason.
Yes, Trader is a good example of the good work Noble Brigand's wording is doing. Or, I have Market Square in hand; if Noble Brigand just took the card, it would be a question, does this trigger or not. The person losing the treasure would feel like Market Square should work; it would need a defined term like Masquerade's "pass" to be clear, and even that sends you to the rulebook.
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How come the FAQ for Island and Pirate Ship say that when you "take" one of the card you get the mat, while the FAQ for Native Village says you get the mat when you gain the card?
Actually, now a rules question. What happens if you haven't gained a Native Village (so you have no mat), and you play a Band of Misfits as one? Do you just grab a mat even though you never gained a Native Village?
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-$1/12
Repossession: $6, Action
Look through the deck of the player to your right, and take all of the cards that you bought. Put the rest into that player's discard pile.
Dark Ages: $3, Action
+$2
Trash this. Turn off the log and point counter for the other players for the rest of this game.
Gotta Run: $0, Action
When you gain this, trash this. Lord Bottington finishes the game for you.
Ancient Witch: 6, Action
+2 Cards
Each other player gains a Curse.
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In games using this, the Curse pile never runs out.
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How come the FAQ for Island and Pirate Ship say that when you "take" one of the card you get the mat, while the FAQ for Native Village says you get the mat when you gain the card?
It's an unintentional inconsistency.
Actually, now a rules question. What happens if you haven't gained a Native Village (so you have no mat), and you play a Band of Misfits as one? Do you just grab a mat even though you never gained a Native Village?
Just put the cards on the Native Village mat in the box that you would have if only you had one.
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Gotta Run: $0, Action
When you gain this, trash this. Lord Bottington finishes the game for you.
Swindler with Gotta Run and Rats in the supply is brutal.
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On to the important questions:
Were Mint(e)/Mine(t) designed just to mess with us?
No card names were specifically chosen in order to create confusion. A few are jokes, but not confusing jokes.
So what exactly were those joke cards?
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On to the important questions:
Were Mint(e)/Mine(t) designed just to mess with us?
No card names were specifically chosen in order to create confusion. A few are jokes, but not confusing jokes.
So what exactly were those joke cards?
Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker...
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On to the important questions:
Were Mint(e)/Mine(t) designed just to mess with us?
No card names were specifically chosen in order to create confusion. A few are jokes, but not confusing jokes.
So what exactly were those joke cards?
Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker...
I'd venture a guess of Venture.
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On to the important questions:
Were Mint(e)/Mine(t) designed just to mess with us?
No card names were specifically chosen in order to create confusion. A few are jokes, but not confusing jokes.
So what exactly were those joke cards?
Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker...
I'd venture a guess of Venture.
I would be interested in knowing whether Venture and Adventurer intentionally had similar-ish names. I've never felt that they were all that similar, but others around here seem rather convinced that there is a connection.
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On to the important questions:
Were Mint(e)/Mine(t) designed just to mess with us?
No card names were specifically chosen in order to create confusion. A few are jokes, but not confusing jokes.
So what exactly were those joke cards?
Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker...
I'd venture a guess of Venture.
I would be interested in knowing whether Venture and Adventurer intentionally had similar-ish names. I've never felt that they were all that similar, but others around here seem rather convinced that there is a connection.
They both have similar concepts, even if they play differently (digging for treasures).
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No card names were specifically chosen in order to create confusion. A few are jokes, but not confusing jokes.
So what exactly were those joke cards?
Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker...
I'd venture a guess of Venture.
I would be interested in knowing whether Venture and Adventurer intentionally had similar-ish names. I've never felt that they were all that similar, but others around here seem rather convinced that there is a connection.
Venture originally was $1, when you spend this trash it and gain two Silvers, for $4. Adventurer postdates it. The words are related, and they're trying to communicate related things, so it's not so weird that they ended up being similar.
Some names are mildly entertaining references to other names, like Ruined Library or Duchess. Aside from those and the rub-a-dub-dub trio, all I can think of is Baron - there's an idiom, "real estate baron."
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Baron - there's an idiom, "real estate baron."
How did I not realize this before? :o
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So my "+Buy or not +Buy, that is the question" just happened to come from a card called Hamlet; it wasn't a deliberate choice to do that?
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So my "+Buy or not +Buy, that is the question" just happened to come from a card called Hamlet; it wasn't a deliberate choice to do that?
It's just Hamlet because it's a small village. Counting House references the nursery rhyme. I was aware of Re-make/Re-model when I picked the name Remake, but you know, I just needed more words that meant that. Feodum is of course referring to the original flavor paragraph, where I used the word just to have a list of three things that were actually the same.
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Have you looked at LastFootnote's Enterprise expansion? I think it might go really well as an official expansion.
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Have you looked at LastFootnote's Enterprise expansion? I think it might go really well as an official expansion.
I think officially releasing a set form the Really Bad Card Idea's thread would be a pretty awesome April's Fools joke...
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Have you looked at LastFootnote's Enterprise expansion? I think it might go really well as an official expansion.
I've been hesitant to ask the same. I don't think it's ready yet, and I doubt LF thinks so, since he's still working on it, but it might reach official release quality once it's finished - or not, I can't really know, but it does look really good. Also, do you read in the variants/fan cards subforum at all? I could imagine some reasons why you would rather avoid it.
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Have you looked at LastFootnote's Enterprise expansion? I think it might go really well as an official expansion.
I've been hesitant to ask the same. I don't think it's ready yet, and I doubt LF thinks so, since he's still working on it, but it might reach official release quality once it's finished - or not, I can't really know, but it does look really good. Also, do you read in the variants/fan cards subforum at all? I could imagine some reasons why you would rather avoid it.
Not to step on Donald's toes here, but he has said many, many, many times that he doesn't look at fan cards at all.
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Not to step on Donald's toes here, but he has said many, many, many times that he doesn't look at fan cards at all.
One of the reasons he gave was to avoid something looking like a rip off of a fan card (even by coincidence). Now that all cards are out...
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Regarding online-only promos: a version of Possession that said "the deck of the Possessed player returns to the state before the Possession turn" would be nice (it has some issues with Masq, Amb, MadMan and Spoils , but maybe they can be worked out). My point is that, in principle, Possession does no harm to the Possessed, but it surely looks like it does. If the possessed does not "lose" the turn, then it really looks like what it seems to be: a complicated more powerful version of Smugglers.
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Regarding online-only promos: a version of Possession that said "the deck of the Possessed player returns to the state before the Possession turn" would be nice (it has some issues with Masq, Amb, MadMan and Spoils , but maybe they can be worked out). My point is that, in principle, Possession does no harm to the Possessed, but it surely looks like it does. If the possessed does not "lose" the turn, then it really looks like what it seems to be: a complicated more powerful version of Smugglers.
On the one hand this is kind of cool, but on the other, does possession really need the nerf?
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Regarding online-only promos: a version of Possession that said "the deck of the Possessed player returns to the state before the Possession turn" would be nice (it has some issues with Masq, Amb, MadMan and Spoils , but maybe they can be worked out). My point is that, in principle, Possession does no harm to the Possessed, but it surely looks like it does. If the possessed does not "lose" the turn, then it really looks like what it seems to be: a complicated more powerful version of Smugglers.
On the one hand this is kind of cool, but on the other, does possession really need the nerf?
It's not a nerf, it's a buff. On average, Possession helps the other player (if you don't count edge cases where you can set up a bad turn for him or Ambassador his cards).
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Something else: I recently read an old comment of yours where you referenced Invitation to a Beheading. Are you a big Nabokov fan? Which work is your favorite?
I wouldn't say I was a big fan; I had a girlfriend who had to read a bunch of Nabokov for a class, and so I read the ones that were lying around. They were good enough to keep reading them. My favorite was King Queen Knave. It has a lesson for all of us.
For those of you uninterested in Nabokov, he had synesthesia, and saw letters in different colors.
he also has peer reviewed publications on butterfly evolution.
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Have you looked at LastFootnote's Enterprise expansion? I think it might go really well as an official expansion.
I've been hesitant to ask the same. I don't think it's ready yet, and I doubt LF thinks so, since he's still working on it, but it might reach official release quality once it's finished - or not, I can't really know, but it does look really good. Also, do you read in the variants/fan cards subforum at all? I could imagine some reasons why you would rather avoid it.
Not to step on Donald's toes here, but he has said many, many, many times that he doesn't look at fan cards at all.
The general reason is that it's easy to come up with ideas for cards. It's the playtesting that is hard. So looking at posts where people just spam out ideas without having playtested them doesn't really provide much value.
LastFootnote, though, has put in a ton of work on the expansion, so I think it's actually worth looking at unlike all the others.
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Regarding online-only promos: a version of Possession that said "the deck of the Possessed player returns to the state before the Possession turn" would be nice (it has some issues with Masq, Amb, MadMan and Spoils , but maybe they can be worked out). My point is that, in principle, Possession does no harm to the Possessed, but it surely looks like it does. If the possessed does not "lose" the turn, then it really looks like what it seems to be: a complicated more powerful version of Smugglers.
On the one hand this is kind of cool, but on the other, does possession really need the nerf?
It's not a nerf, it's a buff. On average, Possession helps the other player (if you don't count edge cases where you can set up a bad turn for him or Ambassador his cards).
Seems like a nerf to me. It often gives your opponent extra information about what is coming up next in his deck.
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Not to step on Donald's toes here, but he has said many, many, many times that he doesn't look at fan cards at all.
I've looked at fan cards, but it's something I avoid doing. Earlier in this thread I looked at the first few cards of one of the sets posted at BGG, and you can see how that went.
A world-famous game designer offered to make an expansion, and I gave him my usual speech about how spin-offs are the way to go. We may conceivably make a spin-off together someday; it's hard to say if that will happen, it would depend on us suddenly springing into action.
Anyway a fan-made expansion is real unlikely.
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Not to step on Donald's toes here, but he has said many, many, many times that he doesn't look at fan cards at all.
One of the reasons he gave was to avoid something looking like a rip off of a fan card (even by coincidence). Now that all cards are out...
In fact there will probably be a physical Dominion promo this year - I finished my work on it, it's just up to when Jay decides to put it out.
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Regarding online-only promos: a version of Possession that said "the deck of the Possessed player returns to the state before the Possession turn" would be nice (it has some issues with Masq, Amb, MadMan and Spoils , but maybe they can be worked out). My point is that, in principle, Possession does no harm to the Possessed, but it surely looks like it does. If the possessed does not "lose" the turn, then it really looks like what it seems to be: a complicated more powerful version of Smugglers.
You lost me at "a version of Possession."
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Not to step on Donald's toes here, but he has said many, many, many times that he doesn't look at fan cards at all.
One of the reasons he gave was to avoid something looking like a rip off of a fan card (even by coincidence). Now that all cards are out...
In fact there will probably be a physical Dominion promo this year - I finished my work on it, it's just up to when Jay decides to put it out.
Will we finally get the ultra-desired Cheese Destroyer?! :)
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Not to step on Donald's toes here, but he has said many, many, many times that he doesn't look at fan cards at all.
One of the reasons he gave was to avoid something looking like a rip off of a fan card (even by coincidence). Now that all cards are out...
In fact there will probably be a physical Dominion promo this year - I finished my work on it, it's just up to when Jay decides to put it out.
Its the card I suggested right?
The one with the rude word hidden in the title.
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mail-mi, Silverspawn, and theory, you will always be my heroes forever. Thanks for the votes of confidence.
Donald, if you ever decide you wouldn't mind there being another expansion but don't want to make it by yourself, you can always find me here. :)
Here are some cards in case you're curious: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2114.0 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2114.0). I can at least assure you that they are not "awful, nonstop things [you] wouldn't do that are boring and redundant or else obviously bad for the game in some way". Nor are they endlessly confusing and complex.
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Earlier in this thread I looked at the first few cards of one of the sets posted at BGG, and you can see how that went.
This sounds fun to read, can someone post a link?
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Earlier in this thread I looked at the first few cards of one of the sets posted at BGG, and you can see how that went.
This sounds fun to read, can someone post a link?
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg148774#msg148774
It was less fun when the author of those cards read the critique. But they both took it well.
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Earlier in this thread I looked at the first few cards of one of the sets posted at BGG, and you can see how that went.
This sounds fun to read, can someone post a link?
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg148774#msg148774
It was less fun when the author of those cards read the critique. But they both took it well.
Without defending those cards, I don't think the analysis is fair. We could say "Procession only uses two known mechanics, Throne Room and Upgrade." or "King's Court is overpowered. I fixed it by making it cheaper but only play the action twice." So, is there nothing new about KC or Procession? I think there is. Other than being clearly OP or UP or exactly equal to an existing card, there is almost no way to know if a card is novel without playtesting it and noticing is not really adding anything new. Procession plays really differently to both TR and Upgrade.
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If you could choose two (famous) people to play in a game of Dominion, who would they be and why?
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My favorite band is Game Theory / Loud Family (all other members quit so he changed the name). Since they are obscure and local, I have gotten to chat with the guy a few times, although I was somewhat starstruck. My favorite movie is Brazil; I will probably never meet Terry Gilliam. If he wants to hang out sometime then man I am there, it sounds like good times, but it's not like I think, oh, if only. There would probably be too much of a disconnect to enjoy meeting David Lynch or Robert Pollard. Woody Allen and Stephin Merritt would just be trying to get it over with. My favorite novel is Little, Big; I have no real concept of that guy, I'm not sure what we'd talk about. I'd go for Gene Wolfe for novels I think.
So this was old, but I didn't read it all before. Stephin Merritt is one of my favorite artists (I'm a huge Magnetic Fields fan). I feel like it would be really cool to meet him, except that I feel I'd be struggling for something interesting to say and he'd probably think I was boring.
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Without defending those cards, I don't think the analysis is fair. We could say "Procession only uses two known mechanics, Throne Room and Upgrade." or "King's Court is overpowered. I fixed it by making it cheaper but only play the action twice." So, is there nothing new about KC or Procession? I think there is. Other than being clearly OP or UP or exactly equal to an existing card, there is almost no way to know if a card is novel without playtesting it and noticing is not really adding anything new. Procession plays really differently to both TR and Upgrade.
Your Procession / King's Court arguments don't actually match any of my points about those Books of Magic cards. My post about the Books of Magic cards is about the lack of value to me in me reading them. The four examples from that set do not have ideas I had not come across previously. I'd tried multiple versions of all four concepts.
None of them were "two existing concepts but it's cool to pair them, did you think of that." None of them were "bigger version of an existing thing but maybe that has value." None of them were "novel take on an existing concept and hey why is that so bad, even if Donald X. doesn't find it fascinating." I mean look at the cards. Maybe the "+$3, trash this" one looks novel enough to you, but I played multiple versions of that in 2006.
If I had made zero Dominion cards, it would be fair to say, here are some concepts, maybe they can be whipped into shape. You'd be right; I did whip my versions into shape. They are fine raw concepts from that perspective, and it's not even embarrassing to start with an un-whipped-into-shape version. That's all in the past though; those particular card concepts aren't getting me anything now. And sure, maybe there's a pairing of two concepts that I haven't done that's cool enough to do, or maybe there's a card that would be exciting enough in a "big" version that I haven't made. That's just nothing to do with my comments on those cards.
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So this was old, but I didn't read it all before. Stephin Merritt is one of my favorite artists (I'm a huge Magnetic Fields fan). I feel like it would be really cool to meet him, except that I feel I'd be struggling for something interesting to say and he'd probably think I was boring.
In the early oughts I ranked him as my 3rd favorite band. At this point I would put him lower (if I put in the work to make a thought-out list); the new stuff over the last ten years just doesn't compare to the ten years before it. Partygoing is a mild return-to-form, but still is a far cry from I. Well this is taking into account that the operas and Gothic Archies album were all older material finally released. Well so what I am saying is that Distortion, Reality, and Love at the Bottom of the Sea were all progressively more disappointing.
Anyway yes, I somehow have nothing but bad things to say as usual, but he had an amazing body of work going into the late oughts. Those of you who don't know the man, try a few things from 69 Love Songs on youtube, see what you think.
Some uh "rock stars" have endless positive interactions with fans, and some just want to be left alone. I forget what I read that made me put Merritt in the "leave me alone" camp.
Edit: sry, Realism, not Reality; must have gotten confused by the Bowie album.
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Your Procession / King's Court arguments don't actually match any of my points about those Books of Magic cards. My post about the Books of Magic cards is about the lack of value to me in me reading them. The four examples from that set do not have ideas I had not come across previously. I'd tried multiple versions of all four concepts.
None of them were "two existing concepts but it's cool to pair them, did you think of that." None of them were "bigger version of an existing thing but maybe that has value." None of them were "novel take on an existing concept and hey why is that so bad, even if Donald X. doesn't find it fascinating." I mean look at the cards. Maybe the "+$3, trash this" one looks novel enough to you, but I played multiple versions of that in 2006.
If I had made zero Dominion cards, it would be fair to say, here are some concepts, maybe they can be whipped into shape. You'd be right; I did whip my versions into shape. They are fine raw concepts from that perspective, and it's not even embarrassing to start with an un-whipped-into-shape version. That's all in the past though; those particular card concepts aren't getting me anything now. And sure, maybe there's a pairing of two concepts that I haven't done that's cool enough to do, or maybe there's a card that would be exciting enough in a "big" version that I haven't made. That's just nothing to do with my comments on those cards.
My comment was not on the line of "DXV is a prejudicious jerk for not reading fan cards", but more like "even if someone, even DXV, thinks a concept is not novel because he tried something similar in a card or an outtake, it could be novel because slight differences may make it play really differently, and there is no way to really know other than playtesting". As I said before, this has nothing to do with the specific example of 4 cards, but as an idea in general.
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So this was old, but I didn't read it all before. Stephin Merritt is one of my favorite artists (I'm a huge Magnetic Fields fan). I feel like it would be really cool to meet him, except that I feel I'd be struggling for something interesting to say and he'd probably think I was boring.
In the early oughts I ranked him as my 3rd favorite band. At this point I would put him lower (if I put in the work to make a thought-out list); the new stuff over the last ten years just doesn't compare to the ten years before it. Partygoing is a mild return-to-form, but still is a far cry from I. Well this is taking into account that the operas and Gothic Archies album were all older material finally released. Well so what I am saying is that Distortion, Reality, and Love at the Bottom of the Sea were all progressively more disappointing.
Anyway yes, I somehow have nothing but bad things to say as usual, but he had an amazing body of work going into the late oughts. Those of you who don't know the man, try a few things from 69 Love Songs on youtube, see what you think.
Some uh "rock stars" have endless positive interactions with fans, and some just want to be left alone. I forget what I read that made me put Merritt in the "leave me alone" camp.
Edit: sry, Realism, not Reality; must have gotten confused by the Bowie album.
Did you see the documentary on him? Strange Powers? That's what put him that way for me.
I agree not much holds up to 69 Love Songs, or even Wayward Bus/Distant Plastic Trees. I avoided getting Distortion because I really dislike noise music. Love at the Bottom of the Sea I didn't fall in love with as much as 69 Love Songs, but damn those songs are hilarious.
I haven't picked up the Future Bible Heroes new album yet, I'll have to do that. Do you have both The 6th's albums? (Wasps' Nests and Hyacinths and Thistles.) A lot of my favorite songs by him are on there, specifically on Wasps' Nests.
I've seen him once live, it was just awesome. (They were on tour for last album.) I've never seen such a minimalistic music performance in a concert setting. Just five people and their small collection of instruments.. nothing extra to take your focus off of them. And he introduces each song in an awkward and funny way, as if he was just talking to one other person in a small room, or something.
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My comment was not on the line of "DXV is a prejudicious jerk for not reading fan cards", but more like "even if someone, even DXV, thinks a concept is not novel because he tried something similar in a card or an outtake, it could be novel because slight differences may make it play really differently, and there is no way to really know other than playtesting". As I said before, this has nothing to do with the specific example of 4 cards, but as an idea in general.
I'm here to tell you that those concepts are not "novel because slight differences" etc. They aren't. It has everything to do with those specific 4 cards - some other cards might be novel because of slight differences. Those 4, no. I read them and everything.
Edit: Okay, so maybe you just think, why would I use particular cards as examples? To have examples, that's why. I don't expect to find cards that are novel even due to slight differences when I read fan cards; but hey, let's try an experiment, I'll look at some cards. And I looked at some. I didn't pick and choose; they were the first four in the first fan expansion on BGG. Time does not permit analyzing every fan card.
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Your Procession / King's Court arguments don't actually match any of my points about those Books of Magic cards. My post about the Books of Magic cards is about the lack of value to me in me reading them. The four examples from that set do not have ideas I had not come across previously. I'd tried multiple versions of all four concepts.
None of them were "two existing concepts but it's cool to pair them, did you think of that." None of them were "bigger version of an existing thing but maybe that has value." None of them were "novel take on an existing concept and hey why is that so bad, even if Donald X. doesn't find it fascinating." I mean look at the cards. Maybe the "+$3, trash this" one looks novel enough to you, but I played multiple versions of that in 2006.
If I had made zero Dominion cards, it would be fair to say, here are some concepts, maybe they can be whipped into shape. You'd be right; I did whip my versions into shape. They are fine raw concepts from that perspective, and it's not even embarrassing to start with an un-whipped-into-shape version. That's all in the past though; those particular card concepts aren't getting me anything now. And sure, maybe there's a pairing of two concepts that I haven't done that's cool enough to do, or maybe there's a card that would be exciting enough in a "big" version that I haven't made. That's just nothing to do with my comments on those cards.
My comment was not on the line of "DXV is a prejudicious jerk for not reading fan cards", but more like "even if someone, even DXV, thinks a concept is not novel because he tried something similar in a card or an outtake, it could be novel because slight differences may make it play really differently, and there is no way to really know other than playtesting". As I said before, this has nothing to do with the specific example of 4 cards, but as an idea in general.
But for those four cards in particular, if he were to take each idea and run with it and modify them during the playtesting, they'd end up exactly the same as four cards he has right now. Because he basically came up with those ideas before, playtested them, modified them, and that's how some cards that are currently in the set came to be.
In other words, there may be a lot of card ideas that aren't in the published set, but if you took them through a thorough balancing and testing process, they'd probably converge to cards that are printed, or close enough to them to not be worth it. Each card that is currently printed represents a point in a converging sequence. So there are a lot of card and card ideas that are not printed, but are still represented by current cards.
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Did you see the documentary on him? Strange Powers? That's what put him that way for me.
I agree not much holds up to 69 Love Songs, or even Wayward Bus/Distant Plastic Trees. I avoided getting Distortion because I really dislike noise music. Love at the Bottom of the Sea I didn't fall in love with as much as 69 Love Songs, but damn those songs are hilarious.
I haven't picked up the Future Bible Heroes new album yet, I'll have to do that. Do you have both The 6th's albums? (Wasps' Nests and Hyacinths and Thistles.) A lot of my favorite songs by him are on there, specifically on Wasps' Nests.
I've seen him once live, it was just awesome. (They were on tour for last album.) I've never seen such a minimalistic music performance in a concert setting. Just five people and their small collection of instruments.. nothing extra to take your focus off of them. And he introduces each song in an awkward and funny way, as if he was just talking to one other person in a small room, or something.
I have not seen Strange Powers.
Even though 69 Love Songs is his best thing, I like plenty of things on Holiday, Get Lost, Memories of Love, Eternal Youth, Peach Blossom Fan, I, and the Tragic Treasury. I am thinking now maybe I am the bigger fan here.
I have pretty much had the experience. The House of Tomorrow EP is decent. The Gothic Archies EP released through the Hello Recording Club has just a few okay songs; it was later generally released as The New Despair. I like a couple songs on the I'm Lonely and I Love It EP. There are a few decent songs on the Eban and Charley soundtrack. The Lonely Robot EP is a dud. There are a few new good songs on the Pieces of April soundtrack. If you get the full version of the "Chinese operas," rather than the best-of Showtunes, then the best one is Peach Blossom Fan, though it has a few screechy tracks; then My Life As a Fairy Tale has a decent number of good songs; I only liked a couple tracks on Orphan of Zhao. I have some of the Tragic Treasury songs from when they were only available on books on tape; you don't need the originals, they are just shorter. Mr. Punch is a good song from a compilation (Neil Gaiman stuff); Meaning of Lice is a bad one. The best tracks on Obscurities are the unreleased ones; I already had most of the released stuff, the best being the 6ths track Yet Another Girl. I've heard his NPR song, but don't have it, I don't know if it's available anywhere. It's not any good anyway. There was a rare Gothic Archies on a compilation that wasn't any good. I can mildly appreciate his version of If I Were a Rich Man and the Future Bible Heroes take on Love Is Blue.
Anyway yes, I also have the 6ths albums. I like them fine. They are mixed, some hits and duds, but the hits are worth it. I am not actually much of a fan of Wayward Bus.
I saw the Future Bible Heroes once, with Scott Miller opening for them. I wouldn't really single out Merritt out as a live act from that one data point. For me what I look for in a concert is experiences I don't get from the records. It's cool for a while that "there's the guy, he's right there," but in the long run that's not getting me to the venue. Robyn Hitchcock stands out as a live act for me, he plays songs you won't otherwise hear (well in the days before someone was always taping everything anyway), and tells surreal stories.
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I'm pretty sure there are possible card ideas that would be worth printing. As Dominion is a game where every card can allow something new, and as sometimes even minor changes can have a great effect on how a card works out, i find it impossible to believe that there are no good possibilities left.
I do understand that sifting through these possibilities has become much more time consuming than it used to be, though. From the point of a designer i can see how even if there are good ideas out there, trying to find them (even if it only meant reading through other peoples ideas) might be conceived as too much work to be worth it. After all, Donald does game design for a living. If he spends a year or so to find one good card idea, he might as well have made an entire new game instead. (I'm making up these times because i know nothing about board game design processes).
Anyhow, i'm not saying that looking through fan cards wasn't worth the time (i think there are some gems). I'm just saying it's Donalds time, and he decides what to do with it.
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Did you see the documentary on him? Strange Powers? That's what put him that way for me.
I agree not much holds up to 69 Love Songs, or even Wayward Bus/Distant Plastic Trees. I avoided getting Distortion because I really dislike noise music. Love at the Bottom of the Sea I didn't fall in love with as much as 69 Love Songs, but damn those songs are hilarious.
I haven't picked up the Future Bible Heroes new album yet, I'll have to do that. Do you have both The 6th's albums? (Wasps' Nests and Hyacinths and Thistles.) A lot of my favorite songs by him are on there, specifically on Wasps' Nests.
I've seen him once live, it was just awesome. (They were on tour for last album.) I've never seen such a minimalistic music performance in a concert setting. Just five people and their small collection of instruments.. nothing extra to take your focus off of them. And he introduces each song in an awkward and funny way, as if he was just talking to one other person in a small room, or something.
I have not seen Strange Powers.
Even though 69 Love Songs is his best thing, I like plenty of things on Holiday, Get Lost, Memories of Love, Eternal Youth, Peach Blossom Fan, I, and the Tragic Treasury. I am thinking now maybe I am the bigger fan here.
I have pretty much had the experience. The House of Tomorrow EP is decent. The Gothic Archies EP released through the Hello Recording Club has just a few okay songs; it was later generally released as The New Despair. I like a couple songs on the I'm Lonely and I Love It EP. There are a few decent songs on the Eban and Charley soundtrack. The Lonely Robot EP is a dud. There are a few new good songs on the Pieces of April soundtrack. If you get the full version of the "Chinese operas," rather than the best-of Showtunes, then the best one is Peach Blossom Fan, though it has a few screechy tracks; then My Life As a Fairy Tale has a decent number of good songs; I only liked a couple tracks on Orphan of Zhao. I have some of the Tragic Treasury songs from when they were only available on books on tape; you don't need the originals, they are just shorter. Mr. Punch is a good song from a compilation (Neil Gaiman stuff); Meaning of Lice is a bad one. The best tracks on Obscurities are the unreleased ones; I already had most of the released stuff, the best being the 6ths track Yet Another Girl. I've heard his NPR song, but don't have it, I don't know if it's available anywhere. It's not any good anyway. There was a rare Gothic Archies on a compilation that wasn't any good. I can mildly appreciate his version of If I Were a Rich Man and the Future Bible Heroes take on Love Is Blue.
Anyway yes, I also have the 6ths albums. I like them fine. They are mixed, some hits and duds, but the hits are worth it. I am not actually much of a fan of Wayward Bus.
I saw the Future Bible Heroes once, with Scott Miller opening for them. I wouldn't really single out Merritt out as a live act from that one data point. For me what I look for in a concert is experiences I don't get from the records. It's cool for a while that "there's the guy, he's right there," but in the long run that's not getting me to the venue. Robyn Hitchcock stands out as a live act for me, he plays songs you won't otherwise hear (well in the days before someone was always taping everything anyway), and tells surreal stories.
Sounds like you've been following him for a while. And your collection is more complete than mine, so hat's off :) I hadn't heard of him until about five or six years ago when someone got me 69 Love Songs for my birthday (best gift ever). So then I gradually collected most of his other stuff. I have The New Despair and The Tragic Treasury, and Eternal Youth, though not the other Future Bible Heroes ones. I have Obscurities, though not many of the EPs or soundtracks. I do have House of Tomorrow EP, and I really like those songs. Especially Love Goes Home to Paris in the Spring.
The more I listen, the more I find myself liking the older songs, the ones on Wayward Bus and Distant Plastic Trees. I think it's for largely emotional reasons. Some of the lines just get to me (in, e.g., Old Orchard Beach, Candy, 100,000 Fireflies, Summer Lies). Get Lost is one of my favorite albums, too. Actually, I think I mispoke when I said not much holds up to 69 Love Songs.. I just meant I would say it's the best album, kind of the magnum opus. If I had to list the other tops I would pick: Get Lost, Wayward Bus, Wasps' Nests, Holiday, Distant Plastic Trees. All the others I still like, and each one has at least one track on it that stands out to me.
I suggest watching Strange Powers. There is a lot of interesting things in there, like some of his concepts behind the albums, what they use for some of the weirder sounds, and just watching Stephin Merritt talk about stuff. Pretty early in the documentary Claudia Gonson (I believe) says something to the effect that her typical idea of a Magnetic Fields fan was a teenage girl or a gay teenage boy. The girl I went to see the movie with my pointed at me and laughed :/
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I suggest watching Strange Powers. There is a lot of interesting things in there, like some of his concepts behind the albums, what they use for some of the weirder sounds, and just watching Stephin Merritt talk about stuff. Pretty early in the documentary Claudia Gonson (I believe) says something to the effect that her typical idea of a Magnetic Fields fan was a teenage girl or a gay teenage boy. The girl I went to see the movie with my pointed at me and laughed :/
Well some of his stuff is very show-tune-y. You could try show tunes; I like plenty of stuff there. Anyone who appreciates, say, Nothing Matters When We're Dancing, should check out Irving Berlin. Merritt himself is a big fan.
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I suggest watching Strange Powers. There is a lot of interesting things in there, like some of his concepts behind the albums, what they use for some of the weirder sounds, and just watching Stephin Merritt talk about stuff. Pretty early in the documentary Claudia Gonson (I believe) says something to the effect that her typical idea of a Magnetic Fields fan was a teenage girl or a gay teenage boy. The girl I went to see the movie with my pointed at me and laughed :/
Well some of his stuff is very show-tune-y. You could try show tunes; I like plenty of stuff there. Anyone who appreciates, say, Nothing Matters When We're Dancing, should check out Irving Berlin. Merritt himself is a big fan.
I'll do that, thanks. I'll check out Irving Berlin, too.. Nothing Matters When We're Dancing is one of my favorites. I guess A Pretty Girl is Like is an Irving Berlin reference (or, correction) as well.
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Who do you play Dominion with the most ? And are there some "famous" people in the world of the Board game (game designers, or also game illustrators...) you have played with ?
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Who do you play Dominion with the most ? And are there some "famous" people in the world of the Board game (game designers, or also game illustrators...) you have played with ?
In person, I've played the most with Molly, Josephine, and Destry, who you may recognize from their knights, and a later group that included Bill Barksdale, Steve Wampler, Alex Bishop, Vinay Baliga, and Zach Kessler. Online I played the most with Bill, (Sir) Michael M. Landers, John Vogel, and Anthony Rubbo, though in the early days a few other people played a bunch too, including Chris West (Sir Vander), Miikka Notkola, and P. Colin Street. I haven't played in a few weeks, but these days I mostly just play against the bots; I want to take a break for 15 minutes, guess I'll play some Dominion. In person I am playtesting other things. When I playtested the promo several months ago, Kent Bunn and Kevin White were regulars. I've played with plenty of other people, but you know, not as regularly.
I've played online lots with Anthony Rubbo (he's not so famous but has a few published games at this point, including Hey Waiter and Renaissance Man); I've played online some with Tom Lehmann (Race for the Galaxy etc.) and Wei-Hwa Huang (upcoming Roll for the Galaxy, work on Race). Richard Garfield playtested for Seaside but I didn't play with him (though I've played a bunch of my other games with him).
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Is there still conventional wisdom around these parts about Dominion strategy that you reject?
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Is there still conventional wisdom around these parts about Dominion strategy that you reject?
I'm okay with saying "yes this card we all know is bad is bad" but in general it doesn't seem like good times for me to be trying to give out strategy tips, even if at this point I'm not going to be the foremost expert. It just carries some weight if I say it. Maybe I've broken this rule over and over, but you have not tempted me to on this occasion.
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I don't think this question was asking about strategy tips, and more of asking wether there was stuff left to to find out. I don't think "There's stuff you're terribly wrong about, but I won't tell you what it is" would be a strategy tuip, and I read the question as aiming to something like that (and I'm quite curious about that as well).
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Yes, sorry, I meant it as a yes/no question!
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Yes, sorry, I meant it as a yes/no question!
I don't know, I would like need to look at a list of conventional wisdoms. You guys focus on 2-player, so probably you have stuff to learn about multiplayer.
Like I said, it's not like I'm the expert at this point; probably I disagree about something incorrectly. It was fun watching you guys say how awful Remake and Jack would be, but those were easy lessons and you are past that point. You could ask a top player what they think you're all wrong about.
If I did say there was something, people would just try to figure out what it was. But whoever you are, odds are you could get better, one way or another. There's this trick, here is some very broad strategy advice: thinking there's an answer helps you find the answer.
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thinking there's an answer helps you find the answer.
Unless you are doing math.
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thinking there's an answer helps you find the answer.
Unless you are doing math.
Actually, it helps with math too (http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp).
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I don't expect to find cards that are novel even due to slight differences when I read fan cards; but hey, let's try an experiment, I'll look at some cards. And I looked at some. I didn't pick and choose; they were the first four in the first fan expansion on BGG. Time does not permit analyzing every fan card.
Yes, time certainly doesn't permit analyzing every fan card, so if done at all (which certainly isn't obvious to do!), your time is best spent looking at something that is already seen to be among the best by many people. If looking at some random cards was a waste of time that is no surprise.
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Yes, time certainly doesn't permit analyzing every fan card, so if done at all (which certainly isn't obvious to do!), your time is best spent looking at something that is already seen to be among the best by many people. If looking at some random cards was a waste of time that is no surprise.
It is no surprise, correct, hooray. The point to the analysis was to provide an example, that was why I did it in that post, to demonstrate that my expectation was borne out by reality.
I don't want to look at the cream of the crop either though, that will just make me not make those cards. I'm not going to say, "wow these are so good I should just sign this guy up." I would want to preserve a certain pretense of quality, and preserve a certain degree of control, and so would have to endlessly playtest those cards. As long as I am doing that it would be more fun to make them myself. The person on the planet most likely to get me to co-author an expansion offered to make an expansion, and I explained to him about how spin-offs were better (I don't know if we will ever co-author a spin-off, it's on the table anyway).
The problem with making new expansions isn't difficulty coming up with cards. It's increasing complexity, diminishing returns on variety, unpopularity of linear mechanics that would work fine in spin-offs, having better projects. See http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=73.0. It all still applies if someone else produces the ideas.
The original question was, did I look at fan cards. My answer was, I don't because 1) I don't want people to think I'm stealing their ideas, and 2) I don't expect to find cool stuff. I demonstrated #2 in that post back when. If you find an amazing fan expansion, we are back to #1.
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Why does Farmland gain you a card costing exactly $2 more and not up to $2 more?
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Why does Farmland gain you a card costing exactly $2 more and not up to $2 more?
From the Secret History of Hinterlands:
Farmland: Another very old card, from before I split Seaside and Hinterlands. Originally it triggered on gaining it. This can cause some confusing chaining - buy Farmland, trash a card costing $4, gain a Farmland, trash another card costing $4, gain a Farmland. I might have left it as when-gain anyway, just to have everything be when-gain (possibly also limiting what you could gain to non-Farmland), but Noble Brigand had to be when-buy, so there wasn't a sufficient benefit to having this be when-gain. So the less confusing when-buy prevailed.
Also note that an on-gain Farmland could immediately drain the Farmland pile in combination with Fortress.
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Why does Farmland gain you a card costing exactly $2 more and not up to $2 more?
From the Secret History of Hinterlands:
Farmland: Another very old card, from before I split Seaside and Hinterlands. Originally it triggered on gaining it. This can cause some confusing chaining - buy Farmland, trash a card costing $4, gain a Farmland, trash another card costing $4, gain a Farmland. I might have left it as when-gain anyway, just to have everything be when-gain (possibly also limiting what you could gain to non-Farmland), but Noble Brigand had to be when-buy, so there wasn't a sufficient benefit to having this be when-gain. So the less confusing when-buy prevailed.
Also note that an on-gain Farmland could immediately drain the Farmland pile in combination with Fortress.
This doesn't appear to address A Drowned Kernel's question at all. Am I missing something?
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This doesn't appear to address A Drowned Kernel's question at all. Am I missing something?
+1. Replacing "exactly" by "up to" would be a good way to boost Farmland slightly without any confusion, IMO. That has nothing to do with the "when-buy or when-gain" question, or with Fortress.
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Why does Farmland gain you a card costing exactly $2 more and not up to $2 more?
If it were "up to $2 more", you could pretty quickly run out the Province pile by turning Provinces into Provinces. That might be it.
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Donald, I appreciate your patience in explaining repeatedly why you don’t look at fan cards. I think the reason that people keep posting with counterarguments goes something like this:
• It would be nice to have more Dominion cards.
• Donald isn’t creating any more sets.
• Some of these unofficial cards look cool.
• Wouldn’t it be great if those were official so that I could play with them online and/or buy a box of them without all manner of tedious printing, cutting, and sleeving.
Maybe that’s all obvious but I thought I’d actually put it into words so that it’s clear why this discussion is even happening. From the Dominion enthusiast's perspective, it seems like an obvious direction to go if you personally aren't making more cards.
The Guy-Who-Argues-On-The-Internet side of me compels me to respond to some of your points that I disagree with. Hopefully, as someone who has fallen into this trap yourself in the past, you will forgive me. I’m really not trying to antagonize you here.
The problem with making new expansions isn't difficulty coming up with cards. It's increasing complexity, diminishing returns on variety, unpopularity of linear mechanics that would work fine in spin-offs, having better projects. See http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=73.0. It all still applies if someone else produces the ideas.
This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. You say that coming up with cards isn’t difficult. But if a card is too complex, or redundant, or uniteresting, or uses a linear mechanic, then that is a bad card. So what this boils down to is that creating good cards IS difficult. There are still fresh, simple cards left to make. Not vanilla cards, but simple ones. The easiest way to make more simple cards is to introduce a new, nonlinear mechanic, which is again difficult—but not impossible—to do.
The point I’m trying to get across is that having somebody else produce good ideas is a time-saver, because good cards are already the result of repeated playtesting, tweaking, and not being afraid to throw out a card that you can’t get to work or that is too complex, etc. Of course you’d have to further playtest any such cards personally, but you already play Dominion online (when you can log in, of course), so that begs the question, mightn’t you be playtesting cards while you’re doing that?
I don't want to look at the cream of the crop either though, that will just make me not make those cards.
I am going to hazard a guess that you wouldn’t make those cards anyway, not because they’re actually bad, but because they wouldn’t occur to you. As a sort of backwards example, I started making cards after Hinterlands was released. To date, I believe there has been exactly one card I had to scrap because I felt it was too similar to a card that was subsequently published. I am not going to use this paragraph as a sneaky way to tell you about this card, so suffice to say that the published card was Scavenger. Although the rest of the card was different, the core concept of “look through your discard pile and put a card on your deck” was the same and I felt like there didn’t need to be two cards that did that. I don’t feel that any of my other cards are redundant with published cards. My point is that although there may be some small amount of overlap between two individuals’ card ideas, now that all the obvious cards have been done, it’s increasingly unlikely that two people are going to have the same ideas.
All that being said, I think there are very legitimate reasons to just say, “No, I am never going to ok a fan-made expansion.” Two that I can think of off the top of my head are:
• It potentially opens the floodgates of fan card submissions. Maybe you already get a dozen emails a day from people submitting fan cards and this is a non-issue. I have no idea. But I could easily envision a situation where an expansion made by some non-famous game designer gets published and every Dominion enthusiast and his brother thinks, “Herp derp, I should submit some fan cards, too!” As previously established, most fan cards are terrible, so this is all sorts of undesirable any way you slice it.
• Wanting to be the guy and getting to. I think this is reasonable. Let’s say that somebody wrote an unofficial 8th book for the Harry Potter series and that, somehow, 95% of the Harry Potter fanbase thought it was a worthy sequel and should be part of Harry Potter canon. Somehow, I could not find it in myself to blame J. K. Rowling for saying, “No, I am not going to recommend to my publisher that this fanfic be released as the next official book!” To be fair, there is precedent for this sort of thing in the world of board gaming. Some of SmallWorld’s expansions are composed of contest-winning ideas, for example. But there certainly isn’t any obligation on the part of a creator to include fans in the creative process, nor should there be.
Just to be clear, I am not trying to convince you to reverse your position and start publishing fan cards, so I apologize for being argumentative anyway. I do appreciate your clarifications. It’s good to get a solid “No fan cards are ever going to be published” so that if I ever feel that a set of cards has reached publishable status, I can submit it to BGG as a fan expansion without worrying about what might have been. If nothing else, the processs of reading your secret histories and essays and creating cards for this game has taught me a lot about game design in general. I really appreciate your taking the time to write all of your essays and also respond to our questions.
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Why does Farmland gain you a card costing exactly $2 more and not up to $2 more?
If it were "up to $2 more", you could pretty quickly run out the Province pile by turning Provinces into Provinces. That might be it.
Maybe. But I don't think it happens so often that you have $6 but not $8, AND a Province in hand but not a Farmland. (With $8 or $6 and a Farmland in hand you can gain a Province anyway, and increase your VP count.)
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I'm afraid that doesn't answer the question why the exactly is there.
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But that doesn't answer the question of why Farmland is 'exactly $2 more', not 'up to $2' like with Remodel. Presumably Farmland (and Governor) have 'exactly' because they needed nerfing--but while Governor is a powerful $5 card, Farmland isn't necessarily better than the other $6 alt-VP cards.
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Why does Farmland gain you a card costing exactly $2 more and not up to $2 more?
From the Secret History of Hinterlands:
Farmland: Another very old card, from before I split Seaside and Hinterlands. Originally it triggered on gaining it. This can cause some confusing chaining - buy Farmland, trash a card costing $4, gain a Farmland, trash another card costing $4, gain a Farmland. I might have left it as when-gain anyway, just to have everything be when-gain (possibly also limiting what you could gain to non-Farmland), but Noble Brigand had to be when-buy, so there wasn't a sufficient benefit to having this be when-gain. So the less confusing when-buy prevailed.
Also note that an on-gain Farmland could immediately drain the Farmland pile in combination with Fortress.
This doesn't appear to address A Drowned Kernel's question at all. Am I missing something?
I misread the question. My bad!
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Why does Farmland gain you a card costing exactly $2 more and not up to $2 more?
In the early days, to keep down complexity, I set myself a limit: the card text had to fit in the text box, at a particular size of a particular font. None of the original cards (25-card main set, five 20-card expansions) broke this rule. You can see the original Farmland in the Outtakes article - it's New Wing, shown at the top of the Seaside section (http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/06/24/dominion-outtakes/). The VP symbol eats up a bunch of space; it just barely fit with no "up to" (and back then I didn't say "exactly," though obv. that's better for clarity).
So, it didn't say "up to" just to make the text fit given this arbitrary constraint I'd chosen. Then later there was never a point where I felt unhappy with it, so it never changed.
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Why does Farmland gain you a card costing exactly $2 more and not up to $2 more?
In the early days, to keep down complexity, I set myself a limit: the card text had to fit in the text box, at a particular size of a particular font. None of the original cards (25-card main set, five 20-card expansions) broke this rule. You can see the original Farmland in the Outtakes article - it's New Wing, shown at the top of the Seaside section (http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/06/24/dominion-outtakes/). The VP symbol eats up a bunch of space; it just barely fit with no "up to" (and back then I didn't say "exactly," though obv. that's better for clarity).
So, it didn't say "up to" just to make the text fit given this arbitrary constraint I'd chosen. Then later there was never a point where I felt unhappy with it, so it never changed.
Thanks for the answer; that's an unexpected explanation. Ironically, "exactly" now takes up more space than "up to" :D
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This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. You say that coming up with cards isn’t difficult. But if a card is too complex, or redundant, or uniteresting, or uses a linear mechanic, then that is a bad card. So what this boils down to is that creating good cards IS difficult. There are still fresh, simple cards left to make. Not vanilla cards, but simple ones. The easiest way to make more simple cards is to introduce a new, nonlinear mechanic, which is again difficult—but not impossible—to do.
Well it's not that complex cards are bad; there are complex cards in most of the expansions. It's just that at a certain point the expansions have too many complex cards. Now I have blown it; I have, in my effort to please expert players (he said, not actually passing on the blame), tried to make cards as well-balanced as possible even though that meant making them too complex (again I will cite those Hinterlands cards I've singled out). That's an issue, that the expert players are less happy with the simpler, weaker/stronger card that casual players would prefer.
I have already done the experiment of "this is a good place to stop, wait I have to make another one." That set is Guilds. It exists only to come out between Hinterlands and Dark Ages (though it didn't); it completely postdates Dominion being published. I picked the most promising (most likely to produce good cards easily) ideas from my list and made some cards for them. It ended up taking a couple cards from Dark Ages (Journeyman, Advisor) and a couple old ideas that I hadn't fixed up yet (Taxman, Soothsayer) (Soothsayer shouldn't have the "if," there I am seeking approval from playtesters to the end). And it worked out fine; I wasn't somehow unable to make it.
If you loved Guilds then man the idea that I should stop making expansions must seem less compelling than ever. I am certainly pleased with Guilds. It is nevertheless more complex than I would like, it strongly demonstrates the diminishing returns issue, and a spin-off would have been better. Even if there's a non-linear thing left to do, a spin-off can do a linear thing and that can be good; a spin-off automatically gets new vanilla cards, not just simple enough to live with but extremely simple and yet still compelling; and a spin-off has no diminishing returns at all.
Here is more on the diminishing returns thing. Which expansion has sold the best? 2nd best? 3rd best? Well maybe that's not fair; Intrigue has been out the longest. Which expansion sold the best in its first year? 2nd best? 3rd best? 4th best?
You can just line them up by release date (skipping the small sets, which do worse). People stop buying them eventually; foreign publishers stop publishing them. They've got enough.
I mentioned this to the Making Fun people, while explaining why I wasn't making more expansions. One of the guys immediately said, yeah he had played a thousand times with his kid, but he had Cornucopia still in shrink, and didn't see the point of buying Dark Ages until they had gotten some value out of the last few sets he'd bought.
I am going to hazard a guess that you wouldn’t make those cards anyway, not because they’re actually bad, but because they wouldn’t occur to you.
I prefer to think that I would think of enough of the simple ones, and leave it untested. You can make complex cards for forever, so sure, I might never get to whatever corner there.
I made a bunch of homemade Magic expansions, and at one point aggressively looked for new mechanics. They do stuff I thought of all the time; there is plenty left that they haven't done, but they keep making cards, they will gradually whittle that list down. I guess that's not as relevant as it sounds; maybe I am just as uncreative as Wizards, and someone out there could blow us away.
If you have tons of great ideas for innovative cards for a game with rules on cards, I bet you can make your own games. It's good times.
• It potentially opens the floodgates of fan card submissions. Maybe you already get a dozen emails a day from people submitting fan cards and this is a non-issue. I have no idea.
I don't, hooray.
• Wanting to be the guy and getting to. I think this is reasonable.
I do want to be the guy and do get to. I'm not sure we do promotion well enough for a card design contest to do much for us.
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Donald's explanation of why he does not look at fan cards is more than satisfactory. He could have just said "I don't like to" or "For legal reasons, my lawyer advises me not to look at fan cards."
I am extremely sympathetic to the increasing complexity and decreasing returns to more cards argument, by the way. At some point, it just isn't Dominion anymore -- and that's the designer's call. I mean, I play a lot of Dominion, and I already limit the expansions I play with in person because I simply will not mess around with all the mats and tokens.
And even if the new cards would still be "Dominion", when there are decreasing returns, there is usually a non-zero cutoff point where it's optimal to switch to something else. I am happy to hear Donald feels like there are greater returns to making other games rather than expanding Dominion. By working on something else, Donald is essentially saying, "think about all of the joy that you would get from having me spend time to sanction more official Dominion cards; what I am working will be even better."
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If you loved Guilds then man the idea that I should stop making expansions must seem less compelling than ever. I am certainly pleased with Guilds. It is nevertheless more complex than I would like, it strongly demonstrates the diminishing returns issue, and a spin-off would have been better. Even if there's a non-linear thing left to do, a spin-off can do a linear thing and that can be good; a spin-off automatically gets new vanilla cards, not just simple enough to live with but extremely simple and yet still compelling; and a spin-off has no diminishing returns at all.
Here is more on the diminishing returns thing. Which expansion has sold the best? 2nd best? 3rd best? Well maybe that's not fair; Intrigue has been out the longest. Which expansion sold the best in its first year? 2nd best? 3rd best? 4th best?
You can just line them up by release date (skipping the small sets, which do worse). People stop buying them eventually; foreign publishers stop publishing them. They've got enough.
I mentioned this to the Making Fun people, while explaining why I wasn't making more expansions. One of the guys immediately said, yeah he had played a thousand times with his kid, but he had Cornucopia still in shrink, and didn't see the point of buying Dark Ages until they had gotten some value out of the last few sets he'd bought.
Man, this is so much better than my post. I should have just waited. :P
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I think we will all be more satisfied with Donald's reason when he finally wows us with a Dominion-esque spin-off. (More domion-y than Kingdom Builder)
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I made a bunch of homemade Magic expansions, and at one point aggressively looked for new mechanics. They do stuff I thought of all the time; there is plenty left that they haven't done, but they keep making cards, they will gradually whittle that list down. I guess that's not as relevant as it sounds; maybe I am just as uncreative as Wizards, and someone out there could blow us away.
I have a better example. A famous game designer - a different one - had an idea for a Dominion expansion. He didn't tell me what it was. A few years later, I found out that it was covered by later expansions, especially Guilds. If I hadn't made Guilds, and he had thought that I would never think of his idea, he would have been wrong.
Two guys thought of calculus, as the saying goes. Dominion cards are easier.
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Two guys thought of calculus, as the saying goes. Dominion cards are easier.
But a third guy also thought about that long before them. Society was just not ready (for instance, lacking positional numbering systems).
http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/clindsey/mhf4404/archimedes/archimedes.html
Are we ready for the really simple, new and awesome Dominion cards?
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If you loved Guilds then man the idea that I should stop making expansions must seem less compelling than ever.
Indeed. Guilds is my favorite expansion and the first time I read that you're not going to make new expansions was right after I discovered my love for Guilds. Painful stuff.
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If you loved Guilds then man the idea that I should stop making expansions must seem less compelling than ever.
Indeed. Guilds is my favorite expansion and the first time I read that you're not going to make new expansions was right after I discovered my love for Guilds. Painful stuff.
Even with just Guilds, having only 13 cards compared to the almost 200 that were already released, it still had a significant impact on the strategy space of the game. Without Guilds, we wouldn't have had Masterpiece/Feodum, or Stonemason/Vineyards, or Stonemason/Border Village! Journeyman and Doctor may tread old ground, but they're just really good cards. And then there's Baker. Baker, Baker, Baker. Baker just upsets everything you thought you knew about opening strategy!
My point is that "diminishing returns" makes a point, but it's not necessarily a compelling one. If I only desired a satisfactory amount of variety in my Dominion games, I probably would never have even bought Hinterlands. Even small expansions (even single cards, look at Governor) can have a profound impact on the strategy space of Dominion. The more variety, the better, and I will continue to say this even when there are thousands of kingdom cards.
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If you loved Guilds then man the idea that I should stop making expansions must seem less compelling than ever.
Indeed. Guilds is my favorite expansion and the first time I read that you're not going to make new expansions was right after I discovered my love for Guilds. Painful stuff.
Even with just Guilds, having only 13 cards compared to the almost 200 that were already released, it still had a significant impact on the strategy space of the game. Without Guilds, we wouldn't have had Masterpiece/Feodum, or Stonemason/Vineyards, or Stonemason/Border Village! Journeyman and Doctor may tread old ground, but they're just really good cards. And then there's Baker. Baker, Baker, Baker. Baker just upsets everything you thought you knew about opening strategy!
My point is that "diminishing returns" makes a point, but it's not necessarily a compelling one. If I only desired a satisfactory amount of variety in my Dominion games, I probably would never have even bought Hinterlands. Even small expansions (even single cards, look at Governor) can have a profound impact on the strategy space of Dominion. The more variety, the better, and I will continue to say this even when there are thousands of kingdom cards.
Every new card that is published diminishes the chance Baker will be in your kingdom (playing full random. edge case: black market)
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My point is that "diminishing returns" makes a point, but it's not necessarily a compelling one. If I only desired a satisfactory amount of variety in my Dominion games, I probably would never have even bought Hinterlands. Even small expansions (even single cards, look at Governor) can have a profound impact on the strategy space of Dominion. The more variety, the better, and I will continue to say this even when there are thousands of kingdom cards.
There are always going to be people who would buy a 20th expansion despite owning 19. Each expansion gives you whatever new experiences, despite already having endless variety; at some level it can be like buying a 20th game when you already have 19. However for most people, a 20th game does a much better job of being a 20th game, and there is clear data that most Dominion fans do not need even 8 expansions. You can produce a big line of people who do and that won't change that.
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Not to step on Donald's toes here, but he has said many, many, many times that he doesn't look at fan cards at all.
One of the reasons he gave was to avoid something looking like a rip off of a fan card (even by coincidence). Now that all cards are out...
In fact there will probably be a physical Dominion promo this year - I finished my work on it, it's just up to when Jay decides to put it out.
Do you have any updates on to whether or not/when Jay will decide to put it (the promo) out? Will it be a single card, or a full set? (I know "promo" makes it seem kind of obvious that it'll be the former, but I'm asking anyway :) )
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Could you see Dominion working as a game, akin to TCGs, that continually releases new expansions, with only truly dedicated fans having all of them, with most players having, say, 3 (eg the base set, the most recent new expansion, and the one with the theme that interests them the most?)?
Personally I love the feeling of seeing new cards and playing with them to figure out how they work. There's probably enough good card ideas out there to release an expansion every year for a long time to come, especially since the nature of Dominion means that a card doesn't need to be balanced in power compared to other cards to be worthwhile; it's ok for a card to define the games its in or be really useful in only a few setups as long as it's fun.
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Do you have any updates on to whether or not/when Jay will decide to put it (the promo) out? Will it be a single card, or a full set? (I know "promo" makes it seem kind of obvious that it'll be the former, but I'm asking anyway :) )
It's a single card, which is to say a single pile, like the other promos.
He told me when he planned to release it, but it's up to him to announce it.
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Could you see Dominion working as a game, akin to TCGs, that continually releases new expansions, with only truly dedicated fans having all of them, with most players having, say, 3 (eg the base set, the most recent new expansion, and the one with the theme that interests them the most?)?
Personally I love the feeling of seeing new cards and playing with them to figure out how they work. There's probably enough good card ideas out there to release an expansion every year for a long time to come, especially since the nature of Dominion means that a card doesn't need to be balanced in power compared to other cards to be worthwhile; it's ok for a card to define the games its in or be really useful in only a few setups as long as it's fun.
In my experience those people with 3 sets would have the base set, Intrigue, and Seaside. Maybe we could sell the new set instead if it were a standalone, but then you have to ask, what's the beauty of it, why not just sell them an existing set? We could run lots of tournaments, and only use new sets in them, like Magic. And rotate sets out of print; buy 'em while they last. Is that a utopia or a dystopia?
I don't really know at what point it would stop being good business to make new sets for the insatiable players. Probably it would keep seeming worth printing them for a while; again you know your product won't be a big hit, but you know it will sell some copies. But uh again you have the complexity issue. To avoid complexity on cards you can put it in the rulebook, but then people can't just sit down with random cards and play. And you'd have to give up on having cards be as unique as they are.
Magic has been around for 20+ years, but they have a much larger space for possible simple cards, with more stats and zones and data. Magic leans heavily on making slight variations of cards, and reprints cards too.
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In my experience those people with 3 sets would have the base set, Intrigue, and Seaside. Maybe we could sell the new set instead if it were a standalone, but then you have to ask, what's the beauty of it, why not just sell them an existing set? We could run lots of tournaments, and only use new sets in them, like Magic. And rotate sets out of print; buy 'em while they last. Is that a utopia or a dystopia?
Utopia. It means more Dominion cards.
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I agree with Polk that Donald doesn't need to give us a reason - "I don't want to" is fine, no matter *why* he doesn't want to. He doesn't really owe us anything here.
I'm much more interested in the following:
Do you have any plans, however loose, to make a spin-off? How about just any other game - we know about Greed and Monster Factory, but are there other things in the works (understanding that you probably can't give us much in terms of specifics at early stages)?
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I made a bunch of homemade Magic expansions, and at one point aggressively looked for new mechanics. They do stuff I thought of all the time; there is plenty left that they haven't done, but they keep making cards, they will gradually whittle that list down. I guess that's not as relevant as it sounds; maybe I am just as uncreative as Wizards, and someone out there could blow us away.
I have a better example. A famous game designer - a different one - had an idea for a Dominion expansion. He didn't tell me what it was. A few years later, I found out that it was covered by later expansions, especially Guilds. If I hadn't made Guilds, and he had thought that I would never think of his idea, he would have been wrong.
Two guys thought of calculus, as the saying goes. Dominion cards are easier.
I don't know about that.. did you look into Infinite Throne Room? :P
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I made a bunch of homemade Magic expansions, and at one point aggressively looked for new mechanics. They do stuff I thought of all the time; there is plenty left that they haven't done, but they keep making cards, they will gradually whittle that list down. I guess that's not as relevant as it sounds; maybe I am just as uncreative as Wizards, and someone out there could blow us away.
I have a better example. A famous game designer - a different one - had an idea for a Dominion expansion. He didn't tell me what it was. A few years later, I found out that it was covered by later expansions, especially Guilds. If I hadn't made Guilds, and he had thought that I would never think of his idea, he would have been wrong.
Two guys thought of calculus, as the saying goes. Dominion cards are easier.
I don't know about that.. did you look into Infinite Throne Room? :P
The infinite TR thing was pretty derivative. I'd say that Donald's experience is more integral to the process of creating Dominion cards.
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Do you have any plans, however loose, to make a spin-off? How about just any other game - we know about Greed and Monster Factory, but are there other things in the works (understanding that you probably can't give us much in terms of specifics at early stages)?
I continue to plan to make a spin-off. Way back when, I thought a spin-off would be something like "Dominion, plus something." Now so many people have made that game that I feel like the spin-off needs to be more different. Kingdom Builder started as a spin-off but obv. did not remain one. A second game also started as a spin-off but no longer is.
Here is how this year is looking currently:
- March? - Piña Pirata, from IELLO (probably already out in France). A family game; crazy 8's but the rules change after each hand.
- May? - a new strategy game that has not been announced. It's euro-ish, and has the Donald X. Variety Mechanic.
- spring/summer? - reprint of Nefarious, in Russian and English
- June (Origins) - Greed. A drafting game with interacting rules on cards.
- sometime, listing it in the middle - a Dominion promo.
- August - Kingdom Builder Big Box (including a new promo/mini-expansion)
- Essen? - 3rd Kingdom Builder expansion (not counting the thing from the big box)
- dunno if it will happen - Nefarious expansion
- dunno if it will happen - online Dominion promo
I am always working on new games (or trying to fix up old ones). I tend to focus on whatever I can get work done on, which isn't always the Dominion spin-off.
I am not sure why you listed Monster Factory; I guess I am expecting a 2nd printing so there's that. But it came out in 2012.
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Pina Pirata is indeed out in France, I played it a week ago. I like the idea of taking Uno and making it more interesting, but it still ended up too simple for me. Probably works great with kids while not being the borefest that Uno is though.
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Pina Pirata is indeed out in France, I played it a week ago. I like the idea of taking Uno and making it more interesting, but it still ended up too simple for me. Probably works great with kids while not being the borefest that Uno is though.
My friends and I used to play a mod of Uno where you could lay down cards in succession as long as you could string together the cards with basic arithmetic operations to get the value of the top card. So, you know, if the top card was 6 and you had 2,2,2,3, say, you could put down 2*3+2-2. I don't think you were allowed to associate; operations had to be performed binarily in the order played. I also don't remember what we did with colors. Maybe that followed the regular rules.
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That unannounced May game sounds cool. When can we hope for more info about that?
I guess a potential Nefarious expansion wouldn't be compatible with the old edition?
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Pina Pirata is indeed out in France, I played it a week ago. I like the idea of taking Uno and making it more interesting, but it still ended up too simple for me. Probably works great with kids while not being the borefest that Uno is though.
Since it's out, could you give some examples of the rules-changing tiles?
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Pina Pirata is indeed out in France, I played it a week ago. I like the idea of taking Uno and making it more interesting, but it still ended up too simple for me. Probably works great with kids while not being the borefest that Uno is though.
My friends and I used to play a mod of Uno where you could lay down cards in succession as long as you could string together the cards with basic arithmetic operations to get the value of the top card. So, you know, if the top card was 6 and you had 2,2,2,3, say, you could put down 2*3+2-2. I don't think you were allowed to associate; operations had to be performed binarily in the order played. I also don't remember what we did with colors. Maybe that followed the regular rules.
I no longer know what rules are in actual Uno and what rules that I've used are house rules. There were a few particular rules that I always thought were real Uno rules but it turned out that they weren't, and the loss of those rules took away any real possibility of strategy. I think it was the ability to play multiple cards at once if they are matching in number (which is how Crazy Eights works). Apparently Uno only lets you play ONE card at a time. So the best you can really do in official Uno is try to count cards.
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Apparently Uno only lets you play ONE card at a time.
Most misleading game title ever...
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Apparently Uno only lets you play ONE card at a time.
Most misleading game title ever...
Well, you're supposed to say Uno when you get to the last card. I figured that was the main connection. :P
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I think it was the ability to play multiple cards at once if they are matching in number (which is how Crazy Eights works).
This is how crazy eights is supposed to go? I've never played it that way, this would change everything!
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I think it was the ability to play multiple cards at once if they are matching in number (which is how Crazy Eights works).
This is how crazy eights is supposed to go? I've never played it that way, this would change everything!
I suppose that there must be different variants floating around. Checking the wikipedia page for Crazy Eights, it looks like this particular rule is listed under a few different variants... including the Canadian variant. Huh.
It adds a modicum of strategy to a game with little real strategy. It's not much though, in the end. Play Mao instead. ;)
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Pina Pirata is indeed out in France, I played it a week ago. I like the idea of taking Uno and making it more interesting, but it still ended up too simple for me. Probably works great with kids while not being the borefest that Uno is though.
Since it's out, could you give some examples of the rules-changing tiles?
So to explain a bit if people don't know about it, the base game is Uno, but instead of colors and numbers, you have cards with various animal pirates, most of them have two animals on, some only have one. You have to play a card each turn, it has to have an animal in common with the card on top of the pile, etc.
The ones I remember off the op of my head :
- When you play a parrot, you put a card from your hand on top of the draw pile
- When you draw turtle, you getto give it to the player to your left
- When you play a penguin on a turtle... the player to your right takes the turtle in his hand or something ? Not exactly sure how that one worked
- When someone gets down to one card, they have to play with their card face-up/revealed
- Everyone draws a card at the beginning of the game and puts it in front of them : all animals represented on that card become "jokers" for that player (not sure if that's clear : it means they cna play those animals on anything)
- Rabbits can be played on any card
That's all I can remember. There were a few kind of interesting interactions once you got a few tiles out.
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That unannounced May game sounds cool. When can we hope for more info about that?
I guess a potential Nefarious expansion wouldn't be compatible with the old edition?
I don't know when whoever it is will announce the new game.
I don't know how the card sizes compare between the new Nefarious and the original, but it's a good guess that they will not be compatible.
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When are you going to post Dudes of Stuff and Things so that we can all play it (you did say it was the best game ever)?
Alternately, can you give a summary of what it was?
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Hopefully this question wasn't asked already:
After playing/playtesting Dominion so much, do you find it boring?
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Hooray for a reprint of Nefarious!
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I don't really know at what point it would stop being good business to make new sets for the insatiable players. Probably it would keep seeming worth printing them for a while; again you know your product won't be a big hit, but you know it will sell some copies.
How many copies of an expansion do you need to sell for it to be considered a success (or at least not a failure)?
In my experience those people with 3 sets would have the base set, Intrigue, and Seaside.
Which makes sense as they've been out the longest. Which sets sold the best in 2013?
We could run lots of tournaments, and only use new sets in them, like Magic.
Isn't that because of power creep and ensuring that fans buy the new cards?
If so this wouldn't apply to Dominion because both players "use" the same cards (it's not the case where a player using old cards won't stand a chance), and tournaments probably wouldn't be BYO (although maybe they could be set up in such a way that they were). It would be harder for players to get really good at the game by being intimately familiar with all the cards and their combos, but IMO the fun of dominion is figuring it out for yourself when you see the setup.
To avoid complexity on cards you can put it in the rulebook, but then people can't just sit down with random cards and play.
Do you think that there any enough card ideas out there that use the existing rules, or rules that are fairly easy to understand (eg "when gain")? I can't think of many dominion cards where the rulebook is doing more than clarifying the more confusing aspects of what's written on the card.
In fact here's another question - which printed card brings up the most rules confusions and misunderstandings when other players experience it for the first time?
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When are you going to post Dudes of Stuff and Things so that we can all play it (you did say it was the best game ever)?
Alternately, can you give a summary of what it was?
If theory wants he can put it up somewhere on the site for people to download. There are two versions, a DOS version and a Windows one (old old Windows). I think there is one fix in the Windows one and otherwise they are the same. Possibly the DOS version runs fast enough in DOSBox, I don't know. My computer has XP and will run the Windows one, but many computers will not be able to run it. But uh there they are, I don't mind if people want to try it, but theory will have to in some sense host it.
It's not the best game ever - it's the best computer game ever. It's very recognizably derivative of Heroes of Might and Magic II & III.
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After playing/playtesting Dominion so much, do you find it boring?
No, it was good times playtesting the promo, and I'd be playing it a little online if I could log in.
I don't find my other games boring either, despite lots of play on those (albeit sometimes with expansions). It's perhaps some combination of trying to make games I personally like, and trying to make games with lots of variety.
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How many copies of an expansion do you need to sell for it to be considered a success (or at least not a failure)?
I don't know. I can not even try to get it published and yet be happy with it myself. A publisher might have expectations that didn't get met at any level really, from "big success but hoped for bigger" to "only expected to sell 1K and didn't."
The Wikipedia article on the SdJ - citing an old article of Scott Tepper's! - says, "A Spiel des Jahres nomination can increase the typical sales of a game from 500-3000 copies to around 10,000." Obv. times change, more people are born, that could be wrong, but you know, that makes it sound like selling 10K copies should be somewhat satisfying.
In my experience those people with 3 sets would have the base set, Intrigue, and Seaside.
Which makes sense as they've been out the longest. Which sets sold the best in 2013?
Looking just at the second half of the year (thus, intentionally not seeing the initial burst of Guilds sales), the main set, then Intrigue, then Seaside.
We could run lots of tournaments, and only use new sets in them, like Magic.
Isn't that because of power creep and ensuring that fans buy the new cards?
Perhaps I don't understand you. Magic doesn't have power creep. Yes the point of me saying the above was along the lines of pushing fans to buy new cards. I have no interest in pushing fans to buy new cards; but if someone is saying, there must be new expansions, that is stuff to think about, what exactly will actually sell them. Hey, perhaps this odious stuff from Magic.
Do you think that there any enough card ideas out there that use the existing rules, or rules that are fairly easy to understand (eg "when gain")? I can't think of many dominion cards where the rulebook is doing more than clarifying the more confusing aspects of what's written on the card.
I am not sure I understand the question. Existing Dominion cards struggle to be as understandable as possible without the rulebooks. There are still new things you absolutely need the rulebook to explain - how does the potion symbol work, how do coin tokens work, how do duration cards work, what do I do with Shelters and Ruins and Platinum/Colony. What exactly does "pass" mean on Masquerade.
In fact here's another question - which printed card brings up the most rules confusions and misunderstandings when other players experience it for the first time?
Well the main set sells the best, so measured by sheer number, probably Throne Room. Possession probably gets more questions than Trader, but the Possession questions usually have easy answers ("it really does what it says") and some of the Trader questions do not.
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Have the sales of new expansions (the "burst") gotten better or worse with each new expansion? It may be hard to compare expansions given the size and price differences, but, for example, what sold better; Seaside in 2009 or Prosperity in 2010?
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Are you happy about those particular expansions selling the best? Knowing that this effect probably based on order, would you have wanted to reorder anything?
Would you ever consider changing which cards are in which sets, or even in the game at all for later editions down the line?
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Have the sales of new expansions (the "burst") gotten better or worse with each new expansion? It may be hard to compare expansions given the size and price differences, but, for example, what sold better; Seaside in 2009 or Prosperity in 2010?
I can only talk so much about sales figures; it's not my data to share.
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Are you happy about those particular expansions selling the best? Knowing that this effect probably based on order, would you have wanted to reorder anything?
Would you ever consider changing which cards are in which sets, or even in the game at all for later editions down the line?
You get better as you go along. If I'd decided to do Prosperity as the first expansion and Intrigue 3rd, Intrigue would be the better expansion. It's not like any particular theme had to be consigned to when I wasn't as good or whatever. It's not like I need people to buy more of one thing than another.
Kingdom Builder has the same deal as Dominion here; put the expansions in order from the one I like the best to the one I like the least, and that's the reverse order of publication. There's no solution; you get better as you go along.
Future changes aren't just up to me; I think Jay is mostly against them. If we released a slightly better version of Hinterlands, people who bought the old one would feel ripped off. If any cards were errata'd, one group might be used to the new version and then play at someone's house with the old version and an argument would ensue that we can avoid by not making those changes.
I don't think changing which cards are in existing sets is really on the table. Having completely new groupings is fine but mostly only makes sense for rethemes, like the Hobby Japan ones.
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It seems to me that while there may be room left for new Actions and Treasures, it is much harder to come up with new meaningful alt-VP cards. I mean, there are only so many variables one can assess at the end of the game. I don't think there are all that many more alt-VP cards to publish without them getting redundant or substantially more complex. And to be clear, I'm talking about cards like Gardens or Fairgrounds which can really give Province a run for its money, not cards like Overgrown Estate or Nobles. And new expansions would need to continue presenting such cards, or else full random games would have smaller and smaller odds of having alt-VP. Which would be a shame, in my opinion. I think the built in alt-VP aspect of Kingdom Builder is my favorite part of that game.
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And new expansions would need to continue presenting such cards, or else full random games would have smaller and smaller odds of having alt-VP. Which would be a shame, in my opinion.
Even with the 200+ cards we have, I don't think full random across all expansions is the best way to generate kingdoms.
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Even with the 200+ cards we have, I don't think full random across all expansions is the best way to generate kingdoms.
Obviously. King's Court, Black Market, Random is the best way to select a kingdom. :)
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Even with the 200+ cards we have, I don't think full random across all expansions is the best way to generate kingdoms.
Obviously. King's Court, Scout, Random is the best way to select a kingdom. :)
Fixed that for you.
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Even with the 200+ cards we have, I don't think full random across all expansions is the best way to generate kingdoms.
Obviously. King's Court, Black Market, Random is the best way to select a kingdom. :)
The idea being, King's Court–Black Market selects nine cards for you, and then you pick the tenth randomly, I guess?
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The tenth is always King Kurt.
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I don't think there are all that many more alt-VP cards to publish without them getting redundant or substantially more complex. And to be clear, I'm talking about cards like Gardens or Fairgrounds which can really give Province a run for its money, not cards like Overgrown Estate or Nobles.
In that hypothetical world where there would be new cards all the time, I think we wouldn't demand the same amount of difference for a card to be seen as not redundant. If the set "Summer special 2029" contains a variant of Garden that differs in that you have to have at least one Copper in play to buy it, or that it is trash safe like Fortress, or that it only counts cards costing at least $3 in your deck, or any other change that wouldn't have been different enough for a new card now, I think that would be fine. ("The oldtimers who have played with the original '08 set will recognize this as a variant of a card there.")
(But all of that is moot since that is not the direction Donald X. is aiming for anyway.)
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The number of people who get suckered into buying redundant Magic cards must be staggering.
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The number of people who get suckered into buying redundant Magic cards must be staggering.
That's the beauty of random packs of cards, I guess.
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It seems to me that while there may be room left for new Actions and Treasures, it is much harder to come up with new meaningful alt-VP cards. I mean, there are only so many variables one can assess at the end of the game. I don't think there are all that many more alt-VP cards to publish without them getting redundant or substantially more complex. And to be clear, I'm talking about cards like Gardens or Fairgrounds which can really give Province a run for its money, not cards like Overgrown Estate or Nobles. And new expansions would need to continue presenting such cards, or else full random games would have smaller and smaller odds of having alt-VP. Which would be a shame, in my opinion. I think the built in alt-VP aspect of Kingdom Builder is my favorite part of that game.
Post on future VP cards: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8559.0
David desJardins then said he thought anti-Gardens could be different enough, and I said yes I guess if it's cheap that could play sufficiently differently. So anti-Gardens and min would be among the first things I tried if I wanted to make another one.
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In that hypothetical world where there would be new cards all the time, I think we wouldn't demand the same amount of difference for a card to be seen as not redundant. If the set "Summer special 2029" contains a variant of Garden that differs in that you have to have at least one Copper in play to buy it, or that it is trash safe like Fortress, or that it only counts cards costing at least $3 in your deck, or any other change that wouldn't have been different enough for a new card now, I think that would be fine. ("The oldtimers who have played with the original '08 set will recognize this as a variant of a card there.")
(But all of that is moot since that is not the direction Donald X. is aiming for anyway.)
I think, as long as possible, it's best to avoid just making near analogues, like the various Gardens-like things I tested and didn't do. There are a few and people do complain about them. If you wanted to make 20 expansions then for sure you would have to give up on that.
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I don't think I'd be mega-sad if there were no more (or few more) scaling alt-VP cards. They're definitely the easiest way to say, "build this kind of deck", but there are others. If more sets were to be released, it would be nice to see more Kingdom Victory cards, even if they just give a flat X VP.
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As a Magic player/designer, how do you feel about the less-serious expansions Unglued and Unhinged? If there were a huge demand for such a set for Dominion, what kind of direction do you think you'd take it?
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As a Magic player/designer, how do you feel about the less-serious expansions Unglued and Unhinged? If there were a huge demand for such a set for Dominion, what kind of direction do you think you'd take it?
The central problem of Un- cards is that you can't play with them. And I don't just mean in tournaments. You build a deck with some Un- cards, you take it to your local game night. People are playing Standard-legal decks, they are not interested in playing against your decks. You can maybe talk someone into playing two of your decks against each other, but uh people tend to play established formats, and those formats don't allow Un- cards. This is at least how things went back when I was playing at local game nights, which was you know in the 90s. I bought a box of Unglued, people were interested in that for maybe a week, then, you know, I have Standard / Type II decks here, those cards are not legal in that format. These days they do make some supplemental products that are not legal in Standard, so they must see a sufficient demand there.
However. For many years the main way I played was cubes. You can put Un- cards in your cube, everyone's playing with cards from that cube, what's not to like there. Wait, we have to look at the specific cards you're talking about. Let's divide up Un- cards into uh ones that care too much about the physical world and everything else. Some cards care about what words you say, what you touch, your clothing, you know. All that stuff. And then others just do game-type things you can't do on normal Magic cards - die-rolling, caring about words in the text box in a way that wouldn't work in a game translated into multiple languages, caring about parts of a card that they don't want you to have to worry about in tournaments (artist, card name, rarity), fractions, stuff like that. Well caring about what I say or my clothing or whatever, those cards are good for a laugh once ever and then man I am sick of them. The other stuff is great; some things like caring about artist may not hold up because man I don't want to have to pay attention to this all the time, but there are cards that stay fun. It's uh not as large a fraction of the sets as I would like but they're there.
So anyway. For Magic, I would do another Un- set, but focus it on the stuff like caring about card text, and stay away from stuff like talking in funny voices. I bet it would go over better.
For Dominion I would never consider stuff like the funny voices; I personally have to like the set and so much for that. Caring about card names/text has the same issue for Dominion that it does for Magic: it doesn't translate. And if I were going to do die-rolling or something, I wouldn't think of it as an Un- set, just a theme that would be less popular. Making a funny set but having normal cards seems pointless. I mean a couple popular game brands are based around selling humor, and I should get in on that, but I dunno, I could just be sending off my screenplays if I wanted to pursue humor over gaming.
So, 1) I think future Magic Un- sets should focus on the cool stuff you can't do in normal sets, rather than wacky real-world stuff, and 2) I do not expect to ever make a Dominion Un- set.
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As a Magic player/designer, how do you feel about the less-serious expansions Unglued and Unhinged? If there were a huge demand for such a set for Dominion, what kind of direction do you think you'd take it?
The central problem of Un- cards is that you can't play with them. And I don't just mean in tournaments. You build a deck with some Un- cards, you take it to your local game night. People are playing Standard-legal decks, they are not interested in playing against your decks. You can maybe talk someone into playing two of your decks against each other, but uh people tend to play established formats, and those formats don't allow Un- cards. This is at least how things went back when I was playing at local game nights, which was you know in the 90s. I bought a box of Unglued, people were interested in that for maybe a week, then, you know, I have Standard / Type II decks here, those cards are not legal in that format. These days they do make some supplemental products that are not legal in Standard, so they must see a sufficient demand there.
However. For many years the main way I played was cubes. You can put Un- cards in your cube, everyone's playing with cards from that cube, what's not to like there. Wait, we have to look at the specific cards you're talking about. Let's divide up Un- cards into uh ones that care too much about the physical world and everything else. Some cards care about what words you say, what you touch, your clothing, you know. All that stuff. And then others just do game-type things you can't do on normal Magic cards - die-rolling, caring about words in the text box in a way that wouldn't work in a game translated into multiple languages, caring about parts of a card that they don't want you to have to worry about in tournaments (artist, card name, rarity), fractions, stuff like that. Well caring about what I say or my clothing or whatever, those cards are good for a laugh once ever and then man I am sick of them. The other stuff is great; some things like caring about artist may not hold up because man I don't want to have to pay attention to this all the time, but there are cards that stay fun. It's uh not as large a fraction of the sets as I would like but they're there.
So anyway. For Magic, I would do another Un- set, but focus it on the stuff like caring about card text, and stay away from stuff like talking in funny voices. I bet it would go over better.
For Dominion I would never consider stuff like the funny voices; I personally have to like the set and so much for that. Caring about card names/text has the same issue for Dominion that it does for Magic: it doesn't translate. And if I were going to do die-rolling or something, I wouldn't think of it as an Un- set, just a theme that would be less popular. Making a funny set but having normal cards seems pointless. I mean a couple popular game brands are based around selling humor, and I should get in on that, but I dunno, I could just be sending off my screenplays if I wanted to pursue humor over gaming.
So, 1) I think future Magic Un- sets should focus on the cool stuff you can't do in normal sets, rather than wacky real-world stuff, and 2) I do not expect to ever make a Dominion Un- set.
I made some Un- sets for Dominion, would you come and look at them for me?
(They are basically the original cards...just completely upside down!!)
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How unsettling.
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I made some Un- sets for Dominion, would you come and look at them for me?
(They are basically the original cards...just completely upside down!!)
You guys could make a community joke set and post it for April Fools'. Not to try to trick anyone, just to be hilarious.
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I made some Un- sets for Dominion, would you come and look at them for me?
(They are basically the original cards...just completely upside down!!)
You guys could make a community joke set and post it for April Fools'. Not to try to trick anyone, just to be hilarious.
There's a thread of candidates ("Really Bad Card Ideas"), but that would mean coming over to the Variants and Fan Cards page. Perhaps we should get to work compiling a top 25.
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I made some Un- sets for Dominion, would you come and look at them for me?
(They are basically the original cards...just completely upside down!!)
You guys could make a community joke set and post it for April Fools'. Not to try to trick anyone, just to be hilarious.
There's a thread of candidates ("Really Bad Card Ideas"), but that would mean coming over to the Variants and Fan Cards page. Perhaps we should get to work compiling a top 25.
The top 25 would just be scout variants, of course. Everyone loves Scout jokes.
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I made some Un- sets for Dominion, would you come and look at them for me?
(They are basically the original cards...just completely upside down!!)
You guys could make a community joke set and post it for April Fools'. Not to try to trick anyone, just to be hilarious.
There's a thread of candidates ("Really Bad Card Ideas"), but that would mean coming over to the Variants and Fan Cards page. Perhaps we should get to work compiling a top 25.
The top 25 would just be scout variants, of course. Everyone loves Scout jokes.
Reminds me of the From the Vault: Squire set that Magic Lampoon came up with a few years back. (it's down now otherwise I'd link it)
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I made some Un- sets for Dominion, would you come and look at them for me?
(They are basically the original cards...just completely upside down!!)
You guys could make a community joke set and post it for April Fools'. Not to try to trick anyone, just to be hilarious.
There's a thread of candidates ("Really Bad Card Ideas"), but that would mean coming over to the Variants and Fan Cards page. Perhaps we should get to work compiling a top 25.
The top 25 would just be scout variants, of course. Everyone loves Scout jokes.
Aww. I was already working on Scoutpost, which gave you a bonus turn with a three Scout hand.
Edit: Oh god, was this really my 2500th post? A scout joke?
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I made some Un- sets for Dominion, would you come and look at them for me?
(They are basically the original cards...just completely upside down!!)
You guys could make a community joke set and post it for April Fools'. Not to try to trick anyone, just to be hilarious.
Didn't theory do that, like, three years back?
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I made some Un- sets for Dominion, would you come and look at them for me?
(They are basically the original cards...just completely upside down!!)
You guys could make a community joke set and post it for April Fools'. Not to try to trick anyone, just to be hilarious.
There's a thread of candidates ("Really Bad Card Ideas"), but that would mean coming over to the Variants and Fan Cards page. Perhaps we should get to work compiling a top 25.
The top 25 would just be scout variants, of course. Everyone loves Scout jokes.
Aww. I was already working on Scoutpost, which gave you a bonus turn with a three Scout hand.
Edit: Oh god, was this really my 2500th post? A scout joke?
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=114.msg158761#msg158761
Scoutpost has been done at least once.
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I made some Un- sets for Dominion, would you come and look at them for me?
(They are basically the original cards...just completely upside down!!)
You guys could make a community joke set and post it for April Fools'. Not to try to trick anyone, just to be hilarious.
Didn't theory do that, like, three years back?
There was this last year:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7642.0
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I made some Un- sets for Dominion, would you come and look at them for me?
(They are basically the original cards...just completely upside down!!)
You guys could make a community joke set and post it for April Fools'. Not to try to trick anyone, just to be hilarious.
Didn't theory do that, like, three years back?
Ah here we go:
http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/04/01/sneak-preview-of-dominion-cornucopia/
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When are you going to post Dudes of Stuff and Things so that we can all play it (you did say it was the best game ever)?
Alternately, can you give a summary of what it was?
If theory wants he can put it up somewhere on the site for people to download. There are two versions, a DOS version and a Windows one (old old Windows). I think there is one fix in the Windows one and otherwise they are the same. Possibly the DOS version runs fast enough in DOSBox, I don't know. My computer has XP and will run the Windows one, but many computers will not be able to run it. But uh there they are, I don't mind if people want to try it, but theory will have to in some sense host it.
It's not the best game ever - it's the best computer game ever. It's very recognizably derivative of Heroes of Might and Magic II & III.
The files should be visible, attached to this post. dudes.zip is for Windows; dosdudes.zip is for DOS.
Context: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg148764#msg148764
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Are you concerned that the, well, awful implementation of online Dominion will turn potential customers away? If I had never played Dominion in real life or on Isotropic, and I saw it for the first time through Goko, I don't think I would bother with the game. I know that isn't fair, but trying to play on Goko is so frustrating with their lag and other issues that I consider it essentially unplayable. And I can't imagine being motivated to pursue the game further if my only exposure was Goko.
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Let's not make this about Goko bashing again.
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Let's not make this about Goko bashing again.
Well I didn't mean to bash, actually. I didn't think I was exaggerating; I was legitimately curious if this is a concern.
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What you are asking for though is for Donald to either critisize an application that is not his decision but may get him a bad impression from the people who pay him money.
Or he has to lie and pretend its great
Goko was not Donald's decision but slagging them off publically is rarely in his best interests
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What you are asking for though is for Donald to either critisize an application that is not his decision but may get him a bad impression from the people who pay him money.
Or he has to lie and pretend its great
Goko was not Donald's decision but slagging them off publically is rarely in his best interests
Okay, I see your point.
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I mean, Ozle's being the reasonable person in this discussion. That itself should scare you straight.
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What you are asking for though is for Donald to either critisize an application that is not his decision but may get him a bad impression from the people who pay him money.
Or he has to lie and pretend its great
Goko was not Donald's decision but slagging them off publically is rarely in his best interests
Okay, I see your point.
For what it is worth, Donald X. has posted on the Making Fun forums. If you read his posts, that should give you an indication on how he views the current implementation of Dominion Online.
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Are you concerned that the, well, awful implementation of online Dominion will turn potential customers away? If I had never played Dominion in real life or on Isotropic, and I saw it for the first time through Goko, I don't think I would bother with the game. I know that isn't fair, but trying to play on Goko is so frustrating with their lag and other issues that I consider it essentially unplayable. And I can't imagine being motivated to pursue the game further if my only exposure was Goko.
I expected a good working version of Dominion in say a couple months; BSW for example went up very quickly, albeit with the internet/matching/etc. stuff already in place for other games, and only the main set. So it's been pretty disappointing. It's not like I'm losing sleep over it though. I'm not concerned about making the absolute largest possible amount of money.
It's different people now, I wouldn't give up on the new guys yet. They certainly hope to get a lot more players; otherwise it's not worth the work.
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What you are asking for though is for Donald to either critisize an application that is not his decision but may get him a bad impression from the people who pay him money.
Or he has to lie and pretend its great
Goko was not Donald's decision but slagging them off publically is rarely in his best interests
Okay, I see your point.
For what it is worth, Donald X. has posted on the Making Fun forums. If you read his posts, that should give you an indication on how he views the current implementation of Dominion Online.
Well okay, to explain my reasoning. I do believe that online Dominion will get better, and because I'm already invested in Dominion as a game, I can wait for that to happen. But, if I had never played Dominion before and someone showed me Goko, and I had a bad playing experience, I might not be motivated to pursue the game. Because even though it's really great, I can't tell. Other people might think similarly. I think this was also brought up when that guy's online review brought the servers down.
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Well okay, to explain my reasoning. I do believe that online Dominion will get better, and because I'm already invested in Dominion as a game, I can wait for that to happen. But, if I had never played Dominion before and someone showed me Goko, and I had a bad playing experience, I might not be motivated to pursue the game. Because even though it's really great, I can't tell. Other people might think similarly. I think this was also brought up when that guy's online review brought the servers down.
There's nothing useful I can accomplish based on this information. That's my perspective.
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Hi Donald,
Are there any plans to make a consolidated Dominion rulebook for the web? I could see that sort of thing being useful for Goko if they ever get professional about things. I can also see that it might be effort spent creating problems, but perhaps it would be worth it.
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Are there any plans to make a consolidated Dominion rulebook for the web? I could see that sort of thing being useful for Goko if they ever get professional about things. I can also see that it might be effort spent creating problems, but perhaps it would be worth it.
I have no such plans, and it does not sound like the kind of thing RGG would have planned.
It's possible someone else will make one though. You could look at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/68210/complete-dominion-companion.
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When are you going to post Dudes of Stuff and Things so that we can all play it (you did say it was the best game ever)?
Alternately, can you give a summary of what it was?
If theory wants he can put it up somewhere on the site for people to download. There are two versions, a DOS version and a Windows one (old old Windows). I think there is one fix in the Windows one and otherwise they are the same. Possibly the DOS version runs fast enough in DOSBox, I don't know. My computer has XP and will run the Windows one, but many computers will not be able to run it. But uh there they are, I don't mind if people want to try it, but theory will have to in some sense host it.
It's not the best game ever - it's the best computer game ever. It's very recognizably derivative of Heroes of Might and Magic II & III.
I was curious because i'm a bit familiar to Heroes of Might and Magic III, so I tried it and finally managed to run it via DOSBox. It plays very well and mostly similar to Heroes, but your game philosophy comes through: "twists" that can be added to the game (eh, I already know this word from somewhere...), plenty of monsters with funny special abilities, many different paths to go by leveling up heroes etc.
I really like your game and I'll play it the next weeks, but I don't really understand why you call it best computer game ever. Do you know many other computer games? (Well, I myself don't really but I'm sure there should be some more recent games that could be better.)
Would a Dominion spinoff always have the same base mechanic (every player has one deck to draw from and to improve) put together with some other stuff (board, tokens, other currencies, other types of cards, cards that don't go into the deck,...)?
Or are you also planning to abstract the base mechanics (e.g. board instead of deck)?
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...but I don't really understand why you call it best computer game ever.
I think this was said extremely tongue-in-cheek.
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Ah, I understand...
(my take on Heroes of Might and Magic III, which was the best computer game ever in its day).
On the other hand, I really like it, or it least so much that I thought he was serious...
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Okay, I have a serious question. Hope nobody has asked you this already
Are there ( or were there) any card(s) or idea that you really wanted to make, but neer made it too far in testing.
Maybe you constantly revived the idea for the next expansion at the time but it never made it, and since the last expansion is out, will never make it.
Also, thank you for being nice enough to actually listen to our question.
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Ah, I understand... (my take on Heroes of Might and Magic III, which was the best computer game ever in its day).
On the other hand, I really like it, or it least so much that I thought he was serious...
I think he was saying he thinks that Heroes was the best computer game in it's time, not the game he created.
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I was curious because i'm a bit familiar to Heroes of Might and Magic III, so I tried it and finally managed to run it via DOSBox. It plays very well and mostly similar to Heroes, but your game philosophy comes through: "twists" that can be added to the game (eh, I already know this word from somewhere...), plenty of monsters with funny special abilities, many different paths to go by leveling up heroes etc.
I really like your game and I'll play it the next weeks, but I don't really understand why you call it best computer game ever. Do you know many other computer games? (Well, I myself don't really but I'm sure there should be some more recent games that could be better.)
It's one of those "it's funny because it's true" things. Dudes has awful art (I did most of it myself, but not the rock or the boot or uh man maybe one other thing), it's low on interface-frills, it's my take on an old game. At the same time I have actually played it more than any other computer game, and can find you uh at least three other people who will cite it as their favorite computer/console/arcade game ever.
I have played a ton of computer/console/arcade games in my day. I played arcade games when they came out. There was a period where there was this incredible variety, and then a few years later it was all driving and punching games (although somehow not both together). I mostly played games with a jump button. Skaff Elias has a funny speech about how stupid it is that so many games had a button that made you be slightly higher briefly, but man I liked those games. Donkey Kong, Vs. Super Mario Bros., Rolling Thunder, Bubble Bobble. I did play some other games too, I will single out Centipede/Millipede.
I had an Atari 400, I remember Shamus especially fondly although it's a blatant red key / red door game. Crush Crumble & Chomp had a brilliant premise and funny rulebook but game-wise could have been better. Star Raiders was cool. I played a bunch of CX2600 games but never owned one.
I played games on the Apple ][ but never owned one. Ultima III and Ultima IV were each the best game ever in their day. Hitchhiker's Guide was the best text adventure although I never knew anyone to have beaten it without cheating. It showed that you could take the genre further, and then no-one ever did. Leather Goddesses of Phobos was good, but it was all downhill for Meretzky after Zork Zero.
I made a commercially available text adventure game in the 80s, Escape From Planet X. It had speech recognition, that was how I got it to exist. I worked for a company that did speech recognition/compression/synthesis.
As an adult I stuck with Nintendo for consoles. I loved the combat in Zelda 2 - it's just, your sword/shield are up/down, you can point one straight up, stab straight down. It's simple but good. Mario 64 was the best console game ever in its day. They are treading water on some of these things now - I expect Mario Kart 8 will be totally cool and yet not remotely new enough. Well to be fair Super Mario 3D World is great, and I liked the new Zelda 3DS game. Rayman Legends is a great recent platformer. I'm playing Pikmin 3 missions some these days by myself; the kids are making me replay the Mario Galaxy games and Kirby's Epic Yarn.
Secret of Monkey Island and the first sequel were the best of their kind. Plus Day of the Tentacle. The genre went way downhill since then. SimCity was cool but they never went anywhere with it, just improved the graphics and added more micromanagement; Caesar III is the real sequel to SimCity, although that series too just stuck with minor tweaks. In the Sims I had a house of all kids, you make money from paintings and eat pizza; I had a house with two prisoners who I let be completely autonomous while other people ran the house. You already know I loved Heroes II and III. Stop there, they messed it up after III. I don't know if the far-removed VI is any good or not.
I liked Oblivion and Skyrim but man the combat sucks. The skill tree is not great either. There are all these interface problems too (picking potion ingredients in Skyrim being a huge example). At the time I said, well the main improvement is that now when you pick a flower, it shows that you picked it. It's fun exploring the world though. If I were them I would make a Skyrim-type game with no combat, or automatic combat; focus on the stuff they do well. The combat is good enough in Fallout 3 although not fantastic or anything. Anyway as we know they made an MMO as their next thing and well I have zero interest in that. I'm not into RTS either.
Origins over the years could be counted on to make games with lots of bugs. I quit playing both Ultima VI and VII at points where all my saved games were wrecked. Ultima Underworld was still very cool in its day; I immediately wrote a 3-D texture-mapped engine. Sometimes you just need to know it's possible. Maxis could be counted on to make awful non-games with Sim in the title. It was a surprise when The Sims was actually good. It's still not really a game but I had some fun. LucasFilm/LucasArts, man I feel like they vanished after X-Wing. Sierra was pretty bad, for in-house games anyway. They profited from just not having a lot of competition in the graphic adventure game genre at one point. The Heroes people also had the Might & Magic series. VI was good, it's crude but the dungeons were reasonably interesting and it's fun building up your guys; VII had the exact same dated engine but hey Arcomage, and still decent level design; VIII and IX had the exact same engine and the level design degenerated into "the heaven place is a featureless stone maze with a cloud graphic for the floor."
I played Rogue when there were no Rogue-likes. I wasn't very good. Then I played the Atari ST version, which had graphics. Oh Time Bandit, that was a fantastic game on the ST. I haven't played many Rogue-likes but I put in some time on ADoM.
Kongregate is the flash game site I go to, though I've heard some developers don't like it. Flash games actually have some innovation; people are scared to blow money on unformulaic PC games, but it's no problem for one person to waste some time on a wacky flash game. Nerdook has done a bunch of neat variations on things, check him out. I liked Kingdom Rush as a recent tower defense game; it's fun drawing the map in a tower defense game, like in Desktop TD, but you so don't need that.
Have you guys tried Desktop Dungeons? There's a free earlier version that's good. You could be trying it in seconds. The premise is "5-minute Rogue-like" although it's kind of a puzzle-game. Exploring is a resource, that's the major idea.
Anyway yes I've played some computer games.
Would a Dominion spinoff always have the same base mechanic (every player has one deck to draw from and to improve) put together with some other stuff (board, tokens, other currencies, other types of cards, cards that don't go into the deck,...)?
Or are you also planning to abstract the base mechanics (e.g. board instead of deck)?
If it has Dominion in the title, you will build a deck, and the rest could be anything. If it doesn't have building a deck - like Kingdom Builder - then it will not have Dominion in the title and will just be a Dominion-inspired game that I made rather than a spin-off.
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Okay, I have a serious question. Hope nobody has asked you this already
Are there ( or were there) any card(s) or idea that you really wanted to make, but neer made it too far in testing.
Maybe you constantly revived the idea for the next expansion at the time but it never made it, and since the last expansion is out, will never make it.
Also, thank you for being nice enough to actually listen to our question.
I'm there for you.
There is a big list of never-tested stuff, much of it not too exciting. There are things that got tested just a little and might still be worth revisiting. There are things that got a lot of testing and never worked out.
I'm not sure how much I would stress me really wanting to make them, but there are a few ideas that I clung to longer than was reasonable. One classic example is "at the end of the game, each other player sets aside a VP card and doesn't score it." The draw for me is that it's a different kind of attack, it's not so similar to the existing ones. At one card it's too weak, at two it's too strong, and it scales poorly with different numbers of players. There totally might be a good version though, a balanced version that was sometimes worth buying but not always. But that card also has a good chance of not being something anyone would really like. The appeal of "I haven't done it yet" mostly applies to me, rather than to players. I mean they like seeing new stuff but you know, mostly limited to new stuff they actually like. There are other things in this category, and I did revisit some of them for Dark Ages, which was expecting to be the last set. Another one that comes to mind is a hot potato card (something you don't want that passes from player to player); I first tried one in Intrigue.
We can look at where things stood prior to Guilds. Guilds wasn't always going to exist. It has two mechanics that seemed like stand-outs on the list and turned out well. It has two cards I moved into it from Dark Ages just due to preferring them there (Advisor and Journeyman). And it has two fixed-up old ideas: Taxman and Soothsayer. Taxman hasn't gone over so well on this site but I am pretty pleased with Soothsayer; it looks crazy and yet manages to be one of the weaker Curse-givers. It's simple. The idea started out in Alchemy; Taxman also, in fact both cards in different forms tried out for the same slot (Alchemist). So anyway, in terms of old ideas getting fixed up, Guilds got two, and you can see how that worked out for you.
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Before Guilds, all of the cursers fit the theme (or at least a sub-theme) of their respective expansions. Cultist sits in as the "curser" for Dark Ages.
Soothsayer breaks the mold. Were all the previous examples just happy coincidences? Was it just that Soothsayer play-tested better than any curser with coin tokens or overpay?
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I like Taxman, I think it gets a bad rap. It's not super powerful but it has its charm.
(Taxman is fine, I don't know why people complain about Taxman, they can't all be the best $4 card ever)
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Before Guilds, all of the cursers fit the theme (or at least a sub-theme) of their respective expansions. Cultist sits in as the "curser" for Dark Ages.
Soothsayer breaks the mold. Were all the previous examples just happy coincidences? Was it just that Soothsayer play-tested better than any curser with coin tokens or overpay?
It was just a coincidence. Or, if you like, a natural consequence of "each other player gains a Curse" being simple, every set wanting simple on-theme cards, and no set wanting too many ways to give out Curses.
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I like Taxman, I think it gets a bad rap. It's not super powerful but it has its charm.
People were sad when I took it out of Cornucopia, and glad when it showed back up in Guilds.
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What?
No love for ultima v?
I thought it was way better than VI or IV.
I must have spent years of my childhood on that, just wandering around, killing headless and the like.
Best open world game ever made, you could go anywhere and talk to anybody!
Did you ever play Ultima Online? That's my favourite game ever.
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Before Guilds, all of the cursers fit the theme (or at least a sub-theme) of their respective expansions. Cultist sits in as the "curser" for Dark Ages.
Soothsayer breaks the mold. Were all the previous examples just happy coincidences? Was it just that Soothsayer play-tested better than any curser with coin tokens or overpay?
It was just a coincidence. Or, if you like, a natural consequence of "each other player gains a Curse" being simple, every set wanting simple on-theme cards, and no set wanting too many ways to give out Curses.
Did you ever consider and/or test "Gain a Gold. Each other player gains a Curse. Each player who did takes a Coin Token."
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What?
No love for ultima v?
I thought it was way better than VI or IV.
I must have spent years of my childhood on that, just wandering around, killing headless and the like.
Best open world game ever made, you could go anywhere and talk to anybody!
Did you ever play Ultima Online? That's my favourite game ever.
The best part of Ultima V was that you could take out the disk, and put in the underworld disk, and walk a little, and suddenly you'd be in the underworld.
I never played Ultima Online. The Worlds of Ultima games - Martian Dreams and Savage Empires - sounded great but were not so hot.
A friend hacked Ultima IV and I made a new adventure/world for it: Quest of the Badvatar. I made the dungeons overhead like they did in Ultima VI, added items, fixed the few bugs I found (you could get lots of money by not being able to afford food in taverns - I am guessing they didn't find it because who was ever buying that instead of rations). It is now just a thing I can picture in my head.
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Did you ever consider and/or test "Gain a Gold. Each other player gains a Curse. Each player who did takes a Coin Token."
The first version in Guilds is like the published version except there's no "if" (they get the card when the Curses run out). And I didn't do coin tokens prior to Guilds, so no.
There were ways to give other players coin tokens, but no-one ever wanted them. Sometimes people are stingy.
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Qvist draws up rankings for all the cards every year, do you ever look at those rankings, and have you ever created your own rankings?
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I was a bit surprised that Guilds didn't have a Reaction that you could discard for Coin tokens. Normally you can't have reactions that give money, but tokens seemed like an elegant way to do that. Then again, maybe discarding a card for 2 Coin tokens is too strong and I can't see any other number working out.
Anyhow, did you ever consider a Reaction for Guilds? The outtakes don't list one.
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Qvist draws up rankings for all the cards every year, do you ever look at those rankings, and have you ever created your own rankings?
I posted in one of the threads, which is to say, yes I have looked at those rankings. I have not ranked all the cards myself.
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Qvist draws up rankings for all the cards every year, do you ever look at those rankings, and have you ever created your own rankings?
I posted in one of the threads, which is to say, yes I have looked at those rankings. I have not ranked all the cards myself.
I probably wouldn't want you to tell us the rankings if you did... Would probably just influence how I think about the cards too much
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I was a bit surprised that Guilds didn't have a Reaction that you could discard for Coin tokens. Normally you can't have reactions that give money, but tokens seemed like an elegant way to do that. Then again, maybe discarding a card for 2 Coin tokens is too strong and I can't see any other number working out.
Anyhow, did you ever consider a Reaction for Guilds? The outtakes don't list one.
Yes, coin token reactions are on the ideas list in four similar forms - reaction gets you a coin token (probably Horse Traders style), reaction either gets you a coin token or lets you pay one to moat, reaction gets you both coin token and moating, action makes coin tokens and reaction lets you pay coin token to moat. I don't think I ever tried them. I don't think I tried any reactions for Guilds but there are others in the file.
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To quote you from earlier:
Similar to the above -- do you ever look at fan cards? If so, do you have a favourite?
I don't usually look at them, because 1) I don't want people feeling like I'm taking their ideas, which probably I had years ago, not because I am amazing but because the obvious ideas are obvious and I had a big head start; and 2) the cards that aren't in sets already are usually awful, nonstop things I wouldn't do that are boring and redundant or else obviously bad for the game in some way, and if it's not obvious then I already tried them and found out the hard way. At best they are things I'm already doing; none of it is good reading.
However you have stated here that there are ideas like reactions that give coin tokens which you didn't even try. You also make this statement about fan cards without ever having seen any.
Now that you have released everything (except the promo card this year), will you take a look at fan cards?
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To quote you from earlier:
Similar to the above -- do you ever look at fan cards? If so, do you have a favourite?
I don't usually look at them, because 1) I don't want people feeling like I'm taking their ideas, which probably I had years ago, not because I am amazing but because the obvious ideas are obvious and I had a big head start; and 2) the cards that aren't in sets already are usually awful, nonstop things I wouldn't do that are boring and redundant or else obviously bad for the game in some way, and if it's not obvious then I already tried them and found out the hard way. At best they are things I'm already doing; none of it is good reading.
However you have stated here that there are ideas like reactions that give coin tokens which you didn't even try. You also make this statement about fan cards without ever having seen any.
Now that you have released everything (except the promo card this year), will you take a look at fan cards?
Dang, dude. I think that topic has been beaten to death. I just appreciate Donald explaining if Coin token Reactions were on the list of ideas. I'm guessing if Guilds had been a full-sized set, those Coin token Reactions would have been tested.
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To quote you from earlier:
Similar to the above -- do you ever look at fan cards? If so, do you have a favourite?
I don't usually look at them, because 1) I don't want people feeling like I'm taking their ideas, which probably I had years ago, not because I am amazing but because the obvious ideas are obvious and I had a big head start; and 2) the cards that aren't in sets already are usually awful, nonstop things I wouldn't do that are boring and redundant or else obviously bad for the game in some way, and if it's not obvious then I already tried them and found out the hard way. At best they are things I'm already doing; none of it is good reading.
However you have stated here that there are ideas like reactions that give coin tokens which you didn't even try. You also make this statement about fan cards without ever having seen any.
Now that you have released everything (except the promo card this year), will you take a look at fan cards?
In fact you are quoting me saying "I don't usually look at them," which is not the same as "I never do;" I go on in that post to specifically look at some; and at the end of that post I cite two favorite fan cards. So, you are way off there.
Here I am specifically not committing to there never being more expansions, so that's a clean sweep for you: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=73.0
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Dang, dude. I think that topic has been beaten to death. I just appreciate Donald explaining if Coin token Reactions were on the list of ideas. I'm guessing if Guilds had been a full-sized set, those Coin token Reactions would have been tested.
I certainly would have tried some kind of reaction for a full set. People like reactions. But space was limited and variations on "it's like Horse Traders but you get a coin token" didn't wow me enough to make it to the table.
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Say you make another full expansion, what sorts of ideas will you explore with that? (Sorry if this has been asked already)
I'd be interested to know if you ever had any ideas for an entirely new type of card along the way (sort of like how Duration cards were a new kind of action card in Seaside when it came out), and if you were to make another full expansion, would you try making a new type of action card?
(sorry this is rather weirdly worded)
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Say you make another full expansion, what sorts of ideas will you explore with that? (Sorry if this has been asked already)
I'd be interested to know if you ever had any ideas for an entirely new type of card along the way (sort of like how Duration cards were a new kind of action card in Seaside when it came out), and if you were to make another full expansion, would you try making a new type of action card?
(sorry this is rather weirdly worded)
Probably it's best to keep any new things a secret! I guess I can say, a new expansion would explore my best ideas, the ones that seemed good. That sort of idea.
Having a new frame makes something more exciting than it is, I learned this from Magic. Duration cards didn't need a frame or type, and didn't always have it; they got the frame to make it easier to remember not to discard them, and the type because that's the way frames work in Dominion, they correspond to types. When-gain could have had a new frame; it would have been very mildly helpful and I bet some players would have liked it. It wasn't on the table because of Mint.
To the degree that "duration" is a new type, sure, any new expansion could have something like that. I would also consider revisiting duration cards themselves; the people excited by a 9th Dominion expansion would probably be happy to hear it had new duration cards.
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I have three questions:
1. What do you think about Scout, Chancellor, Secret Chamber,and the other 'worst' cards in Dominion?
2. Why did you name Harem 'Harem?' Did anybody ever question why it was called that?
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I have three questions:
1. What do you think about Scout, Chancellor, Secret Chamber,and the other 'worst' cards in Dominion?
2. Why did you name Harem 'Harem?' Did anybody ever question why it was called that?
I would replace/improve duds if I were making those sets today. They don't really sink the game though - people buy Scout, it sounds like it could come in handy. Having things you learn are bad can contribute gameplay and good times; it's certainly not strictly bad. But ideally the weakest cards are sometimes good, to improve the game for experienced players. It's fun to sometimes win the game with a weak card and well there should only be a few of those cards and they should only be so weak.
Secret Chamber is a special case on that list in that it confuses people. In this case the card isn't worth the confusion.
I originally referred to the game as Castle Builder. The cards were things in castles. Harems are such a thing. So I had a Harem card. I personally have questioned why it's called that, repeatedly, but it's not something that came up while working on the set, and it's not something people send in letters about.
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Donald, what does a typical playtesting session run by you look like?
(Do you explain to playtesters what you are looking for before playing or just let them play? Do you have playtesters fill out a detailed "Donald X. Exit Survey" after, or have them verbally give you their playing impressions?)
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To the degree that "duration" is a new type, sure, any new expansion could have something like that. I would also consider revisiting duration cards themselves; the people excited by a 9th Dominion expansion would probably be happy to hear it had new duration cards.
So this is in relation to your talk about the possibility of doing more duration cards (until Jay suggested something new), as well as your detailed explanation of the new VP card possibilities.
Would you ever consider doing more VP token cards as an alternative/supplement to more VP cards? They seem to fill the role of providing new paths to victory without really clashing with other stuff (for example: if Duke and Feodum were in the same set it would seem redundant, but you have 3 VP token cards in a single set without them really encroaching on each other). It seems like all of the "classic" things you can do with VP tokens were used, but especially with new mechanics like overpay and on-trash that there are some possibilities for new things.
It does have the duration problem of "isn't a new thing better", but it seems to provide new routes for "how do we create different victory paths since all the classic VP cards are in sets".
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Donald, what does a typical playtesting session run by you look like?
(Do you explain to playtesters what you are looking for before playing or just let them play? Do you have playtesters fill out a detailed "Donald X. Exit Survey" after, or have them verbally give you their playing impressions?)
IRL I would deal out 5 cards from the set being tested, and 5 from some other set (sometimes a different ratio for small sets). Sometimes instead it would be all 10 from the set being tested. After each game I would replace just 4 cards, rotating which slots changed. Sometimes a particular card would need testing and I'd just make sure that was out. Sometimes a particular card would need changing and I'd say "this game this costs $6" (usually marked with dice) or sometimes, with experienced players only, "this game let's try some new thing I haven't printed out yet, it's a treasure costing $5 so we'll use Venture to represent it."
Online we would typically play, 5 cards from the new set, 5 random cards from all sets. Sometimes a card would need focused testing and it might be, this card plus 9 random cards. There was even more focused testing; Crossroads, Margrave, and 8 cards from Hinterlands. We tested recommended sets.
Sometimes you would be limited as to what you bought. This game, these two players can't buy this card, these two players have to buy it (some players are awful at having to buy something so I leaned towards that slot). Maybe we decide after the opening split in case the card costs $4 and someone has $5/$2. I've specifically tested openings; okay you get $5/$2 and open Soothsayer.
It's possible we sit there chatting about the game afterwards, or just move on to the next one. I ask people what they think. I say what I think. For online players, there was a forum, and we would talk about whatever there was to talk about, and sometimes I would say, could everyone say a few words about every card. We would post game results and say a few words; lots of games happened that I wasn't in.
With new players I am often just looking at, what did they ask questions about; what has to go in the FAQ, what should be reworded. What did they enjoy.
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It does have the duration problem of "isn't a new thing better", but it seems to provide new routes for "how do we create different victory paths since all the classic VP cards are in sets".
I think the bigger problem is that they would have to provide more tokens in the book, for the people who have not already picked up Prosperity.
OTOH, they could just indicate that it's an expansion to an expansion or something.
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Everybodies reading this and taking away there is a new set coming right?
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So this is in relation to your talk about the possibility of doing more duration cards (until Jay suggested something new), as well as your detailed explanation of the new VP card possibilities.
Would you ever consider doing more VP token cards as an alternative/supplement to more VP cards? They seem to fill the role of providing new paths to victory without really clashing with other stuff (for example: if Duke and Feodum were in the same set it would seem redundant, but you have 3 VP token cards in a single set without them really encroaching on each other). It seems like all of the "classic" things you can do with VP tokens were used, but especially with new mechanics like overpay and on-trash that there are some possibilities for new things.
It does have the duration problem of "isn't a new thing better", but it seems to provide new routes for "how do we create different victory paths since all the classic VP cards are in sets".
VP tokens aren't really a great wellspring of potential cards; you have to worry about "what if we just sit there making VP tokens, never ending the game." You can do various things that I didn't do that don't have that problem; I am just saying, it's not fantastic.
VP tokens require including VP tokens. It's a plus and a minus but more a minus. Hinterlands isn't much cheaper than Seaside but it's still cheaper. Tokens in general are a good thing to look at for an easy way to get new simple cards (note that I went straight to tokens when I needed to make an extra set, Guilds). I already did VP tokens so I would lean towards something else.
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OTOH, they could just indicate that it's an expansion to an expansion or something.
I think it's obv. not great to limit your audience like that, although sometimes people do it. We would just include VP tokens if we wanted them that badly.
This is a thing about the fabled Treasure Chest concept. I don't think we would have a potion-coster without potions; thus I don't think we'd have a potion-coster. I don't think we would have a looter with no Ruins. I don't think we'd use VP tokens or coin tokens without providing them. Then you realize that a card with the variety thing from Cornucopia doesn't actually tie into Cornucopia so much, and so the answer really is that if I did a Treasure Chest I might just limit it to more cards for the large sets. But even without requiring components you might not have, it still wouldn't be as good as doing a new thing.
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Everybodies reading this and taking away there is a new set coming right?
I have not changed my stance that doing a spin-off would be better. I am constantly playtesting stuff; it just isn't Dominion expansions.
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Everybodies reading this and taking away there is a new set coming right?
I have not changed my stance that doing a spin-off would be better. I am constantly playtesting stuff; it just isn't Dominion expansions.
Yeah, thats what you are saying, but what they are hearing is : lalalalalala new cards lalala duration lalalala
Hope is an amazing thing!
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Yeah, thats what you are saying, but what they are hearing is : lalalalalala new cards lalala duration lalalala
Hope is an amazing thing!
Well there's a new card, the upcoming promo. If there's one a year, with five promos already, it will only be... a bunch of years before you can group them together and call them an expansion.
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I'm guessing you're not willing to give away too much about the promo, but: is the promo an old idea that you fixed up, or something new that you came up with to be a promo?
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Yeah, thats what you are saying, but what they are hearing is : lalalalalala new cards lalala duration lalalala
Hope is an amazing thing!
Well there's a new card, the upcoming promo. If there's one a year, with five promos already, it will only be... a bunch of years before you can group them together and call them an expansion.
I have already called them Dave
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I'm guessing you're not willing to give away too much about the promo, but: is the promo an old idea that you fixed up, or something new that you came up with to be a promo?
It's an old idea. I playtested versions of several old ideas and we liked this one the best.
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Yeah, thats what you are saying, but what they are hearing is : lalalalalala new cards lalala duration lalalala
Hope is an amazing thing!
Well there's a new card, the upcoming promo. If there's one a year, with five promos already, it will only be... a bunch of years before you can group them together and call them an expansion.
Be careful, you're taking Ozle seriously.
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After going into Dominion and this forum and some derivatives (like watching Richard Garfield talk about game design) I started to assess how well or bad designed a game is. Can I ask for your input as to which well known games' design is really good or really bad? (and, if it is not too annoying for you, why?). This is a really ample question, but even a few examples would be great.
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After going into Dominion and this forum and some derivatives (like watching Richard Garfield talk about game design) I started to assess how well or bad designed a game is. Can I ask for your input as to which well known games' design is really good or really bad? (and, if it is not too annoying for you, why?). This is a really ample question, but even a few examples would be great.
This question is just too broad.
I often use Risk as a bad example. Consider a game of Scrabble in which the player who's losing only gets 3 tiles. That's Risk. I like having armies on a map and rolling lots of dice; I'm not big on eliminating players with hours left in the game, voting on who wins, giving me less fun the worse I'm doing.
It's cool that Chess gives different powers to the different pieces. In practice it means that new players not only don't know how to play well, it's hard just seeing what the legal moves are. In general I only play games with people who like a certain amount of randomness; no-one wants to feel stupid because it's technically possible to work out many moves in advance and they aren't doing it.
I often say, it has to be fun to lose. Having fun is really want matters; a game can be anything beyond that. The first chapter of Knizia's book Dice Games Properly Explained consists of nothing but games with no decisions. He doesn't introduce each one with, "if you thought that was stupid, check this out;" instead it's, "here's a fun one, best with 3 to 6 players."
I personally love interacting rules on cards. I like novel experiences. I like psychology. I pursue those things but games can also be fun that are just rituals, or that have lots of anagramming, or you know, whatever it is.
For many years my favorite game was Magic. The novel experiences, the interacting rules on cards. There's a good amount of randomness, there are good decisions. At the same time the rules are unlearnable and sometimes you don't get to play. And it was still the best game ever.
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Did you test a Knight that was a Treasure instead of an Action? Or a $6 Knight?
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Did you test a Knight that was a Treasure instead of an Action? Or a $6 Knight?
No. There were 12 Knights originally, including several that didn't make it, including a "when-gain, play" Knight, a couple that gave resources based on what they trashed (back when they could trash any card), and one that could turn into a Duchy he trashed. Later on, with them looking mostly like they do now, Sir Martin and Sir Bailey were the tricky slots. They all cost $5, Sir Bailey with +2 Buys (then later +$1 +2 Buys) sucked, and Sir Martin tried a few Warehouse-type things. As you know Sir Martin ended up costing $4 and getting +2 Buys, and Sir Bailey got +1 Card +1 Action.
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I'm not big on [...] giving me less fun the worse I'm doing.
Could anyone think of an example where you have more fun the worse you are doing?
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I'm not big on [...] giving me less fun the worse I'm doing.
Could anyone think of an example where you have more fun the worse you are doing?
Golf, 10-Pin Bowling. I guess we're talking about board games though.
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Could anyone think of an example where you have more fun the worse you are doing?
Sometimes, Dominion! I can have a deck with no victory cards that's otherwise awesome. I'm doing all my stuff, and losing.
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I'd say Pandemic. It's not all that much fun when you have everything under control for the whole game, but it can be super fun when everyone's frantically trying to get where they need to be and also remember that they need to find the cures.
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It's cool that Chess gives different powers to the different pieces. In practice it means that new players not only don't know how to play well, it's hard just seeing what the legal moves are.
[...]
For many years my favorite game was Magic. The novel experiences, the interacting rules on cards. There's a good amount of randomness, there are good decisions. At the same time the rules are unlearnable and sometimes you don't get to play. And it was still the best game ever.
Are you saying that Chess is too complicated because it's hard to memorise the rules well enough to see all the legal moves, while the unlearnable rules of Magic leave you with interesting decisions? While you could say the rules are on the card, I'd contest the underlying assumption that the basic rules of Magic (turn sequence, LIFO resolution of some spells and effects, assigning damage) are easier to understand than the basic rules of chess, including en passant and 50 moves draw.
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Could anyone think of an example where you have more fun the worse you are doing?
Sometimes, Dominion! I can have a deck with no victory cards that's otherwise awesome. I'm doing all my stuff, and losing.
ok, point taken, as long as it doesn't detract you from playing to win. I am guilty of this in Innovation, where I play for a phat, splayed, echo-rife board while my opponent is achieving away.
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I'm not big on [...] giving me less fun the worse I'm doing.
Could anyone think of an example where you have more fun the worse you are doing?
All drinking games.
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Are you saying that Chess is too complicated because it's hard to memorise the rules well enough to see all the legal moves, while the unlearnable rules of Magic leave you with interesting decisions? While you could say the rules are on the card, I'd contest the underlying assumption that the basic rules of Magic (turn sequence, LIFO resolution of some spells and effects, assigning damage) are easier to understand than the basic rules of chess, including en passant and 50 moves draw.
There is nothing positive about the level of complexity Magic has. I try to avoid making games where it's as hard to see the moves as in Chess, or as hard to learn the rules as in Magic. I liked Magic despite that flaw; there are also people who like Chess.
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I like psychology.
You mean psychology as in Poker? Or as in Risk or Catan?
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I like psychology.
You mean psychology as in Poker? Or as in Risk or Catan?
Just means he likes crazy people
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I like psychology.
You mean psychology as in Poker? Or as in Risk or Catan?
Poker, or especially, players make (effectively or actually) simultaneous decisions where they care what everyone else does, like in dilemmas or rock-paper-scissors.
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I like psychology.
You mean psychology as in Poker? Or as in Risk or Catan?
Poker, or especially, players make (effectively or actually) simultaneous decisions where they care what everyone else does, like in dilemmas or rock-paper-scissors.
I think you'd probably like Pokémon (the video games, not the TCG). It's got lots of variety, interacting rules, and it's all simultaneous decisions. It's basically like Magic in that you build your team (instead of a deck) and then take on others. Only instead of investing money to buy good cards, you're investing time to train your team(s).
Not that I'm suggesting you get into it now. If you'd been born a decade or two later, though, it's likely that it would be one of your favorite games.
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I like psychology.
You mean psychology as in Poker? Or as in Risk or Catan?
Poker, or especially, players make (effectively or actually) simultaneous decisions where they care what everyone else does, like in dilemmas or rock-paper-scissors.
I think you'd probably like Pokémon (the video games, not the TCG). It's got lots of variety, interacting rules, and it's all simultaneous decisions. It's basically like Magic in that you build your team (instead of a deck) and then take on others. Only instead of investing money to buy good cards, you're investing time to train your team(s).
Not that I'm suggesting you get into it now. If you'd been born a decade or two later, though, it's likely that it would be one of your favorite games.
I would even say that Pokémon is pretty easy to get into, after looking some stuff up, at least in comparison to magic. There are alot of online simulators that you don't have to do much to make a team. You can even import team, and there wouldn't be much to lose except some time, since it doesn't cost.
Although you probably wouldn't want to get into it like Last Footnote said.
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Not that I'm suggesting you get into it now. If you'd been born a decade or two later, though, it's likely that it would be one of your favorite games.
I don't play Magic much anymore, but you know, I've got the cards, I could whip out a cube. CCG after CCG died because it turns out people pretty much just want to play one CCG; they require so much time/money and you need opponents. Pokémon succeeded by going after a different audience than Magic, that was the key thing to do.
Anyway yes, I am not so interested in getting into Pokémon at this point.
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I'm not big on [...] giving me less fun the worse I'm doing.
Could anyone think of an example where you have more fun the worse you are doing?
Golf, 10-Pin Bowling. I guess we're talking about board games though.
Bowling is a great example because it's actually the fact of being in a bad position that leads to more fun, and it's such a strong effect.
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Galaxy Trucker is more fun when losing, or at least when not doing perfectly.
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Galaxy Trucker is more fun when losing, or at least when not doing perfectly.
*shudder* Galaxy Trucker is most fun when played by someone else, ideally on another continent.
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Sometimes I really wish there was a downvote button :P
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Sometimes I really wish there was a downvote button :P
believe me, it's a good thing there isn't one. if you could always see who's downvoting, as you can see with the upvotes, it would create so much hatred, and if you couldn't it would be used as a way of collective bullying. even the upvote thing has some issues, but it's also a motivation for people to put more effort into their posts, so that's a good thing
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Sometimes I really wish there was a downvote button :P
believe me, it's a good thing there isn't one. if you could always see who's downvoting, as you can see with the upvotes, it would create so much hatred, and if you couldn't it would be used as a way of collective bullying. even the upvote thing has some issues, but it's also a motivation for people to put more effort into their posts, so that's a good thing
Except the getting the most upvotes usually means you organized an event or posted a meme.
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Except the getting the most upvotes usually means you organized an event or posted a meme.
(http://i.imgur.com/MrtZ12P.png)
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Except the getting the most upvotes usually means you organized an event or posted a meme.
(http://i.imgur.com/MrtZ12P.png)
I didnt say that. I simply said upvotes are a good representation of how many memes you made.
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I didnt say that. I simply said upvotes are a good representation of how many memes you made.
I know, I'm sorry. I just wanted to make memes like all the cool kids. :-[
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But I haven't made 1856 memes!
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I didnt say that. I simply said upvotes are a good representation of how many memes you made.
I know, I'm sorry. I just wanted to make memes like all the cool kids. :-[
And no upvotes for it! A disgrace!
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But I haven't made 1856 memes!
You need to revise the definition of representative.
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(Usual disclaimer: sorry if this question was already asked, the thread is 47 pages long and started 15 months ago.)
Have you ever considered doing an action/treasure dual card? Did you consider that it wasn't interesting enough to justify the ensuing rules confusions?
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Have you ever considered doing an action/treasure dual card? Did you consider that it wasn't interesting enough to justify the ensuing rules confusions?
It doesn't have a lot to offer beyond "wow there wasn't one of those before," and yes, would be confusing.
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What about Treasure/Attack, or Treasure/Duration for Seaside?
Related, were any of the cards that emerged as Kingdom Treasures tried as Action cards? There's been a suggestion on the fan cards forum that a Kingdom card should be an Action unless it is much more elegant or functional as a Treasure (eg Bank, Counterfeit, Horn of Plenty). Would you agree with this?
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I have tons of questions:
How do you come up with cards? You have said that you always think fan cards are unbalanced or boring, but have you seen any that are good? How has the Dominion community (not DominionStrategy in particular) contributed to Dominion? How do you come up with card names. And finally, what was with that blue dog comment? It sure didn't make any sense to me...
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What about Treasure/Attack, or Treasure/Duration for Seaside?
Related, were any of the cards that emerged as Kingdom Treasures tried as Action cards? There's been a suggestion on the fan cards forum that a Kingdom card should be an Action unless it is much more elegant or functional as a Treasure (eg Bank, Counterfeit, Horn of Plenty). Would you agree with this?
Without checking I think treasure-attack would technically work, but I'm not sure it would be worth doing; it's not as confusing as treasure-action but still confusing enough to not do just to do. My memory is that treasure-duration has rules issues.
Treasures that started out as actions:
- Horn of Plenty: +$1 per action you have in play.
- Philosopher's Stone: +1 Buy, +$1 per 4 cards in your deck.
- Quarry: +$2, actions cost $1 less this turn.
- Diadem: +$2, return this to your hand.
The original Feast looks like an action Spoils but that isn't where Spoils comes from really.
Treasures should make money; I made an exception for a card that wanted to be played in the buy phase. They should feel like treasures - they make money, or, there's Horn of Plenty again, gain cards. They don't use an action, which affects power level.
I would lean towards making an action with "+1 Action, +some coins" a treasure, if it didn't have reasons to not make it one, like "+1 Card" or another +1 Action. Candlestick Maker is an action though, and so was the version that gave +$1 instead of a coin token.
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And finally, what was with that blue dog comment? It sure didn't make any sense to me...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/716619/ironworks-and-trader
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Very interesting that Candlestick Maker was once a vanilla card. Would you ever make another card that's just a combination of +Card, +Action, +$ and +Buy without any other effects, or do you think that there's nothing more to be done in that space?
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How do you come up with cards?
Lots of ways. When I'm making a new game, there's all the basic stuff to do, I do all that stuff (at least at first). I make cards that interact with all of the things that are special about the game, since those cards won't feel like I've done them a million times. You know, you have say a deck of cards, and can have "draw 3 cards;" that comes up in game after game. But +1 Buy, that's very specific to the rules for Dominion, so that feels more new. I don't shy away from the good basic things that you can always do though, I do some of them. I just try to lean towards what makes this game different.
Once I have a bunch of cards, to make new ones, I look for what I haven't done yet, I try to explore themes more deeply.
Sometimes I make top-down cards (flavor first); not so much in most games though. Sometimes the flavor is first but I just pair up flavor and functionality from separate lists. Generally I don't have "complexity points" to spend on "trinket text" (you people who read Blogatog know these terms). Sometimes I go for it though.
Cards are like little computer programs. You can approach them from this perspective; you consider basic kinds of program flow. I could have an if/else card, a repeat/until card.
And of course I've made tons of games, so I've been over this ground a lot, so I know some of the things I will think of, and can just jump to those things.
You have said that you always think fan cards are unbalanced or boring, but have you seen any that are good?
What I said was, that if I sit down and read a bunch of fan cards, I don't expect to find new worthwhile ideas. Here let's have a quote, people love this one.
I don't usually look at them, because 1) I don't want people feeling like I'm taking their ideas, which probably I had years ago, not because I am amazing but because the obvious ideas are obvious and I had a big head start; and 2) the cards that aren't in sets already are usually awful, nonstop things I wouldn't do that are boring and redundant or else obviously bad for the game in some way, and if it's not obvious then I already tried them and found out the hard way. At best they are things I'm already doing; none of it is good reading.
That's not me saying that they're always awful, it's me saying that I don't read them because they're usually awful. It's not good enough entertainment wading through them to try to find good ones. And I don't want to find good ones; I don't want someone thinking I stole their idea, even though their idea, like all of mine, is nowhere near as hard to think of as say calculus, which two guys thought of.
In the post I'm quoting there I cite a fan card I liked. It's on page two of this thread.
How has the Dominion community (not DominionStrategy in particular) contributed to Dominion?
DominionStrategy in particular has not contributed much to the published sets. theory suggested the name Counterfeit (although I had used that name on other earlier cards). But uh there was no time, the site isn't old enough relative to the expansions.
The biggest thing the Dominion community, mostly meaning BGG, which did include some of the people here before they came here, has contributed to is my understanding of what cards players will like or not. I found out that "attacks that just attack" would be hated, so I didn't do more of them (I snuck in Sir Michael). I found out that complexity was even more of an issue than I'd thought, that flipping over good cards to things like Loan was not enjoyed, that Tribute feels like an attack. I found out that people always really wanted more reactions / treasures / VP cards, and didn't so much like attacks. The game needed to be a little more interactive (for people who don't get much from the built-in interaction) while being less attacky. The German community (http://forum.dominionblog.de/) compiled a big list of translation errors that I expect to be fixed in the new German versions.
From sales and the community it seems like players would rather all sets were large. If there's ever another set, I will try to make it large. They were all large originally. HiG wanted like 5-card sets and the lowest I would go was 12 (I wanted it to be that when you mixed a bunch of random sets, you didn't have the special villageless mix or whatever).
The Dominion community including this site has contributed to online Dominion; wanting stuff, complaining about stuff.
How do you come up with card names.
Mostly there is no special trick, I use brain stuff. Sometimes I use a thesaurus, and at one point I got a list of medieval professions. Sometimes other people help.
And finally, what was with that blue dog comment? It sure didn't make any sense to me...
The text on Ironworks is not as precise as say a computer program. There was a question as to what it was really saying, and to try to explain it I tried to use similar words to say other things. The dog is blue so that it's been qualified in some way. As it happens I blew it and didn't notice that an "a" was "the" or vice-versa, I'm not checking. Anyway it all worked out and now we know what happens when you Ironworks a card and then use Trader to take Silver instead.
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Very interesting that Candlestick Maker was once a vanilla card. Would you ever make another card that's just a combination of +Card, +Action, +$ and +Buy without any other effects, or do you think that there's nothing more to be done in that space?
"+1 Action +1 Buy +$1" started out in the Herbalist slot, as Herbalist; you can see it in the outtakes article (http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/06/24/dominion-outtakes/). Note that it did not survive; it seemed fine to me, but some people found it too boring. It's hard to evaluate these things because the playtesters have played a lot more Dominion than a normal person.
There isn't much you can do with a vanilla card that wouldn't just seem too redundant with existing things, but maybe there's something. Figuring this out isn't great; if there's something left and I end up making another expansion, I'd just as soon the amazing vanilla card is a surprise.
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I was very pleasantly surprised when Dark Ages contained a lot of simple cards like Junk Dealer, Altar and Armory so here's hoping you can do similar things in the future :).
Hunting Grounds is very close to being vanilla - was "+4 Cards" at $6 on its own ever considered?
On that note, none of the Dark Ages cards can trigger their own on-trash effects (except Sir Vander with the Knights deck), and seem about right in terms of power when you can't use them (except Rats and Sir Vander of course). Was this deliberate?
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Figuring this out isn't great; if there's something left and I end up making another expansion, I'd just as soon the amazing vanilla card is a surprise.
Comments like this are basically what keep me going in life.
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Is there material (articles, lectures, etc.) you've found useful for designing games? Either for inspiration, or nuts and bolts process, or something else?
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even though their idea, like all of mine
What about Mint?
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I was very pleasantly surprised when Dark Ages contained a lot of simple cards like Junk Dealer, Altar and Armory so here's hoping you can do similar things in the future :).
Hunting Grounds is very close to being vanilla - was "+4 Cards" at $6 on its own ever considered?
On that note, none of the Dark Ages cards can trigger their own on-trash effects (except Sir Vander with the Knights deck), and seem about right in terms of power when you can't use them (except Rats and Sir Vander of course). Was this deliberate?
I too was pleasantly surprised by Junk Dealer; Altar and Armory had been in the set for a long time.
Sure I considered doing a vanilla +4 Cards. One issue is that vanilla cards limit what you can do, the "vanilla card problem." See http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=121.0. Another is that there are things to do that need to be attached to something else - "when-trashed" abilities for example need to go on cards that do something else. And those things want to be simple, because space is being used on the when-trashed or whatever.
I'm not sure I get the last part. The cards are deliberately trying to be balanced. That necessarily means not just being awful in games where you can't trash them. It was a significant issue with Squire for a while; the various related cards weren't compelling enough when you couldn't trash the Squire. In the end of course it is super-compelling.
I wasn't specifically avoiding "has a when-trashed ability, also has a way to trash itself," but it's only natural that there isn't one of those. It makes the whole thing less interesting. There is a classic thing they sometimes do in Magic, where they put both pieces of a combo on the same card. It's just much less fun than when you piece the combo together yourself.
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Is there material (articles, lectures, etc.) you've found useful for designing games? Either for inspiration, or nuts and bolts process, or something else?
Uh probably. I've written a bunch of essays myself, and have actually gone back and re-read them and remembered something useful (I do not wish to put in the work fixing them up to be unembarrassed enough to post them). But I've also read plenty of stuff that qualifies, Richard Garfield's essays from the Duelist, Mark Rosewater's articles and blog, wait it won't all be Magic. Knizia's dice book? I don't know if I learned anything from it but I did read it. Richard has a good essay on luck that you can find on youtube. I guess he's done it multiple times, here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSg408i-eKw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSg408i-eKw)
Mark Rosewater has had more to say about game design (focused on Magic of course) than you will find the time to read/listen to. Like, he has a podcast called Drive to Work; he realized that he wasn't getting good use out of his time in the car, so he records a podcast sometimes then. He was putting up one a week and built up a backlog and so switched to two a week. Anyway you can endlessly read/listen to his stuff. I don't agree with absolutely everything but he certainly has tons of good advice.
I've gotten a lot out of games themselves, both what to do and what not to do. Like, in a typical game of mine, there are cards with rules, and on a typical card with rules, there is a line at the bottom giving the card types. That is from Magic (I don't know if Magic got it from somewhere else). It doesn't always survive in published versions because you can also identify cards from the backs, if there are types but they aren't mixed and you don't have multiple types per card. So for example in Gauntlet of Fools, the prototype says "Weapon" at the bottom of Weapon cards, and the published version doesn't. But both versions label Encounters, since there were more possibilities there in the same deck.
Anyway play some games, learn what you like and what you hate, that's a good start for anyone.
Prior to reading William Poundstone's book Prisoner's Dilemma, I didn't know about dilemmas. Probably that book and Magic have inspired me the most. I made all these games that either had dilemmas, or Magic's interacting rules-on-cards, or both. Cosmic Encounter would be a big influence except I first got that stuff filtered through Magic. D&D has probably had an effect, even though in my day beyond "it's rules for swords & sorcery make-believe" it was a mess. Being a math guy and a computer programmer has had an effect.
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What, in your opinion, separates a game from something-that-is-not-a-game? Have you ever set out to design a game, only to discover that you'd designed something else?
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What, in your opinion, separates a game from something-that-is-not-a-game? Have you ever set out to design a game, only to discover that you'd designed something else?
Is this a subtle way of asking if Donald plays cookie clicker?!
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I wasn't specifically avoiding "has a when-trashed ability, also has a way to trash itself," but it's only natural that there isn't one of those. It makes the whole thing less interesting. There is a classic thing they sometimes do in Magic, where they put both pieces of a combo on the same card. It's just much less fun than when you piece the combo together yourself.
I was referring to a card with a when-trash ability that can also trash other cards, including other copies of itself. The only card with a "when-trash" ability that can trash is Rats, and Rats can't trash Rats. Why aren't there any cards like that? Wouldn't it be easier to balance the effect knowing there's guaranteed to be a trasher in the kingdom?
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What, in your opinion, separates a game from something-that-is-not-a-game? Have you ever set out to design a game, only to discover that you'd designed something else?
A game is a structured activity with a way to rank performance. It can be one player; you can compare your performance to someone else's or to yours at a different time. You don't need to be able to win, just to be ranked, although winning is a way to be ranked. If there's no way to rank performance then it's just something to do, and not a game.
I've never had the experience of a game of mine turning out not to be a game. But then, I'm a pro. I've designed things that aren't games, that weren't intended to be games, but only as a hobby.
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I wasn't specifically avoiding "has a when-trashed ability, also has a way to trash itself," but it's only natural that there isn't one of those. It makes the whole thing less interesting. There is a classic thing they sometimes do in Magic, where they put both pieces of a combo on the same card. It's just much less fun than when you piece the combo together yourself.
I was referring to a card with a when-trash ability that can also trash other cards, including other copies of itself. The only card with a "when-trash" ability that can trash is Rats, and Rats can't trash Rats. Why aren't there any cards like that? Wouldn't it be easier to balance the effect knowing there's guaranteed to be a trasher in the kingdom?
It kind of looks like I answered that in the bit you quoted. Only natural... less interesting... Magic... pieces of a combo... Yeah I think I covered it.
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A game is a structured activity with a way to rank performance. It can be one player; you can compare your performance to someone else's or to yours at a different time. You don't need to be able to win, just to be ranked, although winning is a way to be ranked. If there's no way to rank performance then it's just something to do, and not a game.
Hmm, that's interesting. That suggests that something like, say, Telephone Pictionary isn't a game (draw a picture, the next person writes a caption for the picture, the next person draws a new picture for that same caption, etc.), since there's no ranking of performance that takes place. But I think most people would describe that as a game.
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What, in your opinion, separates a game from something-that-is-not-a-game? Have you ever set out to design a game, only to discover that you'd designed something else?
Is this a subtle way of asking if Donald plays cookie clicker?!
Haha, nope. I've just been doing a little study around the theory of games* and found it interesting how different people define games in different ways so I thought I'd make use of this opportunity to ask a game designer. And I'm happy with the answer I got, which also gives a little bit of insight into the mind of Mr V.
* Not related to game theory, or theory of this forum.
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Hmm, that's interesting. That suggests that something like, say, Telephone Pictionary isn't a game (draw a picture, the next person writes a caption for the picture, the next person draws a new picture for that same caption, etc.), since there's no ranking of performance that takes place. But I think most people would describe that as a game.
I think in that Richard Garfield speech I linked to, he defines "orthogames" at the start. The idea is that he wants to talk about games and doesn't want to be making statements that depend on what you think of as games - are you counting solitaire games, roleplaying games, etc. So he narrows his focus and goes with a specific subcategory (which of course is extremely broad).
Anyway if you want to know what most people think, ask most people. That's how I define games. Telephone Pictionary is just an activity, except to the degree that we rank performance. Which we certainly do some, even though it's just social. In recent months Amazon's top 25 board games (as seen on the US site) has included a commercial version of Telephone Pictionary (how does that exist), plus Rory's Story Cubes, which also isn't a game.
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Mark Rosewater has had more to say about game design (focused on Magic of course) than you will find the time to read/listen to.
His (weekly Magic) article for today (well Monday) is a good example. This one is about "lenticular" design - making cards that seem simple to new players but have strategic complexity for advanced players.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/293
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I wasn't specifically avoiding "has a when-trashed ability, also has a way to trash itself," but it's only natural that there isn't one of those. It makes the whole thing less interesting. There is a classic thing they sometimes do in Magic, where they put both pieces of a combo on the same card. It's just much less fun than when you piece the combo together yourself.
I was referring to a card with a when-trash ability that can also trash other cards, including other copies of itself. The only card with a "when-trash" ability that can trash is Rats, and Rats can't trash Rats. Why aren't there any cards like that? Wouldn't it be easier to balance the effect knowing there's guaranteed to be a trasher in the kingdom?
It kind of looks like I answered that in the bit you quoted. Only natural... less interesting... Magic... pieces of a combo... Yeah I think I covered it.
I thought you were talking about oneshots, but it makes sense now.
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Figuring this out isn't great; if there's something left and I end up making another expansion, I'd just as soon the amazing vanilla card is a surprise.
Comments like this are basically what keep me going in life.
Told you so.....
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A game is a structured activity with a way to rank performance. It can be one player; you can compare your performance to someone else's or to yours at a different time. You don't need to be able to win, just to be ranked, although winning is a way to be ranked. If there's no way to rank performance then it's just something to do, and not a game.
Hmm, that's interesting. That suggests that something like, say, Telephone Pictionary isn't a game (draw a picture, the next person writes a caption for the picture, the next person draws a new picture for that same caption, etc.), since there's no ranking of performance that takes place. But I think most people would describe that as a game.
Telephone Pictionary is pretty dense with ranking as far as I see it. At the end of the line, you get to find out if you correctly guessed the picture you saw or if the next person was able to guess your picture. You can feel from the collective laughter or mood how people felt about your contribution to the link. I guess I could imagine some soulless version where no comparison or reaction is made at the end, but I can't see humans choosing to do that.
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I wasn't specifically avoiding "has a when-trashed ability, also has a way to trash itself," but it's only natural that there isn't one of those. It makes the whole thing less interesting. There is a classic thing they sometimes do in Magic, where they put both pieces of a combo on the same card. It's just much less fun than when you piece the combo together yourself.
This seems contradictory with this:
Minion: The original version of this was a "choose one" card with three messy abilities. It was too messy and also too narrow, and so left. Later on I was looking for an attack to replace another attack that hadn't worked out, and thought of this. Originally the "discard, draw 4" ability only worked on yourself, but it seemed like it would make a cute attack if it hit everybody. The problem was that it was still too narrow - you would not always have a combo that made that exciting enough. The solution, proposed by Chris West, was to have the card be a combo with itself. You can play a couple copies for +$2, and then play one to get a fresh hand. For simplicity there is no 3rd ability.
I also count myself as one of the guys that do not agree with definitions of games as ranking. For me, building things with Lego or geomags are definitely games without structure or a proper way of ranking, and make-believe indians and cowboys, or playing house, or doctor, or doctor house, are definitely games. But, whatever, I do not mind disagreeing here at all and probably nobody else minds as well.
But, I do have a problem with your definition: it seems to encompass formal studies (high school, university) as games, since they are structured and provide a way to rank performance. Also medicine does that, and I do not think that dieting or exercising for health are nice to be qualified as games just because you can rank their performance.
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Minion is not a fun card so I don't see any contradiction :P
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This seems contradictory with this:
Minion is a combo with another Minion, because otherwise the "discard your hand draw 4" ability would be bad way too often, and that ability can't be thrown in for free on something already worth having. You can argue that it should have been the Counting House of the set; that isn't the way I went. In Magic of course it's different because you pick what cards to play with out of a larger pool. Anyway yes, I broke any rules I had whenever I either didn't know better or had a good reason.
I also count myself as one of the guys that do not agree with definitions of games as ranking. For me, building things with Lego or geomags are definitely games without structure or a proper way of ranking, and make-believe indians and cowboys, or playing house, or doctor, or doctor house, are definitely games. But, whatever, I do not mind disagreeing here at all and probably nobody else minds as well.
I don't see the beauty of having all playing count as gaming. To me it is getting less use from the words.
But, I do have a problem with your definition: it seems to encompass formal studies (high school, university) as games, since they are structured and provide a way to rank performance. Also medicine does that, and I do not think that dieting or exercising for health are nice to be qualified as games just because you can rank their performance.
Well if we compare performances, that's a competition. I guess it's fair to say that attitude is relevant; sometimes "race you to that tree" is a game, and sometimes there is a bear after us.
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Well if we compare performances, that's a competition. I guess it's fair to say that attitude is relevant; sometimes "race you to that tree" is a game, and sometimes there is a bear after us.
Haha, this is like the best "perspective matters" quote I've ever seen.
Edit: Or.. context matters. Or whatever, I just like it.
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Just out of curiosity, was Governor intended to self-combo, or is that just coincidence? "Gain a Gold" combos very well with "trash a card and gain one costing $2 more" and of course "+3 Cards" just helps you get them all together. The result is often a mad rush on Governors.
I used to really dislike Governor for this reason. Lately I've come around on it, realizing that Governor games are often about getting the most out of the stuff you get handed for free. But I'm curious about its development.
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This seems contradictory with this:
Minion is a combo with another Minion, because otherwise the "discard your hand draw 4" ability would be bad way too often, and that ability can't be thrown in for free on something already worth having. You can argue that it should have been the Counting House of the set; that isn't the way I went. In Magic of course it's different because you pick what cards to play with out of a larger pool. Anyway yes, I broke any rules I had whenever I either didn't know better or had a good reason.
hmm, putting the "discard your hand draw 4" option on Counting House instead could have been interesting.
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Just out of curiosity, was Governor intended to self-combo, or is that just coincidence? "Gain a Gold" combos very well with "trash a card and gain one costing $2 more" and of course "+3 Cards" just helps you get them all together. The result is often a mad rush on Governors.
I used to really dislike Governor for this reason. Lately I've come around on it, realizing that Governor games are often about getting the most out of the stuff you get handed for free. But I'm curious about its development.
It was no secret that that combo was there. But the point was really just to provide three good options that worked when it wasn't your turn. The card is imitating Puerto Rico (and has art from Puerto Rico), and came out for some anniversary of Puerto Rico. So it's got that "we all get it but it's better for me" mechanic and then had to do things that actually worked. Drawing cards and gaining silver/gold were automatic, they were terse and compelling. And then what else was there? I hadn't done Remodel yet and it sounded better than Bishop or Duchess.
Jay originally asked for a Power Grid tie-in, which also had an anniversary, but I didn't have any good ideas there. Plus it had to be a victory card, because of Friese's green theme. Puerto Rico was easy.
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I also count myself as one of the guys that do not agree with definitions of games as ranking. For me, building things with Lego or geomags are definitely games without structure or a proper way of ranking, and make-believe indians and cowboys, or playing house, or doctor, or doctor house, are definitely games. But, whatever, I do not mind disagreeing here at all and probably nobody else minds as well.
One way I've seen it described is that there are toys, and you can either play with toys or play games with toys, and those are different. Lego is a toy, and building things with Lego is playing with toys. If you start introducing rules and objectives for how you build things, then it becomes a game.
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One way I've seen it described is that there are toys, and you can either play with toys or play games with toys, and those are different. Lego is a toy, and building things with Lego is playing with toys. If you start introducing rules and objectives for how you build things, then it becomes a game.
Ok, that makes sense. In any case, which I really dislike is the "rank performance" part. The Telephone Pictionary example was better.
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Fun + objective = game.
I think that's all that's necessary?
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Fun + objective = game.
I think that's all that's necessary?
Possibly necessary, but certainly not sufficient. Going for a jog isn't a game for example. Or watching a film with friends. Or many other examples of things that are both fun, have objectives and aren't games.
In fact I don't even think those two are necessary. Monopoly is a game and only satisfies one of the conditions.
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Monopoly is a game and only satisfies one of the conditions.
Debatable.
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Fun + objective = game.
I think that's all that's necessary?
Possibly necessary, but certainly not sufficient. Going for a jog isn't a game for example. Or watching a film with friends. Or many other examples of things that are both fun, have objectives and aren't games.
In fact I don't even think those two are necessary. Monopoly is a game and only satisfies one of the conditions.
I thing "aiming to be fun" is a better wording for it. Some people truly find Monopoly fun, even actual gamers, much to my constant surprise.
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I find monopoly fun if you play it with the right attitude and group.
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For me, monopoly is the type of game where I play it every couple of years with one specific person. We both made that realization at the same time.
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Have you ever considered partnering with Hasbro to publish a Dominion themed Monopoly? I bet my mom would buy me it for Christmas.
Edit: or a Monopoly promo!
Uncle Pennybags
$5 Action-Attack
Each player reveals his hand. Each player with fewer Treasure cards in hand than you trashes one. You may gain any of the trashed cards.
Go
$0* Treasure
Worth $2
In games using this, you may gain a Go from the Go pile whenever you shuffle your deck.
(This is not in the Supply)
Free Parking
$6 Victory
2 VP
When you gain this, gain all cards in the Trash.
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I just wanted to throw this out there since the discussion of Monopoly came up: http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue10/CampaignRealMonopoly1.html
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I just wanted to throw this out there since the discussion of Monopoly came up: http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue10/CampaignRealMonopoly1.html
I have read this several times in the past, and in my childhood, I actually played the "real" version most often than not. I still think its an awful game.
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I just wanted to throw this out there since the discussion of Monopoly came up: http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue10/CampaignRealMonopoly1.html
Haha, it basically says blame the parents for monopoly being a crap game.
No, in afraid it's still crap. Getting rid of the extraneous rules like free parking and no auctions and stuff doesn't solve any of its fundamental flaws unfortunately.
Monopoly and risk are why most people of my generation hardly play board games in the UK
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Monopoly and risk are why most people of my generation hardly play board games in the UK
Or anywhere. Risk is kinda fun though, it just goes on forever (whereas Monopoly goes on forever AND isn't fun).
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Go
$0* Treasure
Worth $2
In games using this, you may gain a Go from the Go pile whenever you shuffle your deck.
(This is not in the Supply)
Dude, "pass" is a rules-defined term and everything. "When you pass Go, gain a Silver."
People take the wrong lesson from Monopoly. It's an awful game (actual rules or not), and gamers see, here's this game that sucks because it gives you automatic decisions and can take hours and has player elimination and politics. And people trying to cash in on Monopoly see, here's this game where you roll-and-move, that must be good. So roll-and-move is associated strongly with awful games, enough that you don't want to ever use that mechanic, even though there's nothing wrong with it otherwise.
But the real lesson is, Monopoly is a successful game, because of the fun things in it (well these days because of nostalgia, but you know, originally). You roll dice, that's fun, you draw cards, that's fun. You gain control of properties on the board and can build them up, that's great. You care what happens when it's not your turn.
As many have pointed out, Settlers of Catan is essentially a fixed Monopoly. You build up your stuff. Every turn someone rolls the dice and you might gain stuff. There are cards to draw. There's trading. Settlers fixes some of the huge problems but of course is still an exercise in voting on who wins.
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As many have pointed out, Settlers of Catan is essentially a fixed Monopoly. You build up your stuff. Every turn someone rolls the dice and you might gain stuff. There are cards to draw. There's trading. Settlers fixes some of the huge problems but of course is still an exercise in voting on who wins.
And now I have finally learned why I hate Settlers so passionately.
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Well if we compare performances, that's a competition. I guess it's fair to say that attitude is relevant; sometimes "race you to that tree" is a game, and sometimes there is a bear after us.
To quote Demetri Martin: "Swimming is a confusing sport, because sometimes you do it for fun, and other times you do it to not die."
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I love playing Monopoly. There. I said it.
The biggest problem I have with it is marketing: it shouldn't be billed as a "family game." Being able to evaluate and offer mutually acceptable trades and bidding well in auctions is difficult -- if the kids can't handle it, then it's not going to be a fun time. Hence all the house rules that add luck and money making the game go on forever. It's also not a good game for older and younger children to play together for the same reason.
Most modern games "fix" Monopoly by focusing on either an auction mechanic or a trade mechanic because it is a lot to do both. Catan "fixes" Monopoly in this way: no auctions and a vastly reduced trading space, making it much easier to make and evaluate offers.
I don't mind a little politics in some of the games I play. It's a way of adding variety: how the game should be played depends on the people you are playing with (rather than, say, just the kingdom). It can also add strategic depth: how you go about winning matters.
Donald, do you have a favorite "political game" or are you against politics in games generally?
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I don't mind a little politics in some of the games I play. It's a way of adding variety: how the game should be played depends on the people you are playing with (rather than, say, just the kingdom). It can also add strategic depth: how you go about winning matters.
Donald, do you have a favorite "political game" or are you against politics in games generally?
Politics removes variety, in that it makes a game play like every other political game.
Back when, my anti-politics speech focused on, I just don't enjoy spending the evening moaning, "don't trade with Tom, he's going to win, look he's just about to get the longest road." Richard Garfield's anti-politics speech focused on, all political games are the same game. In his (co-written) book, they look at the things you want to be good at to be good at a political game, and then note that this just stays constant as we shift the games. Or, back to me, once controlling someone else's turn with your voice is as profitable as doing your own thing, that's that, we are spending the evening arguing about who should win.
Back when we discussed this stuff, Richard was not so much anti-politics as he was anti- making political games. He'd had fun playing political games, trying to work out whether he should try to come in second so the kingmaker could show their power, or first so they could show how fair they were, and so on. But that experience would be close enough between political games that there was no point making more, you were just making that game again. Whereas I just never enjoyed politics. It's fair to note that the game designer is at a disadvantage there. "Man who should we gang up on. Donald X., right? I mean he made the game, he must know what he's doing."
Politics is about picking opponents (generally, to hurt). I have various tricks to reduce politics (like, you always hurt everyone). But you never get rid of the politics completely (like, this says "hurt them all" but in this situation it really only hurts one of them). Politics is a consequence of having 3+ players/teams, decisions, and player interaction (besides comparing final scores). All you can do is mute it. And well I mute it as much as I can, to the point where I feel like it's way more important to be good at the game then good at politics, where I'm not spending the evening trying to convince people to do things that are good for both of us. I tolerate the remaining politics and still prefer multiplayer games, even though 2-player games eliminate the politics.
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Politics is about picking opponents (generally, to hurt).
Are there games where most of the politics are around choosing who to help, rather than hurt? That might have a significantly different feel than other political games, if only because of a more positive vibe. In a game like Settlers, even when you're helping someone (by trading), most of the politics is around other people trying to convince you to hurt the other player by not making the trade.
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Have you tried "Quo Vadis?" by Reiner Knizia? It's very simple and elegant and strips out everything but the politics. It's probably the game that convinced me that not all political games have to be bad.
For me there's several big problems with political games:
1. Players have to choose between building up their meta and probably winning more games with the same crowd in the future, versus winning this game now. What I mean by that is, I tell you I'm going to do something, and now it's advantageous for me not to do it, do I hold to my promise anyway because maybe players will trust me more in future games I play with them, or do I break my promise so I can win this game. I hate this because it brings outside considerations into the game, like "am I likely to play more political games with this group".
Quo Vadis? solves this with binding promises. If you say you're going to do something, you have to do it, so there's no meta to worry about.
2. Players always choose to go after the current winner. Maybe some people find this fun, trying to slog their way to victory while everyone's going after them, but I don't know, it just seems really frustrating, and in a lot of cases (like Settlers of Catan or Risk) it means players are just voting on a winner, and if we wanted to play vote on a winner, man why did we spend hours moving pieces on a board. Also in many cases it means the game never ends with optimal play, I feel like I've played games of Risk where power just rotates and it's always player A vs. everyone, then player B vs. everyone, etc., and there's never a point at which it's optimal to rebel and go into free-for-all mode because that just mean whoever is in power now wins.
I think Quo Vadis? attempts to solve this with hidden VP, which is nice I guess but I don't really like it because in reality it just rewards players with a good memory. It may still have the "vote for a winner" problem occasionally, I haven't played it enough to know if that's an issue, but I like that it at least attempts to solve it.
I don't think political games have to be bad, but I think most of the ones that exist are bad either because of one of the problems above, or because they weren't meant to be political, and the politics are just a consequence of badly designed mechanics. And given that Quo Vadis? exists I don't think I'll ever play another political game and think that it doesn't just boil down to Quo Vadis? with lots of bells and whistles.
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I don't see Settlers as "voting on a winner". Early on, you can't really say who is the clearly winning (especially because of the dice rolling). Later in the game, I find that players just become a lot stingier about trading. Ways to actively hurt others are limited, so the politics is mostly in making the trade sweet enough that the other player can't pass on it. Usually it's more of a grind to the top and seeing who gets lucky with the dice rather than voting for a winner. YMMV though, of course.
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Or what do you think about the board game Diplomacy, if you're familiar? That was always one of my favorites, and it leans very heavily on the politics. Leads to some grudges sometimes, but my friends and I played the heck out of it in high school.
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I don't see Settlers as "voting on a winner". Early on, you can't really say who is the clearly winning (especially because of the dice rolling). Later in the game, I find that players just become a lot stingier about trading. Ways to actively hurt others are limited, so the politics is mostly in making the trade sweet enough that the other player can't pass on it. Usually it's more of a grind to the top and seeing who gets lucky with the dice rather than voting for a winner. YMMV though, of course.
I suppose it depends on the dynamics in your gaming group. Oftentimes when I play, every will decide to gang up on one person who "always wins" or who "won last time". It is very much possible for a couple players to collude against you in Settlers, trapping you in with roads and refusing the trade with you.
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I don't see Settlers as "voting on a winner". Early on, you can't really say who is the clearly winning (especially because of the dice rolling). Later in the game, I find that players just become a lot stingier about trading. Ways to actively hurt others are limited, so the politics is mostly in making the trade sweet enough that the other player can't pass on it. Usually it's more of a grind to the top and seeing who gets lucky with the dice rather than voting for a winner. YMMV though, of course.
I suppose it depends on the dynamics in your gaming group. Oftentimes when I play, every will decide to gang up on one person who "always wins" or who "won last time". It is very much possible for a couple players to collude against you in Settlers, trapping you in with roads and refusing the trade with you.
Ahh, well, we tended not to hold grudges. Sometimes people would band together within one game when one player's win seems to be inevitable, pooling resources into the second place player to see if they can unseat the clear leader. But if it succeeds, we recognize the previous leader as the symbolic victor.
We haven't played Settlers in many years though.
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To me political games seem to be different, probably because of who I play with. My group tends to play with victory in mind. There is no need to play "meta" in Settlers because I trust the other players to also be playing to win. I offer a great deal in Settlers, and you're going to pass on it simply because you don't like me or because I won the last game? That person is actively ruining the game by playing to lose and won't be invited back next time.
Also political games are more social. If you are capable of not just yelling at each other, then there is more room for conversation during the game. Dominion just doesn't have that dynamic.
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I don't see Settlers as "voting on a winner". Early on, you can't really say who is the clearly winning (especially because of the dice rolling). Later in the game, I find that players just become a lot stingier about trading. Ways to actively hurt others are limited, so the politics is mostly in making the trade sweet enough that the other player can't pass on it. Usually it's more of a grind to the top and seeing who gets lucky with the dice rather than voting for a winner. YMMV though, of course.
It's been a while since I lost at Catan, even though people usually team up against me for that reason, and usually when I lose, afterwards I can tell that there were obvious mistakes that I made (that weren't politics-related).
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Are there games where most of the politics are around choosing who to help, rather than hurt? That might have a significantly different feel than other political games, if only because of a more positive vibe. In a game like Settlers, even when you're helping someone (by trading), most of the politics is around other people trying to convince you to hurt the other player by not making the trade.
Generally, picking who to help instead of who to hurt is a way to reduce politics; you try to help the loser and hey they still don't win. Everyone wants to be the one helped and so there's no common ground (whereas everyone but the leader wants you to hurt the leader). I think some games do focus on it.
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Have you tried "Quo Vadis?" by Reiner Knizia? It's very simple and elegant and strips out everything but the politics. It's probably the game that convinced me that not all political games have to be bad.
I have not played Quo Vadis. I think "hidden VP" that was briefly visible is a poor way to address politics. It conceivably can at least shorten the last turn when a game has the long-last-turn issue (now everything is known, I can do all this math, wait while I do it). "Hidden VP" when it means, you don't actually know their score, is better; again though, that can accomplish things for you, but "getting rid of politics" isn't one of them without other stuff doing the real work.
There are people who like political games, and it's fine that they like them. I don't like them personally, and I don't need to make them, other people are getting them made.
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I don't see Settlers as "voting on a winner".
It's shorthand, a terse way to sum up what's going on. When you put the robber on Tom's bricks rather than my ore, due to my successful campaign (my slogan was "Tom's winning"), that's a vote for me. It doesn't feel like a vote for me; it feels like a vote against Tom. You don't want Tom to win. I don't either but so what? Really though, you were picking one of us to hose, and picked him; it's a victory for me over Tom. Your goal wasn't to pick me as the winner, your goal was to win yourself, and hurting Tom appeared to further that. But if you don't actually win, then what you did was contribute to the race between me and Tom.
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Or what do you think about the board game Diplomacy, if you're familiar? That was always one of my favorites, and it leans very heavily on the politics. Leads to some grudges sometimes, but my friends and I played the heck out of it in high school.
I have not played Diplomacy. As an outsider it looked overly complicated.
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I'll give Alien Frontiers a mention as it seems like a good space game with smart mechanics and alien fun. Unfortunately, after investing a lot of brain power into deciding how to maximize your dice roll and gather resources it really does always turn on who you shoot with your zaps. Someone wins when they get to 10 points or so and a zap can remove a point from someone, but the point is for controlling a region and someone else will get the point instead, so once people have about 6-8 points each it all goes political. You can sit down and play Family Business to get the same result faster.
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I don't see Settlers as "voting on a winner".
It's shorthand, a terse way to sum up what's going on. When you put the robber on Tom's bricks rather than my ore, due to my successful campaign (my slogan was "Tom's winning"), that's a vote for me. It doesn't feel like a vote for me; it feels like a vote against Tom. You don't want Tom to win. I don't either but so what? Really though, you were picking one of us to hose, and picked him; it's a victory for me over Tom. Your goal wasn't to pick me as the winner, your goal was to win yourself, and hurting Tom appeared to further that. But if you don't actually win, then what you did was contribute to the race between me and Tom.
OK, fair enough.
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Or what do you think about the board game Diplomacy, if you're familiar? That was always one of my favorites, and it leans very heavily on the politics. Leads to some grudges sometimes, but my friends and I played the heck out of it in high school.
I have not played Diplomacy. As an outsider it looked overly complicated.
I would argue that Diplomacy is not the "same game" as the other games I've played with politics. The difference is that in Diplomacy, we are not all sitting around the same table arguing about who to shaft, etc. We are having various secret* meetings between turns and then deciding which agreements to honor and who to stab in the back for maximum gain. The actual decisions are made simultaneously and then revealed.
Like McFish, I played quite a bit in high school and pretty much none since then. But from what I can remember, even though the rulebook is long, the rules basically boil down to the fact that clever maneuvering of your units gets you pretty much nothing. If you have the support of your allies, you win. Otherwise, you lose.
I consider Diplomacy to be the purest game of politics, because politics is all that really matters in the end. Diplomacy has a bunch of other issues, of course. It's ridiculously long (especially if you don't hold strictly to the time limit between turns) and has player elimination. If you're ever in high school again, you should try it out. If you get eliminated, just play Super Smash Bros or call for your mom to pick you up and drive you home.
But yeah, it definitely is a different kind of political game than Settlers, etc.
* For various values of "secret"
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Diplomacy also has the advantage that it has the theme right there in the title. If you sit down to play a game of Diplomacy, you're going to be doing a lot of, well, diplomacy. The mechanics are all in support of that.
Other games where politics is a side effect rather than a deliberate inclusion have the politics take over their mechanics, which turns out to be problematic.
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Diplomacy also allows for draws, where each surviving player shares in the victory. Some players, once they have established a defensible position and are boxed in, will choose to play for a draw rather than risk elimination. So you often have competing agendas. On the other hand, it is possible for players to make full or limited alliances and directly cooperate, which is not possible in Monopoly or Settlers.
Another aspect is that two- or three-way tactical stalemates are frequently possible, so that no one gains control of a key province unless they cooperate or persuade other people to attack their nearby opponent so that he can't continue the stalemate. And even if someone gains that key province, others can usually combine to kick him out if they decide that it's necessary. (Examples: Germany/England/France competing for Belgium; Austria/Russia/Turkey in Romania; Germany/Russia/Austria at Warsaw, etc).
Meanwhile, in Settlers, if three players all have roads leading toward the same vertex, someone can always build a settlement there during his turn, and the others can do nothing to stop it besides complain about the broken agreement. Also, if one player is the leader and the others gang up on him
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I don't see Settlers as "voting on a winner". Early on, you can't really say who is the clearly winning (especially because of the dice rolling). Later in the game, I find that players just become a lot stingier about trading. Ways to actively hurt others are limited, so the politics is mostly in making the trade sweet enough that the other player can't pass on it. Usually it's more of a grind to the top and seeing who gets lucky with the dice rather than voting for a winner. YMMV though, of course.
I suppose it depends on the dynamics in your gaming group. Oftentimes when I play, every will decide to gang up on one person who "always wins" or who "won last time". It is very much possible for a couple players to collude against you in Settlers, trapping you in with roads and refusing the trade with you.
Ahh, well, we tended not to hold grudges. Sometimes people would band together within one game when one player's win seems to be inevitable, pooling resources into the second place player to see if they can unseat the clear leader. But if it succeeds, we recognize the previous leader as the symbolic victor.
We haven't played Settlers in many years though.
Iterative political games can easily become awful because they tend to reward plays that ruin the current game for the sake of leverage in future games. You can always go with the tried-and-true rule of "don't play with people who do that", but it's much easier to just find a game that doesn't reward people who do that.
On a side note, I hate Diplomacy, mostly because it's difficult to find a group that will play the game with a realistic level of cooperation. It's more fun to just fuck people over all the time, so the majority of people do that, and the game devolves into misery. You almost *have* to play it iteratively... that way, the trustworthy players start to ally, forcing the natural backstabbers to form an opposing alliance, which starts to create interesting dynamics because you now have an alliance of natural backstabbers.
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Can someone remind me what job we were interviewing Donald for again?
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Meanwhile, in Settlers, if three players all have roads leading toward the same vertex, someone can always build a settlement there during his turn, and the others can do nothing to stop it besides complain about the broken agreement. Also, if one player is the leader and the others gang up on him
Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?
And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
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Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?
And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
I just want the longest road dude, I'm not putting a settlement there. Tom is going to put a settlement there, put the robber on his bricks why don't you.
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Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?
And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
I just want the longest road dude, I'm not putting a settlement there. Tom is going to put a settlement there, put the robber on his bricks why don't you.
/casually builds a knight in that spot
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Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?
And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
I just want the longest road dude, I'm not putting a settlement there. Tom is going to put a settlement there, put the robber on his bricks why don't you.
You can lose the longest road, and it's not resource producing anyway. I'd much rather build the settlement - that's a permanent point which helps me build further.
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Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?
And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
I just want the longest road dude, I'm not putting a settlement there. Tom is going to put a settlement there, put the robber on his bricks why don't you.
You can lose the longest road, and it's not resource producing anyway. I'd much rather build the settlement - that's a permanent point which helps me build further.
Depends on the situation. Being permanent and producing resources aren't relevant when it's the last points you need for winning.
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Also, Longest Road can be permanent under the right late game circumstances, like if it clinches you a maximum length road.
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Also, Donald X. was clearly lying. He just wants you to drop your guard and trade him the clay he needs to build that settlement there.
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In the Secret Histories/Outtakes, you mention a card that could discard Victory cards for $2 apiece. It started out at $4, then jumped up to $6, then left for being too boring.
This probably seems like a strange question, but what prompted you to go from $4 right to $6 without stopping at $5 along the way? Was it just that strong? How did it play out power-wise at $6? Could another bonus have been tacked on to spice it up without making it too powerful?
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In the Secret Histories/Outtakes, you mention a card that could discard Victory cards for $2 apiece. It started out at $4, then jumped up to $6, then left for being too boring.
This probably seems like a strange question, but what prompted you to go from $4 right to $6 without stopping at $5 along the way? Was it just that strong? How did it play out power-wise at $6? Could another bonus have been tacked on to spice it up without making it too powerful?
It was probably $5 on the way; that would usually not seem worth mentioning, and I haven't kept records of every version of every card. It might have skipped $5 if it was clearly crazy; I can always go back to $5 later. But in general you want to err on the side of powerful, so that the card gets played with and you get data.
It died because we just didn't like it much. It kind of fit into a mild VP theme Hinterlands had/has, but that wasn't enough to save it. Terminal actions that just make money (yes there are various ways to get other value from discarding those victory cards) are not typically crowd favorites. I'm not sure I can say much about how powerful it was; power level wasn't what killed it.
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For the next Magic core set, Wizards asked various game designers to make cards. Were you asked to make one? What kind of card would you have made?
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For the next Magic core set, Wizards asked various game designers to make cards. Were you asked to make one? What kind of card would you have made?
Sorry for being completely off topic, but I feel like I recognise your username from elsewhere. You don't happen to be a Zelda speedrunner do you? Sorry if that makes no sense (you can look it up if I'm wrong and you're curious I suppose...)
On topic and to Donald: A friend of mine is currently doing some graphics/arts course and expressed interest in finding out about getting into doing artwork for things like Dominion/Magic cards. Do you know how the artists for Dominion (and similar games) were selected, did you have anything to do with it and do you have any advice for her?
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For the next Magic core set, Wizards asked various game designers to make cards. Were you asked to make one? What kind of card would you have made?
Sorry for being completely off topic, but I feel like I recognise your username from elsewhere. You don't happen to be a Zelda speedrunner do you? Sorry if that makes no sense (you can look it up if I'm wrong and you're curious I suppose...)
On topic and to Donald: A friend of mine is currently doing some graphics/arts course and expressed interest in finding out about getting into doing artwork for things like Dominion/Magic cards. Do you know how the artists for Dominion (and similar games) were selected, did you have anything to do with it and do you have any advice for her?
Donald just nicked the images off google image search (SSSSHH don't tell eHalycon!)
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For the next Magic core set, Wizards asked various game designers to make cards. Were you asked to make one? What kind of card would you have made?
I was probably asked.
A guy from Wizards contacted me to say they were interested in me designing a Magic card for some product. He didn't want to go into details until I signed an NDA (I signed an NDA years ago, but that was no longer any good). The NDA had a false statement in it, which I guess is not so unusual; as has been noted, the online Dominion ToS says you can't use the product. Anyway I don't like signing false things. I said, could they change that? They said sure and made it worse. I said now it's worse. They said you know we can't actually change anything for you, that wouldn't be fair to the other designers. This was nonsense so now they were also telling me nonsense, which I am not fond of. I never quite convinced myself to sign the NDA and eventually they mailed me some free stuff and said thanks anyway. It was like, 12 booster packs, some "booster battle packs," some sleeves, a bag. It was a nice touch, I even drafted those packs. I would have used the sleeves in a prototype by now but they have a dot obscuring a corner, so I can only use them in a game that doesn't have data there.
Now to put this further in perspective, I already designed a published Magic card, way way back when (Energizer from Tempest). And I always feel like I named haste (they asked the people contributing to 6E, which is better, speed or surprise, and I said hey how about haste). In addition to whatever harder-to-pin-down contributions to the rules (possibly last known information, I suggested that to Bethmo when it wasn't a rule yet); it's hard to say since I was outside the company and don't know what other people were also suggesting. Bill specifically cited an essay of mine as convincing him that they were doing triggered effects the right way, even though I was arguing that they should be different. Anyway I made a Magic card already. It was cool, but I had the experience. It would be nice to have some extra publicity but I didn't know the specifics there. I probably should have just signed the NDA, but at this point it's all been announced and I don't feel left out.
I keep flirting with sending them a list of general suggestions (not cards) that wouldn't require an NDA, and if at some point they were interested in me co-designing a set, i.e. more than one card, then I would probably just sign the NDA. It would be fun to work on a Magic set, but one card, I have had the honor. My name isn't on the card but that's not so bad.
If I had done it I would probably have sent them 100 cards so they would have had a lot to choose from. I have made thousands of homemade Magic cards. I would have offered up especially novel ones.
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On topic and to Donald: A friend of mine is currently doing some graphics/arts course and expressed interest in finding out about getting into doing artwork for things like Dominion/Magic cards. Do you know how the artists for Dominion (and similar games) were selected, did you have anything to do with it and do you have any advice for her?
Jay picks his artists; I have nothing to do with it. I have gotten to comment on sketches; since some mistakes in Intrigue (Steward like the guy in charge of a castle, not like the guy on an airplane), I have also gotten to provide notes for the artist, so that they know what the card titles mean. For other companies I have not gotten to provide notes; I did get to comment on the art for Gauntlet of Fools. I endlessly interacted with the artist for an upcoming game.
I would just email the game companies. I'm an artist, here's a link to my portfolio. Some game companies are very approachable, and if they aren't interested it hasn't cost you much.
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Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?
And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
I just want the longest road dude, I'm not putting a settlement there. Tom is going to put a settlement there, put the robber on his bricks why don't you.
You can lose the longest road, and it's not resource producing anyway. I'd much rather build the settlement - that's a permanent point which helps me build further.
This discussion shows how games with politics don't generally put the game in the back seat in favour of politics to the extent it doesn't matter which game you are playing. Ideally, you need a lot of experience in the particular game to notice who has the best chances to win and needs to be hosed.
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Huh, that's very interesting. As it happens, haste is my favorite ability in Magic, so thanks for that.
Sorry for being completely off topic, but I feel like I recognise your username from elsewhere. You don't happen to be a Zelda speedrunner do you? Sorry if that makes no sense (you can look it up if I'm wrong and you're curious I suppose...)
Yup, that's me. Though I guess I don't do much speedrunning anymore. More into modding at the moment.
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Is there a specific reason why "+3 Actions" and "+2 Buys" were only used on a single card each (Crossroads and Squire), or was it a coincidence?
A "super Village" giving +3 Actions each time you play it might work at $4 (or $5?), I think. (Though it wouldn't be too interesting without some extra twist.)
+2 Buys isn't that much better than +1 Buy, but it might have been an interesting boost e.g. for Woodcutter (and/or Nomad Camp) to have a second Buy. (This would have made Woodcutter/Gardens quite strong, but still far weaker than Beggar/Gardens, and probably also weaker than Squire/Gardens, so it should be an okay combo.)
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Is there a specific reason why "+3 Actions" and "+2 Buys" were only used on a single card each (Crossroads and Squire), or was it a coincidence?
Sir Martin?
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Is there a specific reason why "+3 Actions" and "+2 Buys" were only used on a single card each (Crossroads and Squire), or was it a coincidence?
Sir Martin?
Oh, right. :-[ 1.1 cards then...
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Huh, that's very interesting. As it happens, haste is my favorite ability in Magic, so thanks for that.
Sorry for being completely off topic, but I feel like I recognise your username from elsewhere. You don't happen to be a Zelda speedrunner do you? Sorry if that makes no sense (you can look it up if I'm wrong and you're curious I suppose...)
Yup, that's me. Though I guess I don't do much speedrunning anymore. More into modding at the moment.
Ah, yeah, thought I recognised your name from a hack I saw Runnerguy playing. (This is my last off topic post, sorry everyone else).
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Huh, that's very interesting. As it happens, haste is my favorite ability in Magic, so thanks for that.
Sorry for being completely off topic, but I feel like I recognise your username from elsewhere. You don't happen to be a Zelda speedrunner do you? Sorry if that makes no sense (you can look it up if I'm wrong and you're curious I suppose...)
Yup, that's me. Though I guess I don't do much speedrunning anymore. More into modding at the moment.
Ah, yeah, thought I recognised your name from a hack I saw Runnerguy playing. (This is my last off topic post, sorry everyone else).
You could have PM'd him.
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Huh, that's very interesting. As it happens, haste is my favorite ability in Magic, so thanks for that.
Sorry for being completely off topic, but I feel like I recognise your username from elsewhere. You don't happen to be a Zelda speedrunner do you? Sorry if that makes no sense (you can look it up if I'm wrong and you're curious I suppose...)
Yup, that's me. Though I guess I don't do much speedrunning anymore. More into modding at the moment.
Ah, yeah, thought I recognised your name from a hack I saw Runnerguy playing. (This is my last off topic post, sorry everyone else).
You could have PM'd him.
Wow, so soon? Tables is more traditional than that. Share quotes in at least three different threads before the first PM, my mother always says.
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Wow, so soon? Tables is more traditional than that. Share quotes in at least three different threads before the first PM, my mother always says.
So GokoDom is actually a swingers club?
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Is there a specific reason why "+3 Actions" and "+2 Buys" were only used on a single card each (Crossroads and Squire), or was it a coincidence?
A "super Village" giving +3 Actions each time you play it might work at $4 (or $5?), I think. (Though it wouldn't be too interesting without some extra twist.)
+2 Buys isn't that much better than +1 Buy, but it might have been an interesting boost e.g. for Woodcutter (and/or Nomad Camp) to have a second Buy. (This would have made Woodcutter/Gardens quite strong, but still far weaker than Beggar/Gardens, and probably also weaker than Squire/Gardens, so it should be an okay combo.)
Doing them a little made them special, and they aren't things you always care about anyway. Fishing Village lets you play lots of actions and that felt good enough there; Crossroads doesn't feel so much like the +3 Actions card to me, despite saying it. And there's Tribute but being unreliable is different. I put off +2 buys for a while, since mostly you just care about it for Gardens or Bridge etc., but finally I did it, hooray.
At one point Crossroads gave you +1 action per action card in your hand; sometimes you would have no idea how many actions you had left.
If I had it to do again, I might give Bag of Gold +3 Actions. That is again just a weird fraction of a card.
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If I had it to do again, I might give Bag of Gold +3 Actions. That is again just a weird fraction of a card.
It is also a strange thin to tack on a card that gives Gold. Maybe "Bag of $5-costs" could use +3 Actions better.
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If I had it to do again, I might give Bag of Gold +3 Actions. That is again just a weird fraction of a card.
It is also a strange thin to tack on a card that gives Gold. Maybe "Bag of $5-costs" could use +3 Actions better.
The idea wouldn't be to turn it into University, the idea would be to raise up Bag of Gold a little relative to the other prizes, both in terms of play value and specialness.
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If I had it to do again, I might give Bag of Gold +3 Actions. That is again just a weird fraction of a card.
It is also a strange thin to tack on a card that gives Gold. Maybe "Bag of $5-costs" could use +3 Actions better.
Nah, you'd just rename it to Bag of Actions and tack on the "Gain a Gold"
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The idea wouldn't be to turn it into University, the idea would be to raise up Bag of Gold a little relative to the other prizes, both in terms of play value and specialness.
I understand that in many countries going to a University requires a Bag of Gold.
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The idea wouldn't be to turn it into University, the idea would be to raise up Bag of Gold a little relative to the other prizes, both in terms of play value and specialness.
I understand that in many countries going to a University requires a Bag of Gold.
Or a Bag of Debt at the very least.
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It would have a nice combo with Diadem too!
(Not Student loans)
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It would have a nice combo with Diadem too!
(Not Student loans)
Loan and Bag of Debt would not combo together I don't think...
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It would have a nice combo with Diadem too!
(Not Student loans)
Loan and Bag of Debt would not combo together I don't think...
Well, you start with Loan, and later when you find yourself with Bag of Debt all your Gold keeps disappearing.
At least you don't have to worry about Taxman!
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It would have a nice combo with Diadem too!
(Not Student loans)
Loan and Bag of Debt would not combo together I don't think...
Well, you start with Loan, and later when you find yourself with Bag of Debt all your Gold keeps disappearing.
At least you don't have to worry about Taxman!
You should ALWAYS worry about the Taxman!
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Is there a specific reason why "+3 Actions" and "+2 Buys" were only used on a single card each (Crossroads and Squire), or was it a coincidence?
A "super Village" giving +3 Actions each time you play it might work at $4 (or $5?), I think. (Though it wouldn't be too interesting without some extra twist.)
+2 Buys isn't that much better than +1 Buy, but it might have been an interesting boost e.g. for Woodcutter (and/or Nomad Camp) to have a second Buy. (This would have made Woodcutter/Gardens quite strong, but still far weaker than Beggar/Gardens, and probably also weaker than Squire/Gardens, so it should be an okay combo.)
Doing them a little made them special, and they aren't things you always care about anyway. Fishing Village lets you play lots of actions and that felt good enough there; Crossroads doesn't feel so much like the +3 Actions card to me, despite saying it. And there's Tribute but being unreliable is different. I put off +2 buys for a while, since mostly you just care about it for Gardens or Bridge etc., but finally I did it, hooray.
At one point Crossroads gave you +1 action per action card in your hand; sometimes you would have no idea how many actions you had left.
If I had it to do again, I might give Bag of Gold +3 Actions. That is again just a weird fraction of a card.
Thanks for the answer! Keeping them special by doing few makes sense. FV does give +3 Actions in total, but distributing them over two turns often makes them more useful than a "vanilla" +3 Actions card. And there's KC, of course...
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You have mentioned earlier that you would recommend Mark Rosewater's "Drive to Work" podcast and his articles when it comes to good learning material about game design even if you do not agree with everything Mark says.
Since I am a huge fan of "Drive to Work" and the written stuff by Mark as a whole, I am curious which on parts of Mark's "philosophy" you do not agree on.
And while we're at the subject - from the top of your head, what is (one of) your favourite article(s) and podcast(s) done by him?
I know these questions might not be very easy to answer and even uninteresting to some. Please note that I also do not agree completely with everything he says, but I but I'm just a curious guy and , well, honestly I just wanna know what you think.
Thank you for your time and I'm looking forward to your answer.
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You have mentioned earlier that you would recommend Mark Rosewater's "Drive to Work" podcast and his articles when it comes to good learning material about game design even if you do not agree with everything Mark says.
Well I read his articles and blog. There is just too much podcast for me to keep up with.
Since I am a huge fan of "Drive to Work" and the written stuff by Mark as a whole, I am curious which on parts of Mark's "philosophy" you do not agree on.
I don't want to do the research, so I'm just going to consider two classic major issues: bad cards and mana screw.
* Bad Cards *
Mark's stance is that there have to be bad cards. I agree although I would explain it with some different specifics.
Cards are aimed at different kinds of players, which is good, and that means that some other player's good card is a bad card to you. That's straightforward.
For constructed you can make more cards playable by making more cards narrow. You can go to the extreme of making all cards so narrow that all cards are playable in constructed, endlessly, with no power creep. This doesn't work because it means all of the decks are pre-built and all of the cards are overly complex. Mark has never touched on this but that's fine, it's a footnote really. I guess you can note that Netrunner is trying to use this approach; cards are limited as to what deck they can go in (to a certain degree), in order to make more cards playable. Anyway without going to bad extremes, not all cards are playable in constructed, because you have your choice of cards to play with and they cannot all be exactly as good.
For limited they prefer not having a flat power curve. I think that's sensible although I might not take it as far as they do. It's fun having cards where you're not sure if they're good enough, and that means having cards close to the edge of playability, with some on the wrong side (depending on your deck and stuff).
If a card is unplayable in constructed, which many will be, and unplayable in limited, which many will be, then it should be playable in casual - which all such cards can be. Being playable in casual just means giving you a reason to play it. People with very few cards will play whatever you give them, but that doesn't count; you can just do so much better. The game is better if more people like the worst cards, and it's not even hard to achieve. There are many things casual players enjoy that you can do with the weak cards.
For many of the last twenty years they have made some cards that were no good in constructed, limited, and casual - complete wastes of cardboard. They have all but solved this problem at this point. Sometimes they make a common that I'm just not playing in limited/constructed and which has no draw for casual; generally a vanilla guy or french vanilla guy. It's not every vanilla guy though, some of them have reasonable stats for limited or a relevant creature type for a recently-supported tribe.
* Mana Screw *
Mark's stance is that mana screw is good for the game and that there's probably no better solution. My stance is that it does good things for the game but obv. you can do better, you can have the good things without the bad.
Magic's resource system does some good things. It's nice having randomness affect your resource development. It's nice that you can beat a better player due to the luck of the draw.
What's awful is not getting to play. I don't draw enough lands and just get to watch you play; I draw nothing but lands, same deal. You can argue that the game is at least over quickly; man, not good enough. Not getting to play goes against the premise of being a game. I can instead play a game where I get to play the game; I'm not playing a game I don't get to play. I am all for luck giving me a disadvantage sometimes, but I have to be able to fight against it, not just pass until I'm dead.
Mark cites how Duel Masters tried letting you play cards face down as lands, and how that wasn't as good; Mark cites how no-one has solved this problem yet for a Magic-like game (which would never be too convincing). But really. Hearts doesn't have mana screw, look at that. Dominion doesn't have mana screw; when you have poor luck, your opening buys are on the bottom, but you still get to play all those turns. You can get so many Curses/Ruins that you have dead turns, but that's a state your opponents worked to bring about, not just a bad draw.
Anyway there's nothing magical about mana screw, no game needs it. The things the mana system brings to Magic are good; what would be better is having the good things but not having mana screw. I can believe that Duel Masters wasn't the solution for a Magic-like game but it's silly to think you can't do better.
And while we're at the subject - from the top of your head, what is (one of) your favourite article(s) and podcast(s) done by him?
This is just going to be too hard to research. I don't like the articles where the cards talk to each other. Mark ranks his own articles once a year and that's probably a pretty good guide.
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I just saw the video (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=10731.msg358442#msg358442) presenting Piña Pirata. It seems like a much simpler game than Dominion or Kingdom Builder. My question is, does the simplicity translate into easier to design? Maybe less playtesting needed? If it is true, is there some aspect in which Piña Pirata requires more work than, say, Dominion? (maybe intended for younger or less gamery audience require more attention to some details, or different kind of playtesting?)
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I'm sure you've answered this somewhere before, but I cannot find it for the life of me.
I have a friend who, when playing Dominion with folks other than me, plays with a few house rules. The one he's most adamant about is each player getting an equal number of turns (not counting extra turns, presumably). I can think of some reasons that equal turns would not improve Dominion, but I'd like to hear your reasoning. Why doesn't Dominion have equal turns like, say, Kingdom Builder? Thanks.
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I just saw the video (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=10731.msg358442#msg358442) presenting Piña Pirata. It seems like a much simpler game than Dominion or Kingdom Builder. My question is, does the simplicity translate into easier to design? Maybe less playtesting needed? If it is true, is there some aspect in which Piña Pirata requires more work than, say, Dominion? (maybe intended for younger or less gamery audience require more attention to some details, or different kind of playtesting?)
I wouldn't say that rules simplicity is what tells you how much work the game will take. Sometimes simple rules are hard to come by, and anyway cards with rules on them are a big trick here, those are all rules, they count. You learn the game quickly when most of the rules are on cards, it's a sweet trick, but the rules are still there.
Being lighter does save time. Playtesting still has to determine what's fun and what isn't, what causes confusion, what problematic combos there are. Power level isn't so much an issue though, except at extremes, and not always then.
Piña Pirata the game was easier to design than Dominion, because it's Crazy 8's but you add a rule each hand. Dominion the game wasn't that hard though, the bulk of it I worked out in a few hours (not counting the work that led up to the idea, Spirit Warriors II and all that, or work on other games that informed this work, like already knowing that I like attacks to hit all opponents). I changed it in important ways later, but the few-hours version is extremely recognizable. Piña Pirata's cards were much easier than Dominion's cards, because of the balance reason; a Piña Pirata card can have a huge or minor effect, and there's no cost on it.
From the first version to the published version, almost every non-basic Dominion card changed in some functional way. I am looking at the original file of rules for Jailbreak (the original name/flavor); some of these cards have changed, but, aside from flavor (many of them have had five different names) and what suit is referred to (itself an aspect of flavor although it functionally matters what set of things go with a particular suit), many of them are identical to the original versions. Okay out of the first 10 in the oldest file, 5 survived unchanged except for flavor/suit, 3 got important tweaks, and 2 died.
Kingdom Builder required a lot less work than Dominion. The rules again didn't change much from the initial set, which hadn't been easy to find but it's hard to measure that. For sure the rules took more work than Dominion's, if you don't count work on Spirit Warriors II. Anyway I tweaked the boards, the scoring cards, the abilities; I actually changed the boards repeatedly, but many of the abilities immediately worked, and many of the scoring cards never changed. It's probably fair to say that I spent more time coming up with the initial rules, with zero games played (starting from a deckbuilding game premise) than I did changing things once I'd played it.
For Infiltration, the item cards didn't need to be so balanced, because you drafted them (a variant in the published version), and the rooms naturally could vary from awful to great. I did change some cards to get rid of confusion and no-fun, but it wasn't a lot of work. The rules were very easy; the one thing I tweaked multiple times was how to track stuff getting smashed open.
For Nefarious, the invention cards required very little work, because I could do the math to cost them. Most of them were just instantly perfect. Some did change due to being ones I had to guess at, or to tweak the frequency of different kinds of effects. The rules were again easy, although I pared it down from a more complex game. The twists were the focus of work; again they don't need balance, but they need to avoid bad situations (which I didn't, the published version got a combo that makes the game unplayable) and be fun. I made twice as many twists as the main game got, paring it down repeatedly.
I changed the rules for Gauntlet of Fools early on, but quickly got close to where it is. I tweaked the boasts and classes/weapons a bunch; I didn't tweak the monsters much, although I added more. I wrote a program to play the game so I'd have an idea how much combinations were worth, so I could avoid the case where you want to put all 6 boasts on the best guy and still just beat the worst guy. It turned out there was a big divide, a set of good classes and then a gulf and then the rest, and I spread them out more.
Monster Factory took very little work relative to anything else. I tweaked the topology mix a little; otherwise the only thing to change was the rules, and Nina and I did change them.
Greed is a drafting game; I tweaked the cards a lot over the years, but balance was only a factor at the ends (no cards too ridiculous or useless). Unannounced upcoming game has some cards where I did the math, and some where balance was a factor. I changed the rules on that one a lot more than I usually do.
Overall the trend is definitely that balancing cards takes more time than anything else. When they don't need to be balanced, or want not to be balanced, there's still time to put in making them fun and unconfusing and avoiding bad interactions, but that's just way less work. And when they do need to be balanced, sometimes there is math you can do that solves that problem for you. Aside from cards, the rules can be easy or hard to work out, but even when they take a lot of time, they take less time than the cards do.
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I have a friend who, when playing Dominion with folks other than me, plays with a few house rules. The one he's most adamant about is each player getting an equal number of turns (not counting extra turns, presumably). I can think of some reasons that equal turns would not improve Dominion, but I'd like to hear your reasoning. Why doesn't Dominion have equal turns like, say, Kingdom Builder? Thanks.
First, most people who aren't serious gamers don't even notice that it's a thing. They do not say, well you got one more turn than me; they have no idea that this is the case. They really really don't notice it. If there was no tiebreaker rule they would never notice it.
Second it's simpler to not finish the round. Originally there was also no tiebreaker, so you didn't have to track who went first at all. The tiebreaker was added as a compromise; Valerie and Dale wanted an awful turn-order tiebreaker, and I guess could not understand the reasoning that explains how awful that is. They said live with it, I said I won't, Jay said I'm going with the game designer (later I realized he had to contractually). But I agreed to a number-of-turns tiebreaker because that didn't have issues, beyond the tracking. It's fairer but you can argue that it's better for casual players to have no tiebreaker, because then they don't have to track who went first and you aren't drawing attention to this advantage. Serious players sometimes desperately want a tiebreaker, they want a winner even if it means counting random data; casual players, not so much, they are happy to tie, especially in a multiplayer game where some players are not in on the tie.
It's obviously good to go first, but people are used to that, in game after game with turns it's good to go first, equal turns or not.
The end condition means if you finish the round you then want to add Provinces, so that those turns aren't lame. That's not always relevant and doesn't always do the trick, but you know, often it's relevant and does the trick. So you add say 8 Provinces, it's a physical game so we still need to draw the line somewhere. We turn the bottom 8 sideways so we know when the game end condition is hit. People talk of "phantom Provinces" but you know, why not solidify those phantoms. Anyway you could do this, but it's a negative, it's more work and wonkier, even if just a little more work and a little wonkier.
When I first made Dominion, the initial end condition was "any empty pile." It directly answered the question, "what if I want a card and there aren't any left." Yes you could buy the last card and have another buy left. Anyway I needed an end condition, I picked that one, that was what it started as. We would usually empty the Provinces. Sometimes you would go for say Remodel and need to worry about how many you left in the pile (there were ten cards in each action pile; leave four Remodels, that's my advice), and who was winning when the piles got low.
The end condition was the end condition, it didn't have a "finish the round" clause. I had never had a "finish the round" clause in any game and did not start here. I had a lot of simultaneous play games where everyone got the same number of turns naturally, but when I had turns, the game ended at some point and we would not necessarily have had the same number of turns. Again, like in most games. I was not constantly playing commercial games that finished the round either, except ones where this was in some way natural as with simultaneous play. Like, in Medici, you finish the round in that you play until the boats are all full; in Through the Desert, you don't finish the round. We never thought "wow some players get more turns in Through the Desert, what's up with that." We never wondered why the round didn't finish for Settlers of Catan or Cartagena or Carcassonne or whatever game.
I always had the "winner goes last next game" rule. Despite going last, the best player did fine. It was obviously good to go first, but it wasn't wrecking the game. We would always play multiple games, and if you weren't winning, you would probably get your chance to go first. You don't want to be sitting on the wrong side of the best player; this never made anyone change seats.
There was never a point where we thought, man this needs fixing, how about finishing the round.
As I said above, once RGG had the game, late in the going, Valerie and Dale wanted a turn-order tiebreaker to address the advantage to going first. That was awful, like I said - oops you lose despite not actually getting an extra turn this game, due to this in-your-face coin flip. And hey it doesn't do anything about the case where you don't tie, where the advantage is so meaningful that it just wins for you. Anyway that awful thing was what they suggested to address turn-order advantage; that's all that came up. It was bad and I got to shoot it down, hooray.
Once Dominion was in the wild, some people felt like they needed to finish the round (as always, play whatever variants you want, I don't mind). When this news hit I did not feel like I had blown it or like I wanted to shift to playing that way. I think it's much better to play multiple games and rotate who wins (or, even better, have the winner go last).
This did make me aware though that some people would be like that, that they would want to right this particular injustice in future games.
So then one day I made Kingdom Builder. The game end condition was going to be someone running out of pieces - obv. I didn't want them to get more turns with no pieces. And it seemed like, the player running out of pieces is ahead, they played more pieces, pieces are how you score points. They may have been playing more dead pieces but you know, they have the advantage here. So, I could finish the round, like all those people wanted for Dominion. So I tried it out, I had the round being finished from the beginning. It worked fine so that never changed. It addresses turn order advantage to such a degree there that Queen thought the last player had the edge, due to Lords (as you can see from their rule determining who goes first), although I think obv. the first player has the edge in games without Lords and even some games with Lords.
Nefarious, Infiltration, Greed, and Gauntlet of Fools are all simultaneous, with no turn imbalance to be addressed. The way Monster Factory works, finishing the round (by say reserving some tiles for that situation) would not mean much, and obv. it's not worth the extra complexity. It doesn't make much sense for Piña Pirata and is not too relevant for its audience. Unannounced upcoming game has turns and does not finish the round, although there is a thing to reduce turn-order-based advantages.
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Donald, were you one of the designers approached for Magic 2015's guest designs? If so, why aren't you designing a card? If not, would you participate in a future round if asked?
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Look at post 1244 (it's probably on the previous page, but that depends on your posts-per-page view settings).
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Donald, were you one of the designers approached for Magic 2015's guest designs? If so, why aren't you designing a card? If not, would you participate in a future round if asked?
Literally one page before:
EDIT: Ninja'd
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oh man, thought I was caught up on this thread!
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Sorry if this has been asked before:
Somewhere you said (and I paraphrase badly) that you could have made a 'complicated' expansion if you had wanted to. What did you mean by that: complicated in terms of number of processes/clarity of processes or complicated in terms of complex decision making in the turn (e.g. Remodel is more complex in this regard than Lab). Or some other form of complexity? Could you offer an example? :)
P.S. Without wanting to rake over first player advantage again, have you seen the hearthstone 'Coin' Card mechanic (which, although not without problems, does lead to a near 50/50 1st player/2nd player win rate, but perhaps more importantly, is an interesting mechanic). Anything you could see with a similar methodology applying to Dominion?
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P.S. Without wanting to rake over first player advantage again, have you seen the hearthstone 'Coin' Card mechanic (which, although not without problems, does lead to a near 50/50 1st player/2nd player win rate, but perhaps more importantly, is an interesting mechanic). Anything you could see with a similar methodology applying to Dominion?
Could you please explain this "Coin" Card mechanic for those of us who don't play Hearthstone?
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P.S. Without wanting to rake over first player advantage again, have you seen the hearthstone 'Coin' Card mechanic (which, although not without problems, does lead to a near 50/50 1st player/2nd player win rate, but perhaps more importantly, is an interesting mechanic). Anything you could see with a similar methodology applying to Dominion?
Could you please explain this "Coin" Card mechanic for those of us who don't play Hearthstone?
The second player gets a "coin" card. It gives you an extra mana on that turn only so that you can play a better card faster. I guess in Dominion it could give you and extra $, except in Hearthstone your hand is never discarded, so I think it would just be swingy in Dominion for 1 person to start with a card like that.
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You could consider giving the second player a coin token to start comparable.
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You could consider giving the second player a coin token to start comparable.
But thats unbalanced. 1 person gets a Baker opening, the other doesnt. I think that would just make it P1 disadvantage.
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yeah. I open power five/$3, you open $3/$4. First player advantage I don't think is that huge in dominion. Not at all negligible for sure, but small. I'd guess the odds are no more than 55/45 in general to start.
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In addition to one extra mana on the turn played by the coin card, player 2 also gets an extra card at the start.
It can also be used to trigger other mechanics as it's considered a spell card (e.g. minions that get buffed with every card played, or the Rogue's combo mechanic) - that seems to be the biggest issues with it.
Obviously no direct way to translate to Dominion ...
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Somewhere you said (and I paraphrase badly) that you could have made a 'complicated' expansion if you had wanted to. What did you mean by that: complicated in terms of number of processes/clarity of processes or complicated in terms of complex decision making in the turn (e.g. Remodel is more complex in this regard than Lab). Or some other form of complexity? Could you offer an example? :)
I am talking about words, word complexity. Strategic complexity is fine. Simple ideas that take a lot of words, like Adventurer, are not as bad as complex ideas that take a lot of words, like Hermit, but they still add up to an intimidating package if there are a bunch of them.
Probably the most complex Dominion card is Tournament. It gives you a 2x2 grid of results to wrap your head around, then requires you to read 5 more unique cards to know what you're getting.
Let's consider three main set cards: Thief, Chancellor, Throne Room. Thief is the wordiest card in the main set, but what it does is straightforward and grokable. Chancellor is very simple but baffling. Throne Room looks straightforward but ends up creating rules questions. The problem isn't that I don't want sets full of Chancellors - though I don't - or Throne Rooms - though I don't. Those cards are problems but I do not have the problem of having tons of those cards lying around - they are rare. Instead the issue is that more and more of the possible cards to make (factoring in lots of stuff into that word "possible") end up wordy like Thief. While I tolerate a certain amount of that, especially for attacks (where the complexity is harder to avoid and the card is more important to the set), I sure don't want every card to be that wordy.
When you play Dominion, there are rules. Some are in the rulebook; some are on the cards. They are all in one place or the other; if I don't want a rule in the rulebook, it has to go on the cards, if I don't want it on the cards, it has to go in the rulebook. This seems straightforward. The general rule is, the number of cards you can make for a game is proportional to the product of the complexity of the game, and the amount of space you allow yourself for card text. The rules have to go somewhere.
You can obviously make Dominion cards for forever, if you don't hem yourself in with restrictions. The example I always used for Magic was, you could make the Scrabble expansion. It's all about anagramming. The game however has some serious restrictions. Aside from stuff like, no-one wants Dominion: The Catapult, the main audience for the game does not want it to be too complex. And they like that nearly everything is on the cards rather than in the rulebook.
I have already done the experiment of making an expansion after it was time to stop; that expansion is Guilds. It has a new mechanic that requires reading the rulebook to understand. As a result of moving rules for those cards to the rulebook, the cards themselves are sleek and simple, except Butcher. There is another mechanic that does not really require the rulebook. Those cards all have two abilities and are complex, except Masterpiece. Then there is an attack that's extremely wordy and does multiple things, and then three innocent cards that never hurt anyone, although if I had it to do again I would drop the "they only draw if they got cursed" bit from Soothsayer (a minor example of how I went too far trying to squeeze playability out of later cards).
I remain pleased with Guilds, although it will be surely be the expansion that sells the worst (we already have enough expansions, some foreign publishers will have stopped before this, it's small and people like those less, later expansions are more complex and people like that less). But uh I think it's there in my analysis: it's some fun new cards, where the complexity went into the rulebook for some cards and on the cards for others, and both add up to the game being more complex.
As long as the expansions are good, there will always be an audience of some size for them, even if they are overly complex. But Dominion gets played by gamer's spouses and gamer's parents and gamer's kids. It is so successful because it is not just for gamers. So I think it only makes sense that Dominion products try to be good for that audience, the actual bulk of people playing.
P.S. Without wanting to rake over first player advantage again, have you seen the hearthstone 'Coin' Card mechanic (which, although not without problems, does lead to a near 50/50 1st player/2nd player win rate, but perhaps more importantly, is an interesting mechanic). Anything you could see with a similar methodology applying to Dominion?
I haven't looked at Hearthstone; I know it's some kind of online Magic Lite. I am not unhappy with where things stand for first player advantage in Dominion. There are boards where a very minor compensating advantage for the 2nd player would still be too much - including, for example, half a VP.
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Put me down for one Dominion: The Catapult please
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P.S. Without wanting to rake over first player advantage again, have you seen the hearthstone 'Coin' Card mechanic (which, although not without problems, does lead to a near 50/50 1st player/2nd player win rate, but perhaps more importantly, is an interesting mechanic). Anything you could see with a similar methodology applying to Dominion?
I haven't looked at Hearthstone; I know it's some kind of online Magic Lite. I am not unhappy with where things stand for first player advantage in Dominion. There are boards where a very minor compensating advantage for the 2nd player would still be too much - including, for example, half a VP.
It's a cute mechanic that doesn't seem like it will translate that well to Dominion. Basically, instead of just earning one mana per turn, second player has a one-shot to temporarily gain one mana at any point. So instead of 1-1-2-2-3-3-etc., second player can choose to go 1-2-2-2-3-3 or 1-1-2-3-3-3.
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P.S. Without wanting to rake over first player advantage again, have you seen the hearthstone 'Coin' Card mechanic (which, although not without problems, does lead to a near 50/50 1st player/2nd player win rate, but perhaps more importantly, is an interesting mechanic). Anything you could see with a similar methodology applying to Dominion?
I haven't looked at Hearthstone; I know it's some kind of online Magic Lite. I am not unhappy with where things stand for first player advantage in Dominion. There are boards where a very minor compensating advantage for the 2nd player would still be too much - including, for example, half a VP.
It's a cute mechanic that doesn't seem like it will translate that well to Dominion. Basically, instead of just earning one mana per turn, second player has a one-shot to temporarily gain one mana at any point. So instead of 1-1-2-2-3-3-etc., second player can choose to go 1-2-2-2-3-3 or 1-1-2-3-3-3.
Second player always starts with an extra Baker/coin token?
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As long as the expansions are good, there will always be an audience of some size for them, even if they are overly complex. But Dominion gets played by gamer's spouses and gamer's parents and gamer's kids. It is so successful because it is not just for gamers. So I think it only makes sense that Dominion products try to be good for that audience, the actual bulk of people playing.
It still looks like the audience of just gamers that would devour a new and a lot more complex Dominion expansion is big enough for the reward making economic sense. I am way off? I get a feeling (which could be completely mistaken) that is mostly your own "moral" reward is not good enough for you to make another one and that an economic argument, while true, is not THE actual obstacle. Is that possible?
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As long as the expansions are good, there will always be an audience of some size for them, even if they are overly complex. But Dominion gets played by gamer's spouses and gamer's parents and gamer's kids. It is so successful because it is not just for gamers. So I think it only makes sense that Dominion products try to be good for that audience, the actual bulk of people playing.
It still looks like the audience of just gamers that would devour a new and a lot more complex Dominion expansion is big enough for the reward making economic sense. I am way off? I get a feeling (which could be completely mistaken) that is mostly your own "moral" reward is not good enough for you to make another one and that an economic argument, while true, is not THE actual obstacle. Is that possible?
You have to factor in opportunity cost though. Instead of designing and playtesting another Dominion expansion, Donald could just make a new game.
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As long as the expansions are good, there will always be an audience of some size for them, even if they are overly complex. But Dominion gets played by gamer's spouses and gamer's parents and gamer's kids. It is so successful because it is not just for gamers. So I think it only makes sense that Dominion products try to be good for that audience, the actual bulk of people playing.
It still looks like the audience of just gamers that would devour a new and a lot more complex Dominion expansion is big enough for the reward making economic sense. I am way off? I get a feeling (which could be completely mistaken) that is mostly your own "moral" reward is not good enough for you to make another one and that an economic argument, while true, is not THE actual obstacle. Is that possible?
You have to factor in opportunity cost though. Instead of designing and playtesting another Dominion expansion, Donald could just make a new game.
That's true although the math is more useful and more accurate if we compare a Dominion spin-off. A Dominion spin-off will probably have a larger audience than a new Dominion expansion. Any random game may well be a dud; I won't have another hit game if I don't make new games, but a Dominion expansion will probably do better than a typical random game. For that matter a typical random game might not even find a publisher.
I don't know what you soulnet mean by "moral" rewards. Economics is for sure not holding me back; if I really want to make another Dominion expansion, I'll make one, and I'm sure it will get published, and I'm sure it won't lose money for RGG. It won't be standing in the way of other games getting made; they'll get in line and I'll get to them.
It makes more sense to make spin-offs, etc. etc., I have gone over this so many times. I may end up making another Dominion expansion, if either I don't manage to make a spin-off, or if there's just some time going by with no new Dominion product, spin-off or otherwise, and the publisher is all, man, it would be good to have another product. I like to be friendly. Dominion expansions are great projects; you play Dominion a lot, with people who do not mind complex cards in the slightest. It was fun playtesting the new promo. But you know, the first 7 expansions covered what I wanted to do, they all stretch back to before the main set was published, they cover the most basic ground. If I had an 8th thing like that it would have come out already. I don't feel obligated to keep making expansions just because it's possible.
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I don't know what you soulnet mean by "moral" rewards.
I meant more or less what you responded. Some sense of personal fulfillment or satisfaction or something like that, hard to quantify.
BTW, is having another hit game a (significant) goal of yours?
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BTW, is having another hit game a (significant) goal of yours?
Well, yes and no. It would be nice to feel like Dominion could stop selling and I'd still be making money. As time goes by it gets easier to feel like Dominion will just keep making money though.
I have to work on stuff I'm able to get work done on, that sounds good to me personally. After that I have to make games that the people I play games with want to play, or the game will never get enough playtesting to go anywhere. If I get a new game we like I'm pleased, and that's an accomplishment right there. After that I can worry about, will anyone want to publish this, if so how do I polish it up with that in mind. Can I make it better for the kind of person who would like it; can I cut components, extend the number of players.
The typical kind of game I make is probably only going to appeal to gamers; I can hope for a Race for the Galaxy level of success, but not a Dominion level. Other games appeal more to casual audiences that I don't know how to reach, but if they find out about the game I might have a hit.
I was expecting Monster Factory to be a hit; I think, if you have kids and see that game, you'll buy it. People have not found out about it yet, although it has gotten a 2nd printing, so it's got more of a chance. Piña Pirata could be a hit, if its audience finds out about it. Greed could be popular among gamers, but for a mass audience there's the problem of "turn 1, read 12 cards; turn 2, read 11."
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I was expecting Monster Factory to be a hit; I think, if you have kids and see that game, you'll buy it. People have not found out about it yet, although it has gotten a 2nd printing, so it's got more of a chance. Piña Pirata could be a hit, if its audience finds out about it. Greed could be popular among gamers, but for a mass audience there's the problem of "turn 1, read 12 cards; turn 2, read 11."
Monster Factory probably needs to be in stores like Target if it wants to reach that kind of audience. Or at least in more Barnes and Noble stores. Or something. Someplace that non-gamer parents and grandparents shop. I don't expect Piña Pirata to be a big hit for similar reasons. Heck, I couldn't even find The Dwarf King or Ghooost! at my local game store. Presumably Piña Pirata will be just as rare.
That's not to say that you shouldn't make those games. Monster Factory is good for at least a few plays even among adults that are not hardcore gamers and I'm very much looking forward to playing Piña Pirata with my extended family. But if publishers want to sell games to kids, it seems like they should figure out a way to make those games visible to them or their parents.
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Monster Factory probably needs to be in stores like Target if it wants to reach that kind of audience. Or at least in more Barnes and Noble stores. Or something. Someplace that non-gamer parents and grandparents shop. I don't expect Piña Pirata to be a big hit for similar reasons. Heck, I couldn't even find The Dwarf King or Ghooost! at my local game store. Presumably Piña Pirata will be just as rare.
That's not to say that you shouldn't make those games. Monster Factory is good for at least a few plays even among adults that are not hardcore gamers and I'm very much looking forward to playing Piña Pirata with my extended family. But if publishers want to sell games to kids, it seems like they should figure out a way to make those games visible to them or their parents.
I think Monster Factory will in fact show up in some store like Barnes and Noble.
I just make whatever games I can, and publishers publish whatever games they want. There is though the in-between step where I decide how much to try to get a game published. Any game that seems like it could be a hit if only its audience found out about it, probably I try to get published. After that it's up to them though.
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Thanks for your reply - all made perfect sense.
I haven't looked at Hearthstone; I know it's some kind of online Magic Lite.
I actually think that it's very interesting from a design point of view. The two things that are most often ascribed to it are:
- It's RNG based
- It's Magic Lite
I would agree to a certain extent with both of these criticisms, however they do obscure what is perhaps more interesting about the game.
Obviously there are lots of ways of considering games, but one I keep coming back to is: how often are you making interesting decisions. In particular the arena mode (where you first pick a class and 30 cards from a choice of 3) presents a high number of interesting decisions per minute, both in the initial pick and during the game. (This is also why I picked up on the coin mechanic, as it massively increases (maybe x2) the number of interesting decisions over the first 3-5 turns). As a game it also has the benefit of appealing to the 'solitaire' player (the type of person that plays 100s of games of card solitaire) and the 'gambler' player.
Where it is perhaps less successful is in allowing the player to understand why and when an decision has been made incorrectly (probably more obscured that Dominion).
There is also no denying that it is a distillation of existing ideas rather than offering something new (like Dominion did).
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As an aside.
Although I realise that the online Dominion is nothing to do with you, I also think it offers a clear insight into the (arguable) failing of this version. Far more than the interface (which is fine) or the reliability (which is more questionable), Goko fails to offer a viable reward loop - or to put it a game layer on top of the game to make the free to play model work. Thus it fails to appeal to one player archetype. By failing on matchmaking it fails to deliver to another archetype. And the adventure mode - the first time I played that I thought 'if this was my first experience of Dominion I would think it's a terrible game'!
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Anyway thanks for taking the time to answer my question!
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Although I realise that the online Dominion is nothing to do with you, I also think it offers a clear insight into the (arguable) failing of this version. Far more than the interface (which is fine) or the reliability (which is more questionable), Goko fails to offer a viable reward loop - or to put it a game layer on top of the game to make the free to play model work. Thus it fails to appeal to one player archetype. By failing on matchmaking it fails to deliver to another archetype. And the adventure mode - the first time I played that I thought 'if this was my first experience of Dominion I would think it's a terrible game'!
Well I specifically don't want online Dominion to be a Skinner box game.
The plan is certainly to have matchmaking and to fix the adventures. There is also a plan to add achievements, which would provide a certain amount of reward for a certain kind of player.
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I just make whatever games I can, and publishers publish whatever games they want. There is though the in-between step where I decide how much to try to get a game published. Any game that seems like it could be a hit if only its audience found out about it, probably I try to get published. After that it's up to them though.
Sure, I knew all that. It was a criticism of the publisers and stores, not of the designer. Although I'm sure Rio Grande cannot just say, "Hey Target, stock this game," so I guess I'm just lamenting the system. The best you personally can do is try to show games to the kind of publishers that will be able to get those games in front of their intended audiences, which I'm sure you already try to do.
I think Monster Factory will in fact show up in some store like Barnes and Noble.
Excellent news. I hope it takes off!
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Although I realise that the online Dominion is nothing to do with you, I also think it offers a clear insight into the (arguable) failing of this version. Far more than the interface (which is fine) or the reliability (which is more questionable), Goko fails to offer a viable reward loop - or to put it a game layer on top of the game to make the free to play model work. Thus it fails to appeal to one player archetype. By failing on matchmaking it fails to deliver to another archetype. And the adventure mode - the first time I played that I thought 'if this was my first experience of Dominion I would think it's a terrible game'!
Well I specifically don't want online Dominion to be a Skinner box game.
Well that got me thinking!
Aren't many (most?) aspects of games in some way based around a Skinner box concept? Only some are more or less exploitative. And some are more or less interesting.
For example one (of many) reward loops in Dominion:
Start a game to see what interesting card combinations you get -> hypothesise on what is likely to work effectively (or even just be interesting) -> see how those theories (and your ability to theorise them correctly) materialise in one possible permutation of a game -> Start a game to see what...
And some times it may branch off into -> buy new expansion to have different and new card combinations
It would seem to me that this is arguably an interesting and (largely) non-exploitative version of the Skinner Box analogy (although I accept that the Skinner box may no longer be the appropriate term, especially when considering aspects of conditioning etc.). But equally if you were a hyper-integent being, might this type of loop be to them, what slot machines are to us?
That being said I would accept that games like hearthstone (and Magic and Poker) are more exploitative in the integration of money into a reward loop than Dominion (certainly in board game form). However no where near the extent of farmville-likes or some MMOs.
The plan is certainly to have matchmaking and to fix the adventures. There is also a plan to add achievements, which would provide a certain amount of reward for a certain kind of player.
This all sound good, however, the reason I actually raised the online game in the previous post, is I actually think there is an opportunity to create a really interesting game (shell) within which to play to play online dominion (a good example of this kind of relationship include the pairing of the campaign mode in Total War to its RTS battles, or to some extent the arena mode in hearthstone), as apposed to the misunderstood quasi-not free to play model (but based on free-to-play mechanics) that currently exists.
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Aren't many (most?) aspects of games in some way based around a Skinner box concept? Only some are more or less exploitative. And some are more or less interesting.
No, they aren't.
Periodically on BGG someone will make a thread asking what ameritrash games are, as distinct from euros, and people will trot out their definitions. When I trot out mine, it's:
Euros are about having fun with a game.
Ameritrash is about having fun with your friends.
War games are about not having fun.
I have nothing against war games, I just have the third thing to be more entertaining.
It's funny because it's true. Euros really are about having fun with a game, exploring a particular playground for the mind, solving puzzles, fighting the board. Ameritrash really is about the social aspect above other things, hanging out with your pals, having novel experiences together. Many games don't uniquely categorize as one or the other and well let's get back on track here.
Games are about having fun. One way or another.
Skinner boxes aren't about having fun.
If you reduce life to "everything is a Skinner box and what does fun even mean" then the term is no longer doing any work for you; we need a new term to talk about the recognizable subset we're actually interested in. Let's use "Skinner box" for that subset; we've got the term already and everything. So then, no, most games aren't Skinner boxes, most games aren't Skinner boxes at all.
Now then. I said "Skinner box game" to communicate "one of those games, you know which ones I mean;" it's an existing term used by other people talking about video games, to talk about certain kinds of games. I was referring to those games, not looking for a new way to talk about games that would involve the Skinner box concept. I didn't want Dominion to be "one of those games." I detest those games. You know the ones I mean.
Some people who wanted to make online Dominion wanted to make it Farmville. I didn't want that, Jay didn't want that. Jay went with some people who weren't going to do that, and then they still wanted Farmville. They didn't get it. The current guys won't either. We are fine with making money, but we are not looking to leech all utility out of transactions with our fans. We like our fans. Let's all share that utility.
Online Dominion doesn't have to be a "Skinner box game" to have a more sensible way of paying for the online version. You could just pay by the month. The servers aren't free; the game keeps you playing by being fun, but it doesn't keep you paying once you've bought all the cards. As you note, it's set up like it's going to be free-to-play-but-if-possible-we-bleed-you-dry, and that's not actually what we're doing. So it's not a great set-up.
This all sound good, however, the reason I actually raised the online game in the previous post, is I actually think there is an opportunity to create a really interesting game (shell) within which to play to play online dominion (a good example of this kind of relationship include the pairing of the campaign mode in Total War to its RTS battles, or to some extent the arena mode in hearthstone), as apposed to the misunderstood quasi-not free to play model (but based on free-to-play mechanics) that currently exists.
Well feel free to outline somewhere exactly what you'd like to see in online Dominion. The Making Fun guys may well be interested.
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Was their notion of "Farmville Dominion" having you build a Kingdom and unlocking certain cards after a number of "achievements". Like, you know, build a moat around your Castle to be able to use the Moat card.
"Come visit my Kingdom and water my grape vines. I need to build a Vineyards!"
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I don't think ta56636 was referring to Farmville-style mechanics or a pay-to-win system: what he meant is, a really successful single-player game rewards the player through a positive feedback loop. For example: in an RPG, success means your character keeps leveling up and gains access to more powerful things, allowing you to experience even more success.
One way you might be able to simulate this on Goko is an alternative Celestial Chameleon game mode. Pick X cards from a group of Y, and then you get 5 turns to score as much as you can, trying to beat an AI. Success means you unlock additional cards that you can include in your deck. This avoids issues of pay-to-win but also lets people pay for something if they want it.
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I've seen you say many times that you would much rather create a Dominion spin-off at this point rather than another expansion. What sort of ideas/mechanics would qualify as a spin-off? Have you already created spin-offs that you either killed off or would consider releasing after further refinement?
Feel free to just post a link if you've answered these questions before (or elaborate more and reveal your secret dominion plans).
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Have you already created spin-offs that you either killed off or would consider releasing after further refinement?
Feel free to just post a link if you've answered these questions before (or elaborate more and reveal your secret dominion plans).
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg165021#msg165021
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I don't think ta56636 was referring to Farmville-style mechanics or a pay-to-win system: what he meant is, a really successful single-player game rewards the player through a positive feedback loop. For example: in an RPG, success means your character keeps leveling up and gains access to more powerful things, allowing you to experience even more success.
Exactly. I was also probing whether it is possible to make a philosophical leap between different types of 'reward' loop behaviour.
Well feel free to outline somewhere exactly what you'd like to see in online Dominion. The Making Fun guys may well be interested.
How can I resist that? To quote a quote from my Facebook feed this morning "The absence of proper research, however, need not stop us ..." (ie. I know I don't really know what I'm talking about.)
That said: It's really tempting to look at what you should do now (e.g. delete adventure mode, remove game lobbies, etc. etc.)
However I think it's actually more interesting to think what would you want the final product to look like.
Off the top of my head I'd be aiming for something like:
Casual Play (including vs. AI, Friends and predetermined kingdoms)
Ranked Play
and maybe one other well crafted game mode
Crucially beyond that (and I look at the dominion community - and I see an absurd amount of programming talent per capita), and I'd be focusing very heavily on enabling user generated content (be it new game modes, new cards, tournament structures, complete game overhauls etc.) that then could be sold with the developer and the creator taking a cut each.
Within this I'd be looking at:
A total cost of around £10-£15 for paid content
An iPad/android version (mainly to finance the above)
Rotating 'free' cards (like league of legends free heroes) to enable a taste for all players beyond the base game
An exist strategy (one of the main reasons I haven't bought more than a couple of expansions in Goko, is that I simply don't trust that one day in the not too distant future it simply won't be there)
Pie in the sky: probably. But then we can all dream...
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Was their notion of "Farmville Dominion" having you build a Kingdom and unlocking certain cards after a number of "achievements". Like, you know, build a moat around your Castle to be able to use the Moat card.
"Come visit my Kingdom and water my grape vines. I need to build a Vineyards!"
I don't know what the details were for the earlier guys, just that they wanted to make a micropayments game of some sort with the Dominion brand. For Goko you can at least see that they had the idea that somehow zaps would make money, despite making their existence unpleasant and not charging money for them.
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I guess they wanted to make something similar to Catan World (which was their take on Settlers of Catan, probably Settlers' publisher didn't stop them and what they created was awful even compared to Settlers).
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I don't think ta56636 was referring to Farmville-style mechanics or a pay-to-win system: what he meant is, a really successful single-player game rewards the player through a positive feedback loop. For example: in an RPG, success means your character keeps leveling up and gains access to more powerful things, allowing you to experience even more success.
I was referring to Farmville though, prior to being called upon to discuss Skinner boxes. "Positive feedback" isn't the same thing as "Skinner box." I like building up my guy, but in say Fallout 3, I'm having novel experiences the whole way; I'm exploring different places and doing different things and even building up my guy differently. I'm not being conditioned to press the lever at intervals or stay out of the left half of the box. I will learn things about the game world that will keep coming up - kill that particular monster from a distance - but really, no connection to Skinner boxes.
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I've seen you say many times that you would much rather create a Dominion spin-off at this point rather than another expansion. What sort of ideas/mechanics would qualify as a spin-off? Have you already created spin-offs that you either killed off or would consider releasing after further refinement?
Feel free to just post a link if you've answered these questions before (or elaborate more and reveal your secret dominion plans).
The first spin-off turned into Kingdom Builder. The second spin-off, minus the deckbuilding, is a game that's coming out this year. It hasn't been announced yet but for sure it is coming. I am pretty pleased with it and have made an expansion that obv. will only come out if the game is successful enough.
Keeping the deckbuilding in is apparently a problem for me. I don't want to have it just to have it; it has to be better to keep it.
Originally I thought the spin-offs would be like, it's Dominion but there's a board and you have ships on it that sail around, so now there can be "+1 Move" and stuff. And the board always matters so it's not like an expansion where we would set up the board and then not buy that card, or have the issue that the cards got better when more than one was out. That all sounded easy and good. And I guess it's still on the table if I get desperate.
At this point a lot of people have made "it's just Dominion but with a little extra" so that's not so compelling anymore. Now I feel like the spin-off has to be more different. To qualify as a spin-off, you will have a deck that you build during the game; the rest is up in the air.
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Exactly. I was also probing whether it is possible to make a philosophical leap between different types of 'reward' loop behaviour.
You're just saying that because of the tiny thrill each completed post gives you.
That said: It's really tempting to look at what you should do now (e.g. delete adventure mode, remove game lobbies, etc. etc.)
I don't see any beauty to deleting adventure mode. The existing adventures suck, but plenty of people would enjoy playing sets of games vs. bots with pre-chosen sets-of-10. Obv. the lobbies should go, replaced by a matchmaking system as proposed in another thread.
Crucially beyond that (and I look at the dominion community - and I see an absurd amount of programming talent per capita), and I'd be focusing very heavily on enabling user generated content (be it new game modes, new cards, tournament structures, complete game overhauls etc.) that then could be sold with the developer and the creator taking a cut each.
They are eager to enable user-generated content, but do not be hoping for user-generated cards.
An iPad/android version (mainly to finance the above)
They certainly want that.
Rotating 'free' cards (like league of legends free heroes) to enable a taste for all players beyond the base game
All cards are rotating free if you consider that you can play against another human who has cards you don't. I sprinkled in some other-set cards into a few of the fixed adventures, including the main set one (which everyone has access to). Having a free card-of-the-week or something has been proposed.
An exist strategy (one of the main reasons I haven't bought more than a couple of expansions in Goko, is that I simply don't trust that one day in the not too distant future it simply won't be there)
The only exit strategy on the table currently is potentially having the option to pay by the month.
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I guess they wanted to make something similar to Catan World (which was their take on Settlers of Catan, probably Settlers' publisher didn't stop them and what they created was awful even compared to Settlers).
I should be clear that by "earlier guys" I meant guys who never worked on online Dominion.
Other people wanted to make online Dominion; Jay had to pick guys to go with. One group that was in the running wanted to make some kind of Farmville Dominion. Jay did not go with them. He went with Goko, who wanted the game to work on every platform ever.
Goko then also wanted some kind of micropayment thing. Perhaps partly because we weren't interested, and partly due to not thinking it through, what they ended up with was no fun and could not make money.
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Exactly. I was also probing whether it is possible to make a philosophical leap between different types of 'reward' loop behaviour.
You're just saying that because of the tiny thrill each completed post gives you.
I have clearly offended you - I apologise for that, it was not my intent.
I'll make one final post on the subject to try and clarify what I was trying to say and then leave it.
In Diablo II (a game not dissimilar to Fallout 3), you could argue that you are conditioned to expect meaningful loot when you kill a monster (normally by repeatedly clicking). At the start of the game this happens every few minutes. As the game progresses the intervals become longer and longer, and yet you keep clicking. Obviously there are many more levels to it then that (and of course the world exploration and game mechanics make a more complex scenario), but I still believe there is a underlying comparison to the skinner box.
I'm not sure where I went wrong in this discussion, and how it became so sour, but I will try and work it out. :)
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You've talked a lot about why spin-offs are better than more expansions, but not much about the other way around. Let's take your example of Dominion-with-a-Board, or DWAB. Although the board gives you new things to do, presumably a lot of the old things are still valid. In theory, this means that you'd just be reusing a bunch of card effects from Dominion. Smithy, for instance, is strongly likely to make an appearance.
Maybe I'm wrong. If nothing else, I suppose the cost system could be wholly different. You may get rid of the restrictions on Actions or Buys. That would severely reduce the number of cards you could make, but they would be supplemented by the new board-based effects.
The other thing is that it just seems to me that you already made a deck-building game. All your other released/announced games are very different from Dominion and from each other.
As someone who already plays mostly with 2 sets at a time, I'm biased, but personally I'd rather see more expansions like Alchemy that need/want multiple cards out at once. Sure, part of the beauty of Dominion is being able to combine everything, but if that's standing in the way of creating more Dominion experiences, then maybe it's not worth mandating.
One possibility is combining the ideas of "spin-off" and "expansion". Released under a name like Dominion Advanced, they could require that you use at least X Advanced cards, but you could also mix them with your existing Dominion sets. You could even require that players already own Dominion; it's popular enough.
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You're just saying that because of the tiny thrill each completed post gives you.
I have clearly offended you - I apologise for that, it was not my intent.
I was just being hilarious dude. If you spelled apologize with a z you would never think I'd been offended there. (I am saying that Americans are rude (it's either that, or I'm some kind of monster).)
In Diablo II (a game not dissimilar to Fallout 3), you could argue that you are conditioned to expect meaningful loot when you kill a monster (normally by repeatedly clicking). At the start of the game this happens every few minutes. As the game progresses the intervals become longer and longer, and yet you keep clicking. Obviously there are many more levels to it then that (and of course the world exploration and game mechanics make a more complex scenario), but I still believe there is a underlying comparison to the skinner box.
I don't think Diablo II is much like Fallout 3. Diablo II is much more repetitive. A huge part of the joy of Fallout 3 is exploring the world; Diablo II just does not compare there.
I played a game of Fallout 3 in which I mostly didn't even take loot from monsters. I decided to play as a mute guy. The horrors of the wasteland struck me dumb. So, I couldn't go to stores, I couldn't go on quests that required talking to someone. I couldn't get a house; all I could have was what I could carry. At some point most loot is useless. There's no point opening that toolbox, seeing what that ghoul was carrying; I'm not taking it. I didn't stop killing the ghouls that crossed my path; I wasn't killing them for the loot. No Skinner box whatsoever. You can try pointing at the experience you get for killing them, but I was never eagerly waiting for that next level, plus you eventually hit a level cap and are not looking to rush that.
(Eventually I looked at a tape about the missing android, and after that a woman would periodically run up to me to talk about the android. She forces you to talk to her and is unkillable. So I had to run away from her. I was stalked across the wasteland by this woman.)
Diablo II has elements of a Skinner box game, to use the term people use. Those elements make it a worse game; I went back to Fallout 3, I didn't go back to Diablo II. I'm not in it for the grinding.
In general intervals don't really become longer in RPG-type games. I don't have specific data on Diablo II here. But you know. The RPG thing. You're level one and fight goblins; later you're level ten and fighting giants. The battles are different but similar; the fights scale to your level. It's as hard to kill the typical high level monster when you're high level as it was to kill the typical low level monster when you were low level. You get a longer fight by fighting something above your level, or a boss.
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You've talked a lot about why spin-offs are better than more expansions, but not much about the other way around.
The advantage an expansion has over Dominion is that you can combine it with Dominion. You already have so much of that that that isn't swaying me. That that that.
Let's take your example of Dominion-with-a-Board, or DWAB. Although the board gives you new things to do, presumably a lot of the old things are still valid. In theory, this means that you'd just be reusing a bunch of card effects from Dominion. Smithy, for instance, is strongly likely to make an appearance.
The potential deckbuilding games I've worked on so far have not reused much from Dominion.
Any game with cards will have certain things that overlap - there are cards you draw and so a card can draw cards. Smithy is in lots of games. At the same time I try to focus on whatever is unique to that game, to do the new things that are possible, to do the classic effects that don't always work. A good example is "Return a card from your discard pile to your hand." It's a Magic staple but doesn't make sense for most games. So, when it does make sense, I go for it.
Anyway that isn't an issue; I am not looking at making a deckbuilding game with a huge card-mix overlap with Dominion.
Maybe I'm wrong. If nothing else, I suppose the cost system could be wholly different. You may get rid of the restrictions on Actions or Buys. That would severely reduce the number of cards you could make, but they would be supplemented by the new board-based effects.
The way to think of deckbuilding is, it's like a tableau, but with reduced complexity, because you aren't staring at all of it all the time. A tableau, like the cards you spread out in front of you in Race for the Galaxy / San Juan. You have a bunch of abilities and as it happens you shuffle them together.
Are tableau games stuck being clones of Race for the Galaxy? They aren't.
The other thing is that it just seems to me that you already made a deck-building game. All your other released/announced games are very different from Dominion and from each other.
I don't know what you mean by this. Yes I already made one. And publishers and fans would like another one.
As someone who already plays mostly with 2 sets at a time, I'm biased, but personally I'd rather see more expansions like Alchemy that need/want multiple cards out at once. Sure, part of the beauty of Dominion is being able to combine everything, but if that's standing in the way of creating more Dominion experiences, then maybe it's not worth mandating.
Enough people didn't like that that it doesn't make sense to do it. I should do something else, that isn't known to have issues.
You see this a lot on Mark Rosewater's blog. People say over and over how they want to return to Kamigawa. It was an unpopular setting so they are not returning there. It makes no sense to return there. Having fans doesn't change the fact that some other thing would have more fans.
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I see you've mentioned Fallout 3 a few times...are you a fan of the Elder Scrolls games at all? I absolutely loved Morrowind, Oblivion not as much. Skyrim is really fun and beautiful, but it feels like it doesn't have quite the same "depth" as its predecessors.
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I see you've mentioned Fallout 3 a few times...are you a fan of the Elder Scrolls games at all? I absolutely loved Morrowind, Oblivion not as much. Skyrim is really fun and beautiful, but it feels like it doesn't have quite the same "depth" as its predecessors.
Skyrim has less variety in terms of locations, but you didnt like Oblivion? Those Oblivion gates are lots of fun and interesting, and the locations are pretty varied and have lots of interactivity.
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I'm gonna disagree with you, those Oblivion gates annoyed the hell out of me after a while. And I found the locations to be quite bland compared with Morrowind. Morrowind was this trippy otherworldly realm with ashlands and wizard towers and houses made from insect carapaces...Oblivion was like, a European forest, and a slightly more northerly European forest.
I know a lot of people liked Oblivion though. It did have some memorable scenes, like that murder mystery, and going inside the oil painting. However it was my least favorite of the three I've played.
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I'm gonna disagree with you, those Oblivion gates annoyed the hell out of me after a while. And I found the locations to be quite bland compared with Morrowind. Morrowind was this trippy otherworldly realm with ashlands and wizard towers and houses made from insect carapaces...Oblivion was like, a European forest, and a slightly more northerly European forest.
I know a lot of people liked Oblivion though. It did have some memorable scenes, like that murder mystery, and going inside the oil painting. However it was my least favorite of the three I've played.
But Skyrim locations are essentially one of three things. Undead, Bandits or Dwarven ruins (which are no where near as fun as the aylid ruins). Yeah the gates dragged on bit too far, but at the same time they were unique and I kind of missed them in the end when they disappear. Also the Shivering Isles were a lot of fun.
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I see you've mentioned Fallout 3 a few times...are you a fan of the Elder Scrolls games at all? I absolutely loved Morrowind, Oblivion not as much. Skyrim is really fun and beautiful, but it feels like it doesn't have quite the same "depth" as its predecessors.
I've only played Oblivion and Skyrim.
Walking around in both games is fun. In Skyrim when you pick a flower, it shows that you picked it; in Oblivion, the flowers look better. Skyrim maybe gets the edge here; it gets a lot out of its environment premise.
In both games, dungeons are not as good as wilderness. They are just too repetitive. They kind of tried to address this in Skyrim but it's still true, except that one place, that was cool. The Oblivion planes are cool very very briefly, then crazy repetitive. For a 2nd play-through, just never do anything on the main quest, and so much for that nonsense.
Combat in both games is bad. You have had the experience almost immediately. I would recommend that they try something drastically different there next time, or make a game with no combat.
Both games have bad interface problems. Oblivion is mostly okay but man you could do with a better way to sell stuff. In Skyrim you are horribly punished for wanting to make potions. And unreadable perk trees, what's up with that. Oh they're so pretty and awful.
It's cool that the world scales to meet your level, once you know about it. It's bad when you don't know about it, and they could have been clearer there. But you know, you will not see everything in your first play-through of Oblivion. You can start over, teleport to a random town you haven't hung out in, and be a 1st level adventurer there; you aren't stuck playing the easy areas, they are all easy. The way you get better at skills works well for some skills, not so well for others. I don't want the game telling me to just randomly cast light spells a lot so my illusion skill can go up.
They did a poor job on the perks in Skyrim, even ignoring the interface, but it's still nicer to have them than not.
Overall I enjoyed both games, would play another. Not an MMO, but a real game, sure. Shivering Isles was fun, it was sad that the main plot was so much like the Oblivion gates, and the dungeons again get real repetitive real fast, but the giant mushrooms keep you entertained for the duration. I haven't played any DLC.
Fallout 3 is a step up in almost all respects. Combat is not great but still way better. Exploring the world is great. The dungeons get repetitive, especially the ruined subways, but they stay entertaining for longer; like, this is just another vault, but they each have a gimmick. Building up your guy is more fun; the perks are way better (though still room for improvement there). The interface has no major problems, wtf. You don't get to pick flowers but well you can't have everything.
Fallout 3: New Vegas, sans DLC, sucks. The world sucks, that's the biggest thing. It just has so little to offer you.
I didn't try New Vegas until you could get a version with all the DLC. The first expansion, uh the hotel one, the environment outside is cute, would have made a nice section of F:NV, but the hotel is dull and overall it's not great. The second expansion, the canyon one, is very scenic and overall entertaining. The third expansion, the mad scientist crater, is fantastic, just fantastic. The fourth expansion, the uh bridge over the wasteland, is okay. So, to make New Vegas good, they could have combined all the DLC, focused on the mad scientist crater as the centerpiece, maybe a third of the map, had a nice section of canyon, another third, stuck the hotel outside area in a corner as one dungeon why not, had the 4th DLC as a subplot, and just had as little content from the actual New Vegas as possible.
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I actually love New Vegas. I like the smaller locations, and the big ones were unique. This is my opinion though and many people disagree. I also liked the more settlements in the world. the perks were 100% better than Fallout 3. Fallout 3 basically had perks that increased your skills. New Vegas perks allowed you to create characters that specialized in certain areas. From a design perspective, the perks and level system was way better in Fallout: NV than Fallout 3. Also there were way more quests and the creatures essentially didn't level up with you at all. Deathclaws are Deathclaws, Super mutants have a few variations. but they appear at nearly every stage of the game, so you actually have to avoid areas when you're weak which I also really liked.
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I actually love New Vegas. I like the smaller locations, and the big ones were unique. This is my opinion though and many people disagree. I also liked the more settlements in the world. the perks were 100% better than Fallout 3. Fallout 3 basically had perks that increased your skills. New Vegas perks allowed you to create characters that specialized in certain areas. From a design perspective, the perks and level system was way better in Fallout: NV than Fallout 3. Also there were way more quests and the creatures essentially didn't level up with you at all. Deathclaws are Deathclaws, Super mutants have a few variations. but they appear at nearly every stage of the game, so you actually have to avoid areas when you're weak which I also really liked.
You do notice the lack of stores in Fallout 3, especially if you were hoping to not just teleport around. Rivet City is in the corner; man, I guess I'm teleporting.
My memory of New Vegas deathclaws was, you stand on a rock, you shoot the deathclaw, it runs away, you get off the rock, it runs towards you, you get on the rock, you shoot it. The deathclaws in Fallout 3 were better, they mauled you.
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I actually love New Vegas. I like the smaller locations, and the big ones were unique. This is my opinion though and many people disagree. I also liked the more settlements in the world. the perks were 100% better than Fallout 3. Fallout 3 basically had perks that increased your skills. New Vegas perks allowed you to create characters that specialized in certain areas. From a design perspective, the perks and level system was way better in Fallout: NV than Fallout 3. Also there were way more quests and the creatures essentially didn't level up with you at all. Deathclaws are Deathclaws, Super mutants have a few variations. but they appear at nearly every stage of the game, so you actually have to avoid areas when you're weak which I also really liked.
You do notice the lack of stores in Fallout 3, especially if you were hoping to not just teleport around. Rivet City is in the corner; man, I guess I'm teleporting.
My memory of New Vegas deathclaws was, you stand on a rock, you shoot the deathclaw, it runs away, you get off the rock, it runs towards you, you get on the rock, you shoot it. The deathclaws in Fallout 3 were better, they mauled you.
Well they maul you in NV too. Just that after Fallout 3 you figure out how to break their game. You can do the same trick in F3 to avoid getting hit by deathclaws. NV had the caves with alpha female deathclaws that you couldn't hop away from. They mauled you so fast you were unsure of what just happened.
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Donald, surely at some point you considered having a card raise costs or have a card interact with the bottom of your deck. Did you ever have any success along those lines? Did you ever reach a point where you decided they just couldn't work, and if so what is the hurdle as you see it?
Edit: other than pearl diver. You know, success :-p
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Donald, surely at some point you considered having a card raise costs or have a card interact with the bottom of your deck. Did you ever have any success along those lines? Did you ever reach a point where you decided they just couldn't work, and if so what is the hurdle as you see it?
Edit: other than pearl diver. You know, success :-p
When you have multiple cards that interact with the top, they can interact with each other. The same applies to the bottom, but because it's wonkier, there will be fewer of those cards, so it's less likely you will see those interactions. So, there's not much point to doing much with it. So I never did much with the bottom, and you can quote me out of context on that.
Stash originally went on top rather than letting you choose, and at the same time there was a VP card that went on the bottom. I also had a version of Pearl Diver that had you look at the bottom and choose to put it on top or not.
Tax Collector from Seaside was "cards cost $1 less this turn, then $1 more until your next turn." It turned into Cutpurse, because Valerie didn't like that the timing on the duration was different there (the rule was that a card stayed out until the end of the last turn it did something, but Valerie didn't like that that turn was a different turn than usual for Tax Collector). These days I probably wouldn't make it due to anticipating people hating it. I considered tokens that changed pile costs, put on piles ala Embargo, put Trade Route used up the space of putting coin tokens on piles, so it would need to be a new kind of token, so it never looked that good. I also considered a rules-changing card like Baker - "In games using this" - that would change the cost of one basic pile. It was on the table for the promo but I didn't do one of those.
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I also had a version of Pearl Diver that had you look at the bottom and choose to put it on top or not.
This is the published version of Pearl Diver. Or by "or not" you mean something else? Like, the option of discarding instead of leaving on the bottom, would be too powerful? It would self-synergize a lot more.
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I also had a version of Pearl Diver that had you look at the bottom and choose to put it on top or not.
This is the published version of Pearl Diver. Or by "or not" you mean something else? Like, the option of discarding instead of leaving on the bottom, would be too powerful? It would self-synergize a lot more.
Or maybe put it on top before the draw.
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It's possible that he means the published version, i.e., he's saying he already made pearl diver.
In any case, I think a version of pearl diver that can discard the bottom card of your deck or put it on top would probably not be too powerful. Did you ever test that, Donald?
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I also had a version of Pearl Diver that had you look at the bottom and choose to put it on top or not.
This is the published version of Pearl Diver. Or by "or not" you mean something else? Like, the option of discarding instead of leaving on the bottom, would be too powerful? It would self-synergize a lot more.
Oops sorry, I meant the other way. Look at top, may put it on bottom. I also had, take the top and the bottom, put one on top and one on the bottom. I did not test versions that involved discarding one of the cards.
There's probably room there for another card, but I had Pearl Diver, and it's no star, so it's not like I was looking to do something especially similar.
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I was just being hilarious dude. If you spelled apologize with a z you would never think I'd been offended there. (I am saying that Americans are rude (it's either that, or I'm some kind of monster).)
Oh - that's good :)
Hopefully one last less controversial question. Which do you think is more skilful 2 player or 3 player dominion? Do you ever think people get a bit blinkered by only considering cards in the 2 player game?
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Hopefully one last less controversial question. Which do you think is more skilful 2 player or 3 player dominion? Do you ever think people get a bit blinkered by only considering cards in the 2 player game?
Well skill matters more with 2 players, obviously. That doesn't mean there's less skill with 3 players, it just matters less - more games will be decided (relative to you) by luck. This may be tricky but you know, skill and luck aren't opposed, as previously discussed somewhere.
I don't know if uh, if the amount of things to learn to be maximally good at 3-player Dominion is more or less than that for 2-player Dominion (I hope that's a clear enough way to put it). I would guess that it's more.
There's no concern with only looking at cards as they play in 2-player games, if you only play 2-player games. For sure many cards play differently as you vary the number of players.
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Do you ever feel like one of those 80s bands that attempts a come back tour in the 2000's and go through their new album.
But really everyone just wants them to play thier classics.
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Do you ever feel like one of those 80s bands that attempts a come back tour in the 2000's and go through their new album.
But really everyone just wants them to play thier classics.
I don't. And for the record I like Indie Cindy. Greens & Blues and What Goes Boom are both great. I think way too many people are rating their disapproval of Black Francis using the band name rather than judging how good the music is. I don't mind what he calls the band. Doolittle is one of his best albums, but not the best; that's easily Teenager of the Year. And the idea that Indie Cindy is somehow embarrassing next to Bossanova is preposterous.
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Sorry, I could google the reference but I only listen to Bon Jovi or Prince
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Sorry, I could google the reference but I only listen to Bon Jovi or Prince
And Prince only listens to Prince. But what does Bon Jovi listen to?
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Sorry, I could google the reference but I only listen to Bon Jovi or Prince
And Prince only listens to Prince. But what does Bon Jovi listen to?
¥
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Donald, do you ever play Dominion on Goko?
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Donald, do you ever play Dominion on Goko?
Yes, there were a couple months when I stopped due to it no longer working on my system except in Firefox, but it's reverted to being what would be my go-to small-amount-of-time diversion on the computer except that after one game I am usually sick of the lag.
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Is it possible to know your username then?
So that thing could happen one day:
(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img839/2236/mlwm.png)
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Is it possible to know your username then?
So that thing could happen one day:
(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img839/2236/mlwm.png)
Last I saw him on, he had the very boring "Donald Vaccarino" as his username. I mean, I suppose that could have been an imposter, but I don't think so.
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Is it possible to know your username then?
So that thing could happen one day:
(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img839/2236/mlwm.png)
Last I saw him on, he had the very boring "Donald Vaccarino" as his username. I mean, I suppose that could have been an imposter, but I don't think so.
That could have been me....
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Donald X and Ozle being the same person would actually explain a lot.
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Donald X and Ozle being the same person would actually explain a lot.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5014.msg121140#msg121140
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Is it possible to know your username then?
On online Dominion I am Donald X., and I have already played AdamH due to him asking in this thread, so your chances aren't bad.
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Donald X and Ozle being the same person would actually explain a lot.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5014.msg121140#msg121140
Makes sense given that we're all actually WanderingWinder
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Donald X and Ozle being the same person would actually explain a lot.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5014.msg121140#msg121140
Makes sense given that we're all actually WanderingWinder
We are actually all /u/karmanaut oops wrong website
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Donald X and Ozle being the same person would actually explain a lot.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5014.msg121140#msg121140
Makes sense given that we're all actually WanderingWinder
Speak for myself.
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While waiting for Piña Pirata, I picked up The Dwarf King by Bruno Faidutti. It seems like the kind of game you would make if you were to make a trick-taking card game. It has quite a bit of variety, using 1 out of 14 special cards and 1 out of 40 scoring goals each hand.
Have you ever made a trick-taking game, or are they not really your thing?
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While waiting for Piña Pirata, I picked up The Dwarf King by Bruno Faidutti. It seems like the kind of game you would make if you were to make a trick-taking card game. It has quite a bit of variety, using 1 out of 14 special cards and 1 out of 40 scoring goals each hand.
Have you ever made a trick-taking game, or are they not really your thing?
I've made a dozen or so simple ones. I haven't seriously pursued any of them. The one I remember as the most interesting was Rook to King's Five. You deal 8 cards to each player and 8 cards face up, from a 40-card deck. You take turns; on your turn you play onto one of the cards as if playing on a trick. The face up card is the led card. If you are now winning the trick you played on, you move it to in front of you to track that. You can play on any trick with less than 5 cards, but once you've picked a trick to play on you have to follow suit if possible. And there's uh a trump suit and it's a normal trick-taking game otherwise. I only played that one twice but it sounds worth pursuing. You can also have people lead tricks that are resolved right then the normal way, but you lead your choice of one of 8 face up cards. Those are both pretty unusual; the others were more conventional.
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Have you made any games other than Piña Pirata that use the "Suit Deck"? Seems like it could be an interesting deck for a poker-style game.
Some 5-card hands, almost certainly not in order of rarity:
Pair (the same suit twice)
Two pair
Triplets (the same suit three times)
Three pair
3-Cycle (1-2, 2-3, and 3-1)
Four-of-a-kind
Four pair
Two triplets
Five-of-a-kind
4-Cycle
Family (no suit appears in your hand exactly once)
Loners (5 solitary cards)
Grand Cycle (1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-1)
Menagerie (all 10 suits appear in your hand)
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Have you made any games other than Piña Pirata that use the "Suit Deck"? Seems like it could be an interesting deck for a poker-style game.
I had big plans to but never did. It seems like it has potential. Of course some people do play versions of traditional card games using dominoes.
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Have you made any games other than Piña Pirata that use the "Suit Deck"? Seems like it could be an interesting deck for a poker-style game.
I had big plans to but never did. It seems like it has potential. Of course some people do play versions of traditional card games using dominoes.
As it turns out, Bicycle makes a deck of double nine domino playing cards. (http://www.bicyclecards.com/products/playing-card/bicycle-double-nine-domino-deck) Neat.
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Have you made any games other than Piña Pirata that use the "Suit Deck"? Seems like it could be an interesting deck for a poker-style game.
I had big plans to but never did. It seems like it has potential. Of course some people do play versions of traditional card games using dominoes.
As it turns out, Bicycle makes a deck of double nine domino playing cards. (http://www.bicyclecards.com/products/playing-card/bicycle-double-nine-domino-deck) Neat.
Maybe an aspect ratio of 1:2 would feel weird when held in hand, but I suspect they didn't want to spend the extra money on special card stock. The result looks a bit disappointing.
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As it turns out, Bicycle makes a deck of double nine domino playing cards. (http://www.bicyclecards.com/products/playing-card/bicycle-double-nine-domino-deck) Neat.
Maybe an aspect ratio of 1:2 would feel weird when held in hand, but I suspect they didn't want to spend the extra money on special card stock. The result looks a bit disappointing.
Um, sure, if you actually want to play dominoes with them. I'm just interested in playing/inventing card games that use that kind of deck. It's way cheaper than a Double Fanucci deck (https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/deluxe-fanucci-deck-4.2).
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Not sure if this has been asked earlier (this thread is quite long): The Intrigue rules offer a way to play up to 6-player Dominion, but caution against it because of the downtime between turns, and the base game already recognized that things should change slightly depending on number of players, i.e. 8-card Victory piles for 2 players. Did you originally envision Dominion primarily as a game for a table full of players, or did you see the 2-player/competitive scene coming?
Also along the lines of variations, did you think people would mostly design their own kingdoms, or play random ones, like Goko's pro mode?
How did those expectations affect playtesting, if at all? Did you play about the same amount of games with each variant, or weigh towards what you thought would be most commonly played?
Last question: If the common variants did turn out different from what you expected, are there any cards that you look back on and think, "Maybe this card would be different if I had known which way people were mostly going to play this game?"
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It's thoroughly applaudable you initially worded chancellor and other such cards the way you did and subsequently had no problem printing tunnel as we know it now, but were there any cards or design ideas you had to abandon because you weren't as careful in some other cases?
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Not sure if this has been asked earlier (this thread is quite long): The Intrigue rules offer a way to play up to 6-player Dominion, but caution against it because of the downtime between turns, and the base game already recognized that things should change slightly depending on number of players, i.e. 8-card Victory piles for 2 players. Did you originally envision Dominion primarily as a game for a table full of players, or did you see the 2-player/competitive scene coming?
Also along the lines of variations, did you think people would mostly design their own kingdoms, or play random ones, like Goko's pro mode?
How did those expectations affect playtesting, if at all? Did you play about the same amount of games with each variant, or weigh towards what you thought would be most commonly played?
Last question: If the common variants did turn out different from what you expected, are there any cards that you look back on and think, "Maybe this card would be different if I had known which way people were mostly going to play this game?"
I remember him one time saying that he was designing the game for 3-5 players, like all of his games.
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I remember him one time saying that he was designing the game for 3-5 players, like all of his games.
Thanks. Just anecdotal, but I seem to see a lot of two-player games on Goko, so I guess that makes my last question applicable, i.e. if there are any cards that fit fine in the 3-5 player game but might've turned out differently if he was designing for two.
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I remember him one time saying that he was designing the game for 3-5 players, like all of his games.
Thanks. Just anecdotal, but I seem to see a lot of two-player games on Goko, so I guess that makes my last question applicable, i.e. if there are any cards that fit fine in the 3-5 player game but might've turned out differently if he was designing for two.
I think that online Dominion is more likely to skew towards two player games since you are just looking for a quick, anonymous partner to get your fix. IRL Dominion probably has a far higher proportion of 3+ player games since it is something you do socially with a group of people.
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I remember him one time saying that he was designing the game for 3-5 players, like all of his games.
Thanks. Just anecdotal, but I seem to see a lot of two-player games on Goko, so I guess that makes my last question applicable, i.e. if there are any cards that fit fine in the 3-5 player game but might've turned out differently if he was designing for two.
It's possible we'd see more 3-5 player games online if Dominion Online handled dropped players better. Right now it just ends the game for everybody. There are some who argue that that's the way it should be, but you don't have to have it happen to you very many times before you're sick of it.
In general, 2-player games seem more appropriate for a quick, casual online game where someone might have to leave at short notice.
I'm very glad Dominion plays so well at 2 players, since I want to play Dominion (and board/card games in general) much more often than I have a large group available to do so.
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Not sure if this has been asked earlier (this thread is quite long): The Intrigue rules offer a way to play up to 6-player Dominion, but caution against it because of the downtime between turns, and the base game already recognized that things should change slightly depending on number of players, i.e. 8-card Victory piles for 2 players. Did you originally envision Dominion primarily as a game for a table full of players, or did you see the 2-player/competitive scene coming?
At the very beginning, I make the game and see what happens. I am hoping for a wide range of players but it will vary based on the game. I am most interested in a game working with 3-5 players, because I will have 3+ players, and there are issues as you add players that are likely to nix 6+ (components, downtime).
It was immediately clear that Dominion worked with 2-5, and obv. there's more downtime with more players. Ideally many things scale well, but where something was going to vary depending on the number of players, I aimed for 3 players, to get it to be as good as possible with 2-4; effects don't tend to have funny curves here (you don't for example find things that are strong with 2, weak with 3, strong again with 4), so that's how you do it. And if you want to play with 5, okay. I never would have supported 6; any game company would have automatically supported 6. I worried about cards that change with the player count, such as Thief or Gardens. I tried to be happy with them for 2-4.
The first few games were with 4 players, but I was playing it with 2 and 3 also very soon after that. I didn't immediately vary the size of victory piles for 2, that came later; we just played longer 2-player games.
I have always envisioned it as a multiplayer game, but it is no surprise that competitive people on the internet prefer to play with 2. It reduces luck and downtime. But like, for the endless online testing we did, while there was some 2-player testing, often we waited for a third. And some people would just refuse to play with 5.
Also along the lines of variations, did you think people would mostly design their own kingdoms, or play random ones, like Goko's pro mode?
I thought people would mostly play with random cards, from all the sets they had. I did not foresee the popularity of the recommended sets of 10.
How did those expectations affect playtesting, if at all? Did you play about the same amount of games with each variant, or weigh towards what you thought would be most commonly played?
We tested the recommended sets for later sets; for earlier sets, they got played maybe once each. I figured, random works, these 10 will work.
IRL I mostly played with just two sets, five cards from each (sometimes 6-4 or 7-3 for a small set). This is practical; I was lugging boxes of cards to the place of gaming. Online we mostly played pure random, except when forcing a card or cards for focused testing.
I have for funsies played specific silly themed games. And the sets IRL have looked fairly different and I've played all the various forms.
Last question: If the common variants did turn out different from what you expected, are there any cards that you look back on and think, "Maybe this card would be different if I had known which way people were mostly going to play this game?"
I'm not sure I understand this one. If hypothetically everyone mostly wanted to play recommended sets of 10, I would have included more of them. I upped how many there were for later sets, but then got lazy for Guilds. If everyone only played with two players then it would have been better to shift certain cards towards being maximally balanced there, but it's not like it's far off as is.
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It's thoroughly applaudable you initially worded chancellor and other such cards the way you did and subsequently had no problem printing tunnel as we know it now, but were there any cards or design ideas you had to abandon because you weren't as careful in some other cases?
It would be nice if one-shots and Throne Rooms had types that cards could refer to. I made duration cards and Scheme and Band of Misfits anyway though. I think that's as close as it gets.
Card functionality can hypothetically be a problem; some wonky cards were made with the idea that I would be careful if I ever wanted another thing in that same space (and the idea that there probably would never be such a thing). Like, Trader makes "this turn, when you gain a card other than gold, you also gain a gold" impossible. I could make it "when you gain a non-treasure" though; and then that card would also be limiting what I could do.
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You've mentioned that it's good not to have errata and it's bad to have multiple cards with the same name that do different things. That being said, I would be very interested in a Dominion: Errata product, or a Dominion 2nd Edition, if you would. The idea would be touched-up or revised versions of cards that you could slot into sets to replace other specific cards. One way to do this and get around the issues I mentioned is to change the names of the cards. When you replace Scout with a more powerful version, don't name it "Scout". Name it "Ranger" or something. You wouldn't even necessarily need to get new art.
As a physical product, this makes no financial sense. As an online product, I think a case could be made for it. You could buy these revised cards and then change a setting to use those versions of the cards whenever you hosted a game.
It would be nice if one-shots and Throne Rooms had types that cards could refer to.
Wow, that would be mega-convenient. Hindsight is 20/20.
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You've mentioned that it's good not to have errata and it's bad to have multiple cards with the same name that do different things. That being said, I would be very interested in a Dominion: Errata product, or a Dominion 2nd Edition, if you would. The idea would be touched-up or revised versions of cards that you could slot into sets to replace other specific cards. One way to do this and get around the issues I mentioned is to change the names of the cards. When you replace Scout with a more powerful version, don't name it "Scout". Name it "Ranger" or something. You wouldn't even necessarily need to get new art.
As a physical product, this makes no financial sense. As an online product, I think a case could be made for it. You could buy these revised cards and then change a setting to use those versions of the cards whenever you hosted a game.
It would be nice if one-shots and Throne Rooms had types that cards could refer to.
Wow, that would be mega-convenient. Hindsight is 20/20.
I could imagine that 5, 10 years down the line or something, when Dominion buzz has mostly reduced to just being another old classic casual board game barring the few remaining die-hards on the largely defunct F.DS (wow, this turned bleak quickly... here, have a rainbow to brighten the mood again)... anyway to cut a long story short (short compared to... okay I'll stop there, this is getting kinda out of hand... out of hand compared to less out of *shot*), in 5-10 years down the line, I could imagine RGG asking Donald X if they can produce a Dominion 2nd edition of some form, which might do something like, I dunno, have the same card backs (for compatibility) but differently designed fronts, a few card changes and some streamlining occasionally, and maybe a new small or large expansion in the mix somewhere. But importantly and on topic, I imagine some cards might have some changes - small or significant. Throne Room gets the KC rewording. Scout gets a little extra power. Rebuild gets slightly nerfed (or not as we decide as a community it's actually mediocre overall, I dunno). Of course this would hinge on Donald X's decision, and well I can't talk for him but it seems like something he might be opposed to doing. But maybe 5 years down the line, that may well be different. I dunno.
Anyway this actually started out as a serious post. Not quite sure what happened in the middle, but I think I blame Ozle? But yeah, I could imagine some cards being revamped in a 2nd edition some time in the future.
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Would you be willing to comment (after the voting) on the kingdoms in the 2014 Kingdom Design Challenge (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11100.0)?
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...anyway to cut a long story short (short compared to... okay I'll stop there, this is getting kinda out of hand... out of hand compared to less out of *shot*),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCP2QQH4uuQ
Anyway this actually started out as a serious post. Not quite sure what happened in the middle, but I think I blame Ozle?
Usually the best solution.
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Last question: If the common variants did turn out different from what you expected, are there any cards that you look back on and think, "Maybe this card would be different if I had known which way people were mostly going to play this game?"
I'm not sure I understand this one. If hypothetically everyone mostly wanted to play recommended sets of 10, I would have included more of them. I upped how many there were for later sets, but then got lazy for Guilds. If everyone only played with two players then it would have been better to shift certain cards towards being maximally balanced there, but it's not like it's far off as is.
I think you answered what I was trying to ask anyway :) I did mean along the lines of, "If you thought most people would play 4-player when you made the game, but then learned that everyone plays 2-player or 6-player, are there any cards or rules that would've been different in hindsight?" Or random vs recommended sets instead of number of players, or other variations that you didn't expect people to play as much as they do. Thanks for the response!
I thought of one more: Did you think you were making a game that would prompt people to write articles and discuss strategic minutia at length like we do here on f.ds? Or did you not think of Dominion as that sort of game until you saw people treating it that way?
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You've mentioned that it's good not to have errata and it's bad to have multiple cards with the same name that do different things. That being said, I would be very interested in a Dominion: Errata product, or a Dominion 2nd Edition, if you would. The idea would be touched-up or revised versions of cards that you could slot into sets to replace other specific cards. One way to do this and get around the issues I mentioned is to change the names of the cards. When you replace Scout with a more powerful version, don't name it "Scout". Name it "Ranger" or something. You wouldn't even necessarily need to get new art.
As a physical product, this makes no financial sense. As an online product, I think a case could be made for it. You could buy these revised cards and then change a setting to use those versions of the cards whenever you hosted a game.
We've tossed around the idea of a "junior" version someday, mainly with an idea towards being sold in more chain stores. Something as simple as possible and with as few cards as possible. If it ever happens it might not be compatible though.
Jay isn't fond of changing stuff. The main issue is, two people sit down to play, one is used to the old version, one the new version. They have an argument. We can avoid that argument by not making the change. So, how much does the change get us? I think the main set for Dominion could be noticeably better - fewer dud cards, an extra card in place of pointless basic card randomizers. But uh it's pretty good as it is. The main thing to improve is variety - with more cards, it's not so bad if sometimes there's a dud, especially because new players won't have figured out what's a dud yet. And just buying an expansion does that trick.
Meanwhile a pure "fixed versions" product (i.e. that only includes the fixed cards, not cards that don't need fixing) doesn't seem great. It doesn't compare to just making more expansions.
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Would you be willing to comment (after the voting) on the kingdoms in the 2014 Kingdom Design Challenge (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11100.0)?
Only one set with Rats, what's up with that. Whereas two sets let you play Gardens vs. Mountebank.
I dunno, analyzing these seems like a chore. I saw part of the video of the first one being played. Salvager / Peddler seems like the way to go. In multiplayer Jester/Fairgrounds is more of a thing. You can draw your deck with Throne as your village, who doesn't enjoy doing that.
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I think you answered what I was trying to ask anyway :) I did mean along the lines of, "If you thought most people would play 4-player when you made the game, but then learned that everyone plays 2-player or 6-player, are there any cards or rules that would've been different in hindsight?" Or random vs recommended sets instead of number of players, or other variations that you didn't expect people to play as much as they do. Thanks for the response!
In hindsight possibly the Curse formula should be different (since you're more able to not play the Curser with more players). That formula was specifically trying to handle varying numbers of players though.
I thought of one more: Did you think you were making a game that would prompt people to write articles and discuss strategic minutia at length like we do here on f.ds? Or did you not think of Dominion as that sort of game until you saw people treating it that way?
The way I always put it is, I wasn't sure I would be able to get the game published, but if it was published then I thought it would get a shelf. There would be the shelf of Settlers stuff, the shelf of Carcassonne stuff, and then the shelf of Dominion stuff. I did not imagine that after those there would be a shelf of Dominion clones.
I guess I see your question as really one of popularity. I thought it would be that popular; as a strategy game that's popular, of course people analyze it. I didn't think it was unstrategic. I'd certainly had plenty of those conversations myself.
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Of course this would hinge on Donald X's decision, and well I can't talk for him but it seems like something he might be opposed to doing. But maybe 5 years down the line, that may well be different. I dunno.
Really it's more of a Jay thing. I have already admitted to whatever mistakes; that doesn't get worse when you actually fix them. The fixed version would be better. I do see Jay's point though. It's also not great to make players feel like you're trying to sell them a fixed version after they already bought an inferior one (and it's not like we'd want to give out free replacement cards either).
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At this point a lot of people have made "it's just Dominion but with a little extra" so that's not so compelling anymore. Now I feel like the spin-off has to be more different. To qualify as a spin-off, you will have a deck that you build during the game; the rest is up in the air.
What sort of encouragement would it take to get you to mercilessly hate on Trains and its ilk for a brief moment? Or do you actually enjoy them/see unique value in them?
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What sort of encouragement would it take to get you to mercilessly hate on Trains and its ilk for a brief moment? Or do you actually enjoy them/see unique value in them?
What I always say is, it's great that people got to make Dominion-inspired games, and sad what they chose to do with the privilege. I have zero respect for the Dominion clones, and obv. you can actually make a new game instead, as A Few Acres of Snow and Eminent Domain demonstrate.
I'm not losing any sleep over it though, and it's not great for me to bash them, it just makes me sound like the worst person ever. I will have to count on you guys to bash them for me.
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What sort of encouragement would it take to get you to mercilessly hate on Trains and its ilk for a brief moment? Or do you actually enjoy them/see unique value in them?
What I always say is, it's great that people got to make Dominion-inspired games, and sad what they chose to do with the privilege. I have zero respect for the Dominion clones, and obv. you can actually make a new game instead, as A Few Acres of Snow and Eminent Domain demonstrate.
I'm not losing any sleep over it though, and it's not great for me to bash them, it just makes me sound like the worst person ever. I will have to count on you guys to bash them for me.
Seems to me the line between "Dominion clone" and "new game" is pretty subjective. I haven't played many other deckbuilders, but they all seem to add something to the game, whether that makes the game better or worse.
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What sort of encouragement would it take to get you to mercilessly hate on Trains and its ilk for a brief moment? Or do you actually enjoy them/see unique value in them?
What I always say is, it's great that people got to make Dominion-inspired games, and sad what they chose to do with the privilege. I have zero respect for the Dominion clones, and obv. you can actually make a new game instead, as A Few Acres of Snow and Eminent Domain demonstrate.
I'm not losing any sleep over it though, and it's not great for me to bash them, it just makes me sound like the worst person ever. I will have to count on you guys to bash them for me.
Seems to me the line between "Dominion clone" and "new game" is pretty subjective. I haven't played many other deckbuilders, but they all seem to add something to the game, whether that makes the game better or worse.
Some are much clonier than others. Ascension, Nightfall, Thunderstone all are different to varying degrees. But then go pick up the Resident Evil deck building game... they changed almost nothing. Trains, while having an interesting premise, spent far too much time cloning individual cards rather than doing something newer, which they totally could have done.
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Seems to me the line between "Dominion clone" and "new game" is pretty subjective. I haven't played many other deckbuilders, but they all seem to add something to the game, whether that makes the game better or worse.
It does not seem so subjective to me; the clones pretty obviously started with the entirety of Dominion, rather than starting with "we will build a deck while playing" and then making a game. Adding a mechanic on top is just what the Dominion expansions do.
Again, not a great topic for me, every post will to someone sound like I am saying I am the worst person ever, I have learned this from previous interviews.
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New question: Do you like Trains, or are you the worst person ever?
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New question: Why aren't my posts showing up correctly?
It could be malware you got from memegenerator. Try clearing your cookies.
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New question: Why aren't my posts showing up correctly?
It could be malware you got from memegenerator. Try clearing your cookies.
I've spent far too long clicking on my cookies to earn more; I'm not going to go clear them now!
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New question: Do you like Trains, or are you the worst person ever?
I really don't see Ticket to Ride as a a Dominion clone.
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What sort of encouragement would it take to get you to mercilessly hate on Trains and its ilk for a brief moment? Or do you actually enjoy them/see unique value in them?
What I always say is, it's great that people got to make Dominion-inspired games, and sad what they chose to do with the privilege. I have zero respect for the Dominion clones, and obv. you can actually make a new game instead, as A Few Acres of Snow and Eminent Domain demonstrate.
I'm not losing any sleep over it though, and it's not great for me to bash them, it just makes me sound like the worst person ever. I will have to count on you guys to bash them for me.
You just gotta appreciate the rockstar-life: all the women want you, all the game designers want to be you!
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New question: Do you like Trains, or are you the worst person ever?
I really don't see Ticket to Ride as a a Dominion clone.
Try playing more Dominion, and pretty soon everything (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect) looks like a Dominion clone.
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New question: Do you like Trains, or are you the worst person ever?
I really don't see Ticket to Ride as a a Dominion clone.
Try playing more Dominion, and pretty soon everything (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect) looks like a Dominion clone.
Settlers is such a Dominion clone, the only difference is that some cards you buy have physical pieces, and you only reshuffle some cards back into your deck based on a random dice roll, and everyone has Masquerade but all passes must be consensual.
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New question: Do you like Trains, or are you the worst person ever?
I really don't see Ticket to Ride as a a Dominion clone.
Just in case you aren't joking, there is actually a deck-building game called Trains (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/121408/trains). It's got some route building stuff in it too. I don't know much else about it.
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It would be nice if one-shots and Throne Rooms had types that cards could refer to. I made duration cards and Scheme and Band of Misfits anyway though. I think that's as close as it gets.
I don't get that. You mean a type like "Action/One-shot" or "Action/Throne"? How would that simplify the mechanics of Duration/ Scheme/ BoM? Would these card types open further design space?
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It would be nice if one-shots and Throne Rooms had types that cards could refer to. I made duration cards and Scheme and Band of Misfits anyway though. I think that's as close as it gets.
I don't get that. You mean a type like "Action/One-shot" or "Action/Throne"? How would that simplify the mechanics of Duration/ Scheme/ BoM? Would these card types open further design space?
Like Action - Event for one-shots and uh something else flavorful for Throne, Golem, etc. As I noted, it didn't stop me from doing the things I wanted it for; maybe it slightly opens up design space, or maybe I could always work around it, and it just means some wordings would be wonkier.
It would have been simpler for Band of Misfits to play the card, rather than changing into the card. This was problematic with one-shots, duration cards, and throne rooms used on duration cards - and durations have a type to refer to (so it could conceivably say non-duration), but one-shots and thrones don't.
Scheme has an issue with the same set of cards. Scheme has this wonky wording that has you choose a card at the start of clean-up and then looks for you discarding that card from play - which tells us that it wasn't a one-shot or duration card that was sticking around or throne on a sticking-around duration card. There were a bunch of wordings of Scheme before I found that one. For example "When you discard this from play, you may put another Action card you have in play on top of your deck." Simpler, doesn't work with those three cases (incidentally doesn't let you Scheme the Scheme and doesn't double with Thrones, both of which went back and forth as I tried different wordings).
There are other issues. Doubling a doubler is often problematic in games (in this case, King's Court a King's Court). You can just not allow it with a type. I don't know if I would have (who doesn't like King's Courting a King's Court) but it wasn't an option. Duration cards require tracking when Throned, so there's a rule that Thrones stay out, which is kind of wonky, and in fact I reversed a ruling on King's Court / King's Court / duration. You could avoid the issue by saying non-duration on Throne, but I couldn't because Throne came first (and you could avoid it with non-throne on thrones). In the Seaside rulebook it refers to something like "actions that play/modify" actions, which confuses people. A type would clear that up.
Again this is all hypothetical; I don't know what the wordings would have been if I'd had more options (i.e. maybe they would be the same as they ended up), and in the end I did the cards I wanted anyway.
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It would have been simpler for Band of Misfits to play the card, rather than changing into the card.
In general, it would be nice if there were a distinction between putting an Action card into play and following the instructions on it. As it is, they're both "play". In the outtakes, it looked like you had the keyword "do" for when you just meant follow the instructions on the card. Why did that go away?
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In general, it would be nice if there were a distinction between putting an Action card into play and following the instructions on it. As it is, they're both "play". In the outtakes, it looked like you had the keyword "do" for when you just meant follow the instructions on the card. Why did that go away?
I looked for a "do," and the first one I found meant "play," so there you go, it may never have been different.
I could say "follow the instructions" though, or, as one version of Band of Misfits tried, "play it without putting it into play." It's not like it comes up so much that it needs terminology you have to look up.
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I'm not losing any sleep over it though, and it's not great for me to bash them, it just makes me sound like the worst person ever. I will have to count on you guys to bash them for me.
Props for giving an honest answer despite this. It's a neat perspective, thanks.
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In general, it would be nice if there were a distinction between putting an Action card into play and following the instructions on it. As it is, they're both "play". In the outtakes, it looked like you had the keyword "do" for when you just meant follow the instructions on the card. Why did that go away?
I looked for a "do," and the first one I found meant "play," so there you go, it may never have been different.
I could say "follow the instructions" though, or, as one version of Band of Misfits tried, "play it without putting it into play." It's not like it comes up so much that it needs terminology you have to look up.
It still has tracking issues, though. Playing a card from the supply and returning it when it would be discarded would have been better, I think. Was that an option? Does it have issues?
The only problems I see is that it makes the card ungainable while in play if you played the last ones available, and that it can potentially finish the game while in play, but neither sounds extremely awful. I don't like to remember what each BoM is IRL (online everything works great) and this would avoid that tracking issue. Especially when BoMing a Duration.
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It still has tracking issues, though. Playing a card from the supply and returning it when it would be discarded would have been better, I think. Was that an option? Does it have issues?
The only problems I see is that it makes the card ungainable while in play if you played the last ones available, and that it can potentially finish the game while in play, but neither sounds extremely awful. I don't like to remember what each BoM is IRL (online everything works great) and this would avoid that tracking issue. Especially when BoMing a Duration.
It does allow you to e.g. Band of Misfits a Feast and not trash the Band of Misfits.
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It still has tracking issues, though. Playing a card from the supply and returning it when it would be discarded would have been better, I think. Was that an option? Does it have issues?
The only problems I see is that it makes the card ungainable while in play if you played the last ones available, and that it can potentially finish the game while in play, but neither sounds extremely awful. I don't like to remember what each BoM is IRL (online everything works great) and this would avoid that tracking issue. Especially when BoMing a Duration.
It does allow you to e.g. Band of Misfits a Feast and not trash the Band of Misfits.
Does not seem such a terrible issue, but it can be fixed by "If the played card is trashed, trash this". OK, you trashed an extra card, but it does not seem such a big difference, and easiness of text and tracking seems to take priority.
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In general, it would be nice if there were a distinction between putting an Action card into play and following the instructions on it. As it is, they're both "play". In the outtakes, it looked like you had the keyword "do" for when you just meant follow the instructions on the card. Why did that go away?
I looked for a "do," and the first one I found meant "play," so there you go, it may never have been different.
I could say "follow the instructions" though, or, as one version of Band of Misfits tried, "play it without putting it into play." It's not like it comes up so much that it needs terminology you have to look up.
It still has tracking issues, though. Playing a card from the supply and returning it when it would be discarded would have been better, I think. Was that an option? Does it have issues?
The only problems I see is that it makes the card ungainable while in play if you played the last ones available, and that it can potentially finish the game while in play, but neither sounds extremely awful. I don't like to remember what each BoM is IRL (online everything works great) and this would avoid that tracking issue. Especially when BoMing a Duration.
I tried this very thing, it was not usable. People shuffle the cards into their decks, it is too ingrained.
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Got Greed last week, so far like it. Will maybe write some thread when I have played more than 3 1/2 games.
Anyway, Zoning Office. Despite the fact that it lead me into a combo that won me the game, it bugged me since then. Why is it not either
a) When you play another Holding, gain $10k
or
b) Holdings costs you 10k less?
Instead it is (a+b)/2.
I mean, I have been long enough in these forums to instantly find 2 edge cases where there is a difference between a and b (and thus to (a+b)/2), but they don't seem that common, and the current form does not really seem to add something interesting [except of course I'm thinking about it since half a week].
It looks to me that you doubled the text on the card for achieving almost nothing over the two alternatives, which is contrary to design principles you have stated before. So obviously I'm missing something!
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Anyway, Zoning Office. Despite the fact that it lead me into a combo that won me the game, it bugged me since then. Why is it not either
a) When you play another Holding, gain $10k
or
b) Holdings costs you 10k less?
Instead it is (a+b)/2.
I mean, I have been long enough in these forums to instantly find 2 edge cases where there is a difference between a and b (and thus to (a+b)/2), but they don't seem that common, and the current form does not really seem to add something interesting [except of course I'm thinking about it since half a week].
It looks to me that you doubled the text on the card for achieving almost nothing over the two alternatives, which is contrary to design principles you have stated before. So obviously I'm missing something!
The original card was "Holding costs for other players are increased by $5." That died because it's too hard for other players to remember a card in front of you; they play their card and oops you can't afford that. I briefly tried "when they play a Holding they lose $5," then replaced it with the published version.
It's obv. different the three different ways, since some Holdings cost $ and some don't. It's not just an edge case; *checks* 12 out of 25 Holdings don't cost $ (well, counting Zoning Office).
With so many no-$ Holdings I wouldn't have been as happy with "Holdings cost $10 less." For sure I might have been happy with "When you play a Holding, gain $10" though, and yes I prefer simplifying things like that. That version is usually more powerful; +$5 for 11 out of 24 Holdings, although you need the full $ in advance for other Holdings. That might have been fine though. I never considered it and well I am going to fall back on, you don't see the mistakes they didn't make.
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What's the actual wording for Zoning Office? I'm having trouble figuring out what (a+b)/2 means. My best guess right now is
"When you play another Holding, gain 5k. Holdings cost 5k less."
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What's the actual wording for Zoning Office? I'm having trouble figuring out what (a+b)/2 means. My best guess right now is
"When you play another Holding, gain 5k. Holdings cost 5k less."
Yes, that's it (Holdings cost *you* $5 less).
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Looks like between all the edge cases i missed the obvious one, thanks.
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I played Greed for the first time today. Zoning Office was the first card I built, mostly because I read about it here. I then proceeded to win, much to my surprise.
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- May? - a new strategy game that has not been announced. It's euro-ish, and has the Donald X. Variety Mechanic.
What about this one? :)
I guess it isn't a relative of Dominion? So, a boardgame/ tableau building game?
Can't you tell anything about who's the publisher or when they may announce it finally?
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- May? - a new strategy game that has not been announced. It's euro-ish, and has the Donald X. Variety Mechanic.
What about this one? :)
I guess it isn't a relative of Dominion? So, a boardgame/ tableau building game?
Can't you tell anything about who's the publisher or when they may announce it finally?
It's not up to me to announce, and so far a publisher has never told me in advance when they were going to announce something. Still it seems likely that they will announce it soon.
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Any idea of when the new promo will be up and running? Sounds exotic from what I've heard.
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Any idea of when the new promo will be up and running? Sounds exotic from what I've heard.
Exotic, eh? Who's talking? It is in fact exotic.
I know when Jay thinks he will have it in players' hands but it's not up to me to announce it.
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Any idea of when the new promo will be up and running? Sounds exotic from what I've heard.
Exotic, eh? Who's talking? It is in fact exotic.
I know when Jay thinks he will have it in players' hands but it's not up to me to announce it.
Turn 3 if you're lucky with a 5/2 opening?
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Any idea of when the new promo will be up and running? Sounds exotic from what I've heard.
Exotic, eh? Who's talking? It is in fact exotic.
I know when Jay thinks he will have it in players' hands but it's not up to me to announce it.
Turn 3 if you're lucky with a 5/2 opening?
Most people just wait until Jay plays Masquerade and passes them one.
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Any idea of when the new promo will be up and running? Sounds exotic from what I've heard.
That sounds about right. I also heard it's an 'upgraded' Harem of sorts.
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Any idea of when the new promo will be up and running? Sounds exotic from what I've heard.
That sounds about right. I also heard it's an 'upgraded' Harem of sorts.
As in Bank? Or King's Court?
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Any idea of when the new promo will be up and running? Sounds exotic from what I've heard.
Exotic, eh? Who's talking? It is in fact exotic.
I know when Jay thinks he will have it in players' hands but it's not up to me to announce it.
Turn 3 if you're lucky with a 5/2 opening?
Haha nope! :D
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Any idea of when the new promo will be up and running? Sounds exotic from what I've heard.
That sounds about right. I also heard it's an 'upgraded' Harem of sorts.
So, the upgraded harem is a prince?
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Actually, now that it's announced, what's the secret history of Prince?
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Actually, now that it's announced, what's the secret history of Prince?
I would like some comments on the wording. Its weird. Having a Duration was not an option?
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Actually, now that it's announced, what's the secret history of Prince?
Added. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=153.msg388047#msg388047
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Why prince the name?
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I would like some comments on the wording. Its weird. Having a Duration was not an option?
Some work went into that wording. It had to fit on the card and cover all of the problem cases. The parenthetical was essential to actually stop you from playing the card if it ran away (consider Throne / Feast). The Action goes into play and leaves again; man I tried "play it without putting it into play." And it looks for the Action being discarded because that's as close to a universal sign as there is that something weird isn't happening; it takes care of Throned duration cards and one-shots and set aside cards.
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Why prince the name?
Well you're a king, conquering lands and doing stuff (it's true, check the flavor paragraph for the main game). The prince is like a miniature version of you; he does one thing each turn. This helps him prepare to replace you someday. It's the circle of life, Ozle.
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Why prince the name?
Well you're a king, conquering lands and doing stuff (it's true, check the flavor paragraph for the main game). The prince is like a miniature version of you; he does one thing each turn. This helps him prepare to replace you someday. It's the circle of life, Ozle.
fitting that it's the last Dominion card released too. Sort of. If you really think about it.
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Why prince the name?
Well you're a king, conquering lands and doing stuff (it's true, check the flavor paragraph for the main game). The prince is like a miniature version of you; he does one thing each turn. This helps him prepare to replace you someday. It's the circle of life, Ozle.
Nants ingonyama bagithi baba
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Why prince the name?
Well you're a king, conquering lands and doing stuff (it's true, check the flavor paragraph for the main game). The prince is like a miniature version of you; he does one thing each turn. This helps him prepare to replace you someday. It's the circle of life, Ozle.
Nants ingonyama bagithi baba
...so how many beers exactly did you have?
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Why prince the name?
Well you're a king, conquering lands and doing stuff (it's true, check the flavor paragraph for the main game). The prince is like a miniature version of you; he does one thing each turn. This helps him prepare to replace you someday. It's the circle of life, Ozle.
fitting that it's the last Dominion card released too. Sort of. If you really think about it.
Then, the prince takes over, and out comes more expansions...
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Why prince the name?
Well you're a king, conquering lands and doing stuff (it's true, check the flavor paragraph for the main game). The prince is like a miniature version of you; he does one thing each turn. This helps him prepare to replace you someday. It's the circle of life, Ozle.
Nants ingonyama bagithi baba
...so how many beers exactly did you have?
Sixteen-twenty!
Although that was a specific quote reply that actually makes sense!
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Nants ingonyama bagithi baba
Sithi uhm ingonyama
No beers.
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Donald Donald, when's the 207th card coming out?
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Donald Donald, when's the 207th card coming out?
I think after this they will be lettered instead of numbered. I'm not sure when the next card will come out, or what letter it will get.
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Donald Donald, when's the 207th card coming out?
I think after this they will be lettered instead of numbered. I'm not sure when the next card will come out, or what letter it will get.
Well, after letters, you can do symbols. Card }!
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Donald Donald, when's the 207th card coming out?
I think after this they will be lettered instead of numbered. I'm not sure when the next card will come out, or what letter it will get.
Would it be possible to have a sort of Outtakes expansion? That is, have it contain all the promos, and some other cards you tinkered with that fit into main sets? Not necessarily the "Treasure Chest" wet dream of so many on here that would require essentially the rules of every expansion, but just cards that didn't get in mainly due to space and time. I'm curious mainly because the Promos available for individual sale are each the cost of a small expansion, which is kind of ridiculous.
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Would it be possible to have a sort of Outtakes expansion? That is, have it contain all the promos, and some other cards you tinkered with that fit into main sets? Not necessarily the "Treasure Chest" wet dream of so many on here that would require essentially the rules of every expansion, but just cards that didn't get in mainly due to space and time. I'm curious mainly because the Promos available for individual sale are each the cost of a small expansion, which is kind of ridiculous.
I don't know where you are looking at prices for the promos; I just checked Black Market at BGG and it's $2.50.
The cards that weren't worth putting into expansions mostly aren't worth having. Getting good cards out of them requires as much additional work as just making new cards.
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Would it be possible to have a sort of Outtakes expansion? That is, have it contain all the promos, and some other cards you tinkered with that fit into main sets? Not necessarily the "Treasure Chest" wet dream of so many on here that would require essentially the rules of every expansion, but just cards that didn't get in mainly due to space and time. I'm curious mainly because the Promos available for individual sale are each the cost of a small expansion, which is kind of ridiculous.
I don't know where you are looking at prices for the promos; I just checked Black Market at BGG and it's $2.50.
The cards that weren't worth putting into expansions mostly aren't worth having. Getting good cards out of them requires as much additional work as just making new cards.
Aha. I was looking at the "shop" option which has independent sellers. I thought that was the BGG store.
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I would like some comments on the wording. Its weird. Having a Duration was not an option?
Some work went into that wording. It had to fit on the card and cover all of the problem cases. The parenthetical was essential to actually stop you from playing the card if it ran away (consider Throne / Feast). The Action goes into play and leaves again; man I tried "play it without putting it into play." And it looks for the Action being discarded because that's as close to a universal sign as there is that something weird isn't happening; it takes care of Throned duration cards and one-shots and set aside cards.
Logistical/printing issues aside, did you think about using a mat like Native Village? So...
Set this aside. If you do, you may put an Action card costing up to $4 on your Prince mat.
----------------
At the start of each of your turns, play the cards on your Prince mat in any order. If you would discard any of them from play, instead return those cards to your Prince mat.
That feels less wordy than the real Prince to me, and it handles runaway cards like Feast or Madman without the parenthetical. Since they don't get discarded from play, they don't return to your mat, and this version doesn't say to play its target card, it just says to play the cards on your mat.
I suspect I've missed something that makes the mat not work quite like Prince's real wording, so I'm looking forward to being educated :)
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I actually specifically suggested no playmat. My housemate and I tried a mat. It made it really easy to forget to do our Princed Actions.
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I actually specifically suggested no playmat.
Thank You. :)
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Logistical/printing issues aside, did you think about using a mat like Native Village? So...
If it had been in an expansion, I would have looked at how a mat could work, if it would be better. It wasn't so it was never going to have one. At the start I had to decide, can I do this with no mat; I decided that I could, and that was that.
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I actually specifically suggested no playmat. My housemate and I tried a mat. It made it really easy to forget to do our Princed Actions.
Out of curiosity, what did you do sans mat that made it easier to remember? I would think as long as the actions are somewhere noticeable in your space, any marker indicating they are Princed (the Prince card, a distinctive mat, etc) would make it equally easy to remember to play them.
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I actually specifically suggested no playmat. My housemate and I tried a mat. It made it really easy to forget to do our Princed Actions.
Out of curiosity, what did you do sans mat that made it easier to remember? I would think as long as the actions are somewhere noticeable in your space, any marker indicating they are Princed (the Prince card, a distinctive mat, etc) would make it equally easy to remember to play them.
In your play area they're noticeable. Island and Native Village have trained us to ignore stuff on mats until a card we play alludes to them. Your mileage may vary.
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I actually specifically suggested no playmat. My housemate and I tried a mat. It made it really easy to forget to do our Princed Actions.
Out of curiosity, what did you do sans mat that made it easier to remember? I would think as long as the actions are somewhere noticeable in your space, any marker indicating they are Princed (the Prince card, a distinctive mat, etc) would make it equally easy to remember to play them.
In your play area they're noticeable. Island and Native Village have trained us to ignore stuff on mats until a card we play alludes to them. Your mileage may vary.
I think it would be the reverse for me; I would be tempted to clean up my Prince every turn, especially without that orange Duration color to warn me.
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I'm probably going to use a VP mat as a reminder. I agree Orange would have fit. (Duration stays out until the last turn it does something. This could be a Haven+)
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I actually specifically suggested no playmat. My housemate and I tried a mat. It made it really easy to forget to do our Princed Actions.
Out of curiosity, what did you do sans mat that made it easier to remember? I would think as long as the actions are somewhere noticeable in your space, any marker indicating they are Princed (the Prince card, a distinctive mat, etc) would make it equally easy to remember to play them.
In your play area they're noticeable. Island and Native Village have trained us to ignore stuff on mats until a card we play alludes to them. Your mileage may vary.
I think it would be the reverse for me; I would be tempted to clean up my Prince every turn, especially without that orange Duration color to warn me.
Well, I just put my Prince under and slightly higher than the princed card, both at the start of my play area. So the word Prince is visible, but that's it. Somehow I remember not to clean up my double-card. As I said, your mileage may vary. I just gave feedback based on what worked best for us after trying multiple things.
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This has probably been answered, but I couldn't find it while looking around in the outtakes or using the search feature: It was said some time ago, Festival/Library once had a third part to go with it. What was that card, and what became of it (was it scrapped, did it get released in a later expansion and if so, how different did it end up)?
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This has probably been answered, but I couldn't find it while looking around in the outtakes or using the search feature: It was said some time ago, Festival/Library once had a third part to go with it. What was that card, and what became of it (was it scrapped, did it get released in a later expansion and if so, how different did it end up)?
It was Village Idiot - cost $3, "+2 Actions, Each other player discards a card." I moved Festival, Library, and Village Idiot from the large version of Alchemy to the main set, in a group (and at some other point I moved Gardens). Festival and Village Idiot both give you extra actions without a card, and so are good with Library. That was really what tied them together.
Village Idiot of course died because in multiples it locks you out of the game.
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Village Idiot of course died because in multiples it locks you out of the game.
It could have a safety clause like Pillage and not affect players with already small hand, what was the reason against this?
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I actually specifically suggested no playmat. My housemate and I tried a mat. It made it really easy to forget to do our Princed Actions.
Out of curiosity, what did you do sans mat that made it easier to remember? I would think as long as the actions are somewhere noticeable in your space, any marker indicating they are Princed (the Prince card, a distinctive mat, etc) would make it equally easy to remember to play them.
In your play area they're noticeable. Island and Native Village have trained us to ignore stuff on mats until a card we play alludes to them. Your mileage may vary.
I think it would be the reverse for me; I would be tempted to clean up my Prince every turn, especially without that orange Duration color to warn me.
Well, I just put my Prince under and slightly higher than the princed card, both at the start of my play area. So the word Prince is visible, but that's it. Somehow I remember not to clean up my double-card. As I said, your mileage may vary. I just gave feedback based on what worked best for us after trying multiple things.
Hmm... to me, putting the princed card on top of prince sounds like you're using the prince itself as an ersatz playmat, which is fine and probably what I'd end up doing too. That the action is on top of something else tells you not to clean it up normally. That it's in your played-actions area tells you to play it. I think if there was a prince mat, I'd put it right where I put actions in play, as opposed to Island mat, which I put off to the side since I interact with it infrequently. So for me I guess positioning would do the trick.
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The thing is, using each Prince as its own mat does not let you use the nicer mat-text, which needs a singleton mat were all the princed cards lay.
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The thing is, using each Prince as its own mat does not let you use the nicer mat-text, which needs a singleton mat were all the princed cards lay.
Set this aside. If you do, you may put an Action card costing up to $4 on your Prince mat.
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At the start of each of your turns, play the cards on your Prince mat in any order. If you would discard any of them from play, instead return those cards to your Prince mat.
This wording actually changes what Prince does, though. It doesn't let you resolve Duration effects in between your Princed Actions.
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The thing is, using each Prince as its own mat does not let you use the nicer mat-text, which needs a singleton mat were all the princed cards lay.
Set this aside. If you do, you may put an Action card costing up to $4 on your Prince mat.
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At the start of each of your turns, play the cards on your Prince mat in any order. If you would discard any of them from play, instead return those cards to your Prince mat.
This wording actually changes what Prince does, though. It doesn't let you resolve Duration effects in between your Princed Actions.
And it also doesn't let you activate Herbalist or Hermit's when-you-discard effects, sure. But it seems to me these are minor edge cases that don't matter that much for the card's functionality overall?
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The thing is, using each Prince as its own mat does not let you use the nicer mat-text, which needs a singleton mat were all the princed cards lay.
Set this aside. If you do, you may put an Action card costing up to $4 on your Prince mat.
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At the start of each of your turns, play the cards on your Prince mat in any order. If you would discard any of them from play, instead return those cards to your Prince mat.
This wording actually changes what Prince does, though. It doesn't let you resolve Duration effects in between your Princed Actions.
"Play each card on your Prince mat at the start of your turn." is functionally identical to the current wording. The discard part can also be identical to current wording, since only "set aside" to "put into mat" need changing.
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Village Idiot of course died because in multiples it locks you out of the game.
It could have a safety clause like Pillage and not affect players with already small hand, what was the reason against this?
I didn't have that technology until after Village Idiot's day, and there was no particular reason to revive Village Idiot once I had it.
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The Finnish translation has a Village Idiot (Kylähullu)! It's known as Madman in the English version. Which is brilliant, since hullu means madman, and Madman is a village (kylä).
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Can you tell us anything about Temporum?
(I'm guessing not much, but I thought I might as well ask!)
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Can you tell us anything about Temporum?
I'm glad you asked. Because it means something must have been announced somewhere. I see, it's in a Dice Tower interview.
Well he does not appear to have said much about it. It's time-travel-themed; I made it; we expect it at GenCon. He mentions a "butterfly effect" card; that's Step on a Butterfly. It's a Ray Bradbury thing, not a chaos theory thing. I mean they're similar but well this butterfly is being stepped on, not flapping its wings and causing hurricanes. Anyway the game has at least one card, and with a cool name too.
It's a strategy game; it has the Donald X. Variety Mechanic. I reported those things previously but I can mention them again. I expect people who like my games to like it. The art is fantastic.
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Wasn't the chaos theory butterfly effect named after the Bradbury story?
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Wasn't the chaos theory butterfly effect named after the Bradbury story?
Not according to my internet.
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I was disappointed when I realised you weren't talking about "doing a Bradbury".
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Can you tell us anything about Temporum?
I'm glad you asked. Because it means something must have been announced somewhere. I see, it's in a Dice Tower interview.
Well he does not appear to have said much about it. It's time-travel-themed; I made it; we expect it at GenCon. He mentions a "butterfly effect" card; that's Step on a Butterfly. It's a Ray Bradbury thing, not a chaos theory thing. I mean they're similar but well this butterfly is being stepped on, not flapping its wings and causing hurricanes. Anyway the game has at least one card, and with a cool name too.
It's a strategy game; it has the Donald X. Variety Mechanic. I reported those things previously but I can mention them again. I expect people who like my games to like it. The art is fantastic.
More about Temporum in today's New Game Roundup (http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/31988/new-game-round-teaser-edition-temporum-rattlebones) on BGG. Includes pictures of the front and back of the box.
(It also links to this thread, so beware possible recursive traps)
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I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?
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I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?
It is just the usual lose-track rule, really. But one-shots would also be overpowered, especially Mining Village (if you trash it all the time, because, why wouldn't you?) which becomes almost better than GM.
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I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?
It is just the usual lose-track rule, really.
No, the usual lose-track rule doesn't ever stop a card from being played, as discussed at length in the Prince thread:
(...) I don't see why the lose track rule would not apply in your scenario with no #4.
For the same reason the lose track rule doesn't apply to a throned feast. You don't need to know where something is in order to play it. Lose track only applies to moving something from one place to another. Basically a card cannot move another card (or itself) if the target card isn't in the place the acting card expects it to be.
But one-shots would also be overpowered, especially Mining Village (if you trash it all the time, because, why wouldn't you?) which becomes almost better than GM.
Prince-MV would be strictly worse (due to no buy) than Prince-GM, but very strong indeed. But since you can already Prince GM itself after cost reduction, I don't see this as prohibitive - Prince is a $8 card, after all. I expect the main reason for the parantheses is the non-losing track when scheming a princed card, which would be quite counterintuitive and confusing. Of the one-shots, only Prince of Madman would be insanely overpowered IMO.
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If you could trigger a princed MV every turn, that would be OP. The difficulty of actually putting Prince-GM into play is not trivial; it's possible with cost reduction but it's not easy.
However, if Prince merely plays the card every turn (including one-shots) and doesn't explicitly bring them back from the trash, you'd only get the $2 bonus once, just as it works with TR or KC.
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If you could trigger a princed MV every turn, that would be OP. The difficulty of actually putting Prince-GM into play is not trivial; it's possible with cost reduction but it's not easy.
However, if Prince merely plays the card every turn (including one-shots) and doesn't explicitly bring them back from the trash, you'd only get the $2 bonus once, just as it works with TR or KC.
Though, the neat thing about Prince MV is that, well, you have a Princed village which is not the best, but still a boon, and you're guaranteed to have +$2 at some point, so you can save it for a possibly game-changing turn. Maybe you draw $6 with one Province left. It's kind of like having $2 in the bank.
Unfortunately, you have to make the decision at the beginning of the turn, and there are better Prince options (you could just use a drawer and draw the mining village), plus the opportunity cost, so I can't see this being optimal.
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If you could trigger a princed MV every turn, that would be OP. The difficulty of actually putting Prince-GM into play is not trivial; it's possible with cost reduction but it's not easy.
However, if Prince merely plays the card every turn (including one-shots) and doesn't explicitly bring them back from the trash, you'd only get the $2 bonus once, just as it works with TR or KC.
Right, you could still only trash it once per game. So Prince-MV would probably be weaker than Prince on another $4 Village (except WV), i.e. rather underpowered. :P
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I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?
It is just the usual lose-track rule, really.
No, the usual lose-track rule doesn't ever stop a card from being played, as discussed at length in the Prince thread:
Yes it does. Prince loses track so it cannot set aside. Then "play the set aside card" loses meaning if we interpret that as "the card set aside last time I told you to set aside something". I think the parenthesis clarify that.
Prince-MV would be strictly worse (due to no buy) than Prince-GM
Trashed MV gives an extra action compared to GM.
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I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?
It is just the usual lose-track rule, really. But one-shots would also be overpowered, especially Mining Village (if you trash it all the time, because, why wouldn't you?) which becomes almost better than GM.
Edge case: the only other actions I can play are three Market Squares. I'd rather have an action in play (giving me four Peddlers for $0 each) than $2, which could only buy me a single $2 Peddler.
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I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?
It was a combination of duration cards being confusing, one-shots being powerful and confusing, and needing a wording that handled everything as tersely as possible. For stuff involving duration cards there's always the complication of Thrones on them to consider (since Thrones stay out with the duration cards for tracking).
Always having the card sitting there seems like a good safety net even if there's no known case where things gets messed up if you don't. Let's see, I Prince Sir Martin, he dies to another Knight, someone Graverobbers him, I'm still playing him every turn, wait he's the +Buys one right?
I did briefly playtest using Prince on one-shots and durations. And cards costing $5, and being able to get two cards a turn from a Throned Prince.
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I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?
It is just the usual lose-track rule, really.
No, the usual lose-track rule doesn't ever stop a card from being played, as discussed at length in the Prince thread:
Yes it does. Prince loses track so it cannot set aside. Then "play the set aside card" loses meaning if we interpret that as "the card set aside last time I told you to set aside something". I think the parenthesis clarify that.
Only the parantheses make Prince stop playing the card, otherwise it would continue playing it in spite of having lost track of it. "At the start of each of your turns, play that Action" (namely the Action card that was set aside when Prince was played) has a well-defined meaning, no matter where that card is now. Just like Throne Room plays the "lost" Feast from the trash the second time.
Prince-MV would be strictly worse (due to no buy) than Prince-GM
Trashed MV gives an extra action compared to GM.
Oh, right. :-[
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Have you ever thought of (or tried) an Action that lets you decide when its effect will trigger? If not, why did you avoid this?
The only official concept like that that comes into my mind is coin tokens from Guilds. But what I mean is, Candlestick maker could also be a Duration like "+1 buy, when playing Treasures in a buy phase of your choice, +1$."
In the Dark Ages Outtakes, I found the first Procession, it was like: "+1 Action, set this aside --- when you play an Action while this is set aside you may put this into play and play the Action again." This is also the direction I am asking for, but it avoids my question by the set-aside.
I ask this because we make a Seaside fan-expansion in the German Dominionblog forums, and stumbled on this by making alternative Durations. E.g., I thought of your first Procession as a Duration "+1 Action, in any turn, one Action card that you play is played again." Or something like that. When you use it, it just leaves the "Duration zone". The problem that we found was how to track how often you can use it when it was played with Throne Room or King's Court; now I think of solutions like a mat or markers for those.
But I wonder what you think about effects like this.
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Have you ever thought of (or tried) an Action that lets you decide when its effect will trigger? If not, why did you avoid this?
The only official concept like that that comes into my mind is coin tokens from Guilds. But what I mean is, Candlestick maker could also be a Duration like "+1 buy, when playing Treasures in a buy phase of your choice, +1$."
In the Dark Ages Outtakes, I found the first Procession, it was like: "+1 Action, set this aside --- when you play an Action while this is set aside you may put this into play and play the Action again." This is also the direction I am asking for, but it avoids my question by the set-aside.
I ask this because we make a Seaside fan-expansion in the German Dominionblog forums, and stumbled on this by making alternative Durations. E.g., I thought of your first Procession as a Duration "+1 Action, in any turn, one Action card that you play is played again." Or something like that. When you use it, it just leaves the "Duration zone". The problem that we found was how to track how often you can use it when it was played with Throne Room or King's Court; now I think of solutions like a mat or markers for those.
But I wonder what you think about effects like this.
I don't understand why you don't think the earlier Procession counts. It was an action you could wait and use when you wanted; it seems like exactly what you're talking about.
That Procession required a mat. With a mat it would have worked fine. I prefer the mat to making them duration cards. The mat keeps it out of the way so you aren't accidentally discarding it. Throning the earlier Procession just didn't do much - you fail to set it aside again and that's it. When you Throne a duration card, the Throne stays out with the duration card until the duration card is done; this is in the Seaside rulebook.
There is not a lot of traffic in this thread currently, but still, questions along the lines of "did you ever think of" are bad, because they are tantamount to saying "hey look at my idea." This one was not so bad because hey there's Procession.
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Some more information about Temporum was revealed at GenCon (and in this BGG update (http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/33163/gen-con-2014-rio-grande-games-roll-galaxy-temporum))!
I think you've stated before that most of Dominion's playtesting was done with 3 players. Dominion is also incredibly popular with 2 players. The player range for Temporum is listed on BGG as 2-5. At what player count did you do the most testing? Which player count(s) do you prefer, and what do you anticipate being most popular?
Are expansions for Temporum already in the works? How many are planned?
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I think you've stated before that most of Dominion's playtesting was done with 3 players. Dominion is also incredibly popular with 2 players. The player range for Temporum is listed on BGG as 2-5. At what player count did you do the most testing? Which player count(s) do you prefer, and what do you anticipate being most popular?
Are expansions for Temporum already in the works? How many are planned?
I'm not sure I have actually played Dominion the most with 3; probably the quote was just, that I cared most about balancing it for 3, because that's how you try to get things good for 2-4 (I never worried as much about 5 although I worried some; I would not have supported 6). In the early days I played more with 2 or 4 than 3, though I also played with 3.
I actually recommend Temporum for 2-5. Publishers often stretch the range, but that didn't happen here. The game does vary between 2-5, in particular via ruling times. With 2 you have the classic situation where hurting your opponent lines up so well with helping yourself; in particular you'll struggle to stop them from ruling times, even when it just means tying so no-one rules it. With 3 you will care more about ruling a time yourself, since stopping someone else (without ruling it yourself) is just hurting one out of two opponents. With 4-5, two players can rule a time. This means that if I'm getting a huge advantage somewhere by ruling and also I'm not tied for most, then you can't personally just stop me by yourself - you get more crowns than me there and well I still rule there. Overall it's easier to rule places (although of course changing history can temporarily get rid of the place that's good for them). It's easiest with 4 since at 5 there is more competition. And then besides ruling, some abilities hurt all other players, so you get hurt a little more that way with more players. And obv. the more opponents you have, the more likely that one of them will get lucky in some way.
I have played less 2-player Temporum than any other player count; I have certainly played a lot with 5, because that's where any additional people have to get turned away. I've played with 2 though and it works well. I personally prefer the more social experience of more players. It's slower with more players because you take turns, and nothing at all compensates for that, it's just slower; but it moves at a fast pace even with 5 so it doesn't really matter.
I don't know how to guess what will be popular. I guess since sometimes you have 5 and are limited to games that work well with 5 and this does, 5 will see some action. There are so many choices for 2. Online play has pushed 2-player for Dominion; dunno if Temporum will get an online version. Also Dominion can be played by couples in a somewhat non-confrontational way; Temporum is more confrontational. OTOH lots of people play 2-player confrontational games.
I made an expansion for Temporum, but whether or not it comes out will depend on how well the game does and stuff. I haven't planned on a second one; there would need to be demand and I would need to think of more stuff worth doing.
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Will you be at Essen this year?
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Will you be at Essen this year?
No. I will probably always try to get out of going, but I guess it's possible I'll go back someday.
Altenburger wanted me to Skype, and I said okay, and then they changed it and I'm not sure what it is anymore. Possibly I'll answer questions just like I do over the internet except faster? Anyway it doesn't sound too impressive whatever it is but I guess something may happen there.
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I was curious because i'm a bit familiar to Heroes of Might and Magic III, so I tried it and finally managed to run it via DOSBox. It plays very well and mostly similar to Heroes, but your game philosophy comes through: "twists" that can be added to the game (eh, I already know this word from somewhere...), plenty of monsters with funny special abilities, many different paths to go by leveling up heroes etc.
I really like your game and I'll play it the next weeks, but I don't really understand why you call it best computer game ever. Do you know many other computer games? (Well, I myself don't really but I'm sure there should be some more recent games that could be better.)
It's one of those "it's funny because it's true" things. Dudes has awful art (I did most of it myself, but not the rock or the boot or uh man maybe one other thing), it's low on interface-frills, it's my take on an old game. At the same time I have actually played it more than any other computer game, and can find you uh at least three other people who will cite it as their favorite computer/console/arcade game ever.
Isn't Dudes a highly political game? When playing it, often 2 players fight each other, and afterwards a third one comes and laughs last because he can easily defeat the rest of the (former) conqueror's troops. I was just wondering because you emphasized you didn't like politics in games.
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Isn't Dudes a highly political game? When playing it, often 2 players fight each other, and afterwards a third one comes and laughs last because he can easily defeat the rest of the (former) conqueror's troops. I was just wondering because you emphasized you didn't like politics in games.
Well yes it's political, but it has never been an issue for me personally, due to it being a computer game. If you play it alone, which is normally the case, there's no politics; if you play it with one other human, there's no politics. Whine about who's winning all you want; the computer will never factor that in.
When I have played with two other humans, we just played friendly, not fighting each other, trying to be the one looking the best when we quit (or actually finished the map). Played competitively, yes, politics would be a huge issue. I imagine most people would not play with two other humans though, because it goes so slowly. The computer players are much faster.
If I had ever tried to polish it up for publication, I would have tried to add a mode to better handle multiple humans. You can put four or six on two teams; for three I might go for a capture-the-center thing. My go-to solution of "when the player to your left dies you win" doesn't work here.
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I know that this is a change in subject, and that you probably have/are getting a lot of these types of questions, so forgive me if I'm being rude, but is Prince supposed to be the last sort of official release of anything Dominion related, like Guilds was the last official expansion, or are you still going to release Dominion stuff, but just at a much more staggered pace?
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I know that this is a change in subject, and that you probably have/are getting a lot of these types of questions, so forgive me if I'm being rude, but is Prince supposed to be the last sort of official release of anything Dominion related, like Guilds was the last official expansion, or are you still going to release Dominion stuff, but just at a much more staggered pace?
I am sure there will be more Dominion stuff, including expansions. The publishers would like them and I did not manage to just crank out spin-offs like I was hoping to (the first two turned into Kingdom Builder and Temporum). I do not know what the pace will be but "slow" is a good guess.
More words on this topic: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=73.0
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Any concrete plans for the next expansion yet?
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Any concrete plans for the next expansion yet?
When the time comes it will be up to RGG to announce it.
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Will there be a secret history of Temporum once that's out? I'm especially interested in the development of the pascal's-triangle-like mechanic.
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Will there be a secret history of Temporum once that's out? I'm especially interested in the development of the pascal's-triangle-like mechanic.
Yes, I wrote the secret history some months ago. It doesn't go into much detail on the triangle though. I don't really have a story about the triangle. I made some time travel games in the late 90s that worked different ways. One of the ways was the triangle. It came from me just looking for a data structure to handle alternate realities. You could do a binary tree instead but it takes more space on the table. The Pascal's triangle is more compact. In the 90s the games with the triangle had fixed locations, rather then dealing out 10 cards each time. That part came from when Temporum was trying to be a deckbuilding game.
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I don't remember if this has been asked before... But why does Farmland say "exactly $2" instead of "up to $2"?
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I don't remember if this has been asked before... But why does Farmland say "exactly $2" instead of "up to $2"?
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg355895#msg355895 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg355895#msg355895)
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Have you seen Gone Girl? Did you know about the Dominion product placement in the film?
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Have you seen Gone Girl? Did you know about the Dominion product placement in the film?
I have not seen that particular flick. These days I am unlikely to see a movie before Netflix has it. And they didn't pay me to say that.
I didn't know about that specific product placement until reading about it within the last few days. I did know that Jay decided some time ago to try out product placement.
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In Greed, is money supposed to be public information or can you hide form others how much you have?
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In Greed, is money supposed to be public information or can you hide form others how much you have?
Money is public.
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Why is Temporum called Temporum (genitive plural form) and not Tempora (nominative form)?
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Why is Temporum called Temporum (genitive plural form) and not Tempora (nominative form)?
Why is it feodums and not feuda? The answer is that I don't know Latin, and neither does anyone else on the path from me to publication. I realized that there might be a better form of the word at some point after it was locked in and before it was public. I did nothing.
Alayna (the artist) suggested the name Temporum. I asked people which names they liked from a list, and that one got picked more often than others. I didn't ask people what they thought of Tempora, or whatever other forms of the word; for all I know they were responding to the "um" sound, and would have gone for some other name otherwise.
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If it had ended up called "Tempora," there would have been a ton of jokes about breading and deep-frying the game pieces.
Or about egg-based paints.
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Donald please we need another Dominion expansion :(
Game it too good to leave alone!
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Game it too good to leave alone!
I really like this phrase. "Game: It too good to leave alone."
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Donald please we need another Dominion expansion :(
Game it too good to leave alone!
There's hope. Maybe one day we'll be discussing Dominion: Herbal Teas
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg416598#msg416598
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There's hope. Maybe one day we'll be discussing Dominion: Herbal Teas
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg416598#msg416598
I don't get it.
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There's hope. Maybe one day we'll be discussing Dominion: Herbal Teas
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg416598#msg416598
I don't get it.
Which part? Donald said last page there would probably be more expansions (hence the link). Dominion: Herbal Teas is a possible expansion name if so many expansions come out that he runs out of good names. Let me know if it's all clear.
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There's hope. Maybe one day we'll be discussing Dominion: Herbal Teas
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg416598#msg416598
I don't get it.
Which part? Donald said last page there would probably be more expansions (hence the link). Dominion: Herbal Teas is a possible expansion name if so many expansions come out that he runs out of good names. Let me know if it's all clear.
Yeah I saw that he considered another expansion but I must have read over "Herbal Teas" so I didn't get how you came up with that name ;)
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I actually don't want a new expansion. I have an awesome box that fits everything and I really can't add much in it. Also I simply don't play it enough to justify the price at this point.
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I actually don't want a new expansion. I have an awesome box that fits everything and I really can't add much in it. Also I simply don't play it enough to justify the price at this point.
As much as it's sacrilegious, I kind of agree. There are enough cards now that nothing comes up too often and you'll never see every kingdom. One of the things that I like about dominion is that unlike Magic or other TCG's, you can actually own all the cards and there isn't this requirement to constantly be buying new things to catch up. I would totally be excited about another expansion, but the idea of more expansions being released despite the number of times Donald has explained why it isn't a good idea, worries me.
There's hope. Maybe one day we'll be discussing Dominion: Herbal Teas
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg416598#msg416598
Relevant: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2342#comic
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I agree that more expansions aren't needed, but I wouldn't complain if there was another small expansion. I enjoy seeing new cards as long as it's not every other week. If there are new cards that worth worth slapping together for another expansion I'd buy it, but don't force it just because it would more cards.
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I'd rather see small packs (3-5 sets of 10) selling for like $10-15 with focuses on popular mechanics. (like durations, or potions, or treasures)
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I think it's time for a video game and movie franchise.
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I think it's time for a video game and movie franchise.
Dominion the action-stealth adventure!
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I actually don't want a new expansion. I have an awesome box that fits everything and I really can't add much in it. Also I simply don't play it enough to justify the price at this point.
As much as it's sacrilegious, I kind of agree. There are enough cards now that nothing comes up too often and you'll never see every kingdom. One of the things that I like about dominion is that unlike Magic or other TCG's, you can actually own all the cards and there isn't this requirement to constantly be buying new things to catch up. I would totally be excited about another expansion, but the idea of more expansions being released despite the number of times Donald has explained why it isn't a good idea, worries me.
Bad news! There will probably be another expansion someday. For sure if there isn't something worth doing, I won't do it, but what are the odds.
Get working on boxes that can hold the universe. Wait, just turn the existing box inside out.
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I actually don't want a new expansion. I have an awesome box that fits everything and I really can't add much in it. Also I simply don't play it enough to justify the price at this point.
Get working on boxes that can hold the universe. Wait, just turn the existing box inside out.
(http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/78/78f9ec166f03eba313a27d6e3273aa5c110fa764a02ae6ec73ea46ded992fce4.jpg)
/edit: I heard you like memes...
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I actually don't want a new expansion. I have an awesome box that fits everything and I really can't add much in it. Also I simply don't play it enough to justify the price at this point.
As much as it's sacrilegious, I kind of agree. There are enough cards now that nothing comes up too often and you'll never see every kingdom. One of the things that I like about dominion is that unlike Magic or other TCG's, you can actually own all the cards and there isn't this requirement to constantly be buying new things to catch up. I would totally be excited about another expansion, but the idea of more expansions being released despite the number of times Donald has explained why it isn't a good idea, worries me.
Bad news! There will probably be another expansion someday. For sure if there isn't something worth doing, I won't do it, but what are the odds.
Get working on boxes that can hold the universe. Wait, just turn the existing box inside out.
Oh I would certainly welcome another expansion, it's the potential for more expansions without end that I don't like.
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Oh I would certainly welcome another expansion, it's the potential for more expansions without end that I don't like.
Don't worry, you'll die someday.
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More expansions means more rankings, more lists, more edge cases, more memes, more arguing, more threads, more moreness.
There is literally no downside.
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... There is literally no downside.
And if there is the upside is way,way bigger. Already looking forward to it
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There is literally no downside.
You are just asking for an edge case.
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There is literally no downside.
You are just asking for an edge case.
Coming up with edge cases is an upside!
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There is literally no downside.
You are just asking for an edge case.
Coming up with edge cases is an upside!
Edge case: The new expansion is just variants of Scout.
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There is literally no downside.
You are just asking for an edge case.
Coming up with edge cases is an upside!
Edge case: The new expansion is just variants of Scout.
New ranking list: Scout Variants. Fun ensues. Also, lots of meme modifications.
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Dominion: Exploration and Expansion.
Lots of Lookouts, Navigators, Explorers, Expands, Upgrades, and Scouts
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Edge case: The new expansion is just variants of Scout.
Scouting Village: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. +1 Action per revealed Victory card. Put the cards on top of your deck in any order.
Scouting Witch: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Each other player gains a Curse per Victory card revealed. Put the cards on top of your deck in any order.
Scoutsmith: Action, $4
Scouts reveal an extra card this turn.
Ironscout: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. For each card, if it is an...
Action card, put it on top of your deck.
Treasure card, put it on top of your deck.
Victory card, put it into your hand.
Scouting House: Action, $4
+1 Action
Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Victory cards from it, and put them into your hand.
Band of Scouts: Action, $4
Play this as if it were Scout.
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Scouting House could actually be pretty neat with hybrid victory cards, especially if you had a way to gain them during the action phase to pull them back. Just saying.
Just give it 1 VP and make it a Victory card. Look at all these Scouting Houses drawing other Scouting Houses - so much self-synergy.
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Edge case: The new expansion is just variants of Scout.
Scouting Village: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. +1 Action per revealed Victory card. Put the cards on top of your deck in any order.
Scouting Witch: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Each other player gains a Curse per Victory card revealed. Put the cards on top of your deck in any order.
Scoutsmith: Action, $4
Scouts reveal an extra card this turn.
Ironscout: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. For each card, if it is an...
Action card, put it on top of your deck.
Treasure card, put it on top of your deck.
Victory card, put it into your hand.
Scouting House: Action, $4
+1 Action
Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Victory cards from it, and put them into your hand.
Band of Scouts: Action, $4
Play this as if it were Scout.
Where can I preorder?
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There is literally no downside.
You are just asking for an edge case.
What if the expansion comes shaped as a Klein bottle?
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Add some card art and you're ready for April 1 next year
With no trashing and no other curser, there are boards on which you open Scouting Witch. It's not too terrible, though it's swingy like Doctor and Swindler
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Scouting Witch: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Each other player gains a Curse per Victory card revealed. Put the cards on top of your deck in any order.
(http://i.imgur.com/fFilqqy.jpg)
Ironscout: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. For each card, if it is an...
Action card, put it on top of your deck.
Treasure card, put it on top of your deck.
Victory card, put it into your hand.
(http://i.imgur.com/FGABJSE.jpg)
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Scouting House: Action, $4
+1 Action
Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Victory cards from it, and put them into your hand.
I almost feel like I would buy this more than I buy Scout.
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Scouting House: Action, $4
+1 Action
Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Victory cards from it, and put them into your hand.
I almost feel like I would buy this more than I buy Scout.
That's because it's awesome. Playing one every turn in a tight deck makes you immune to greening as long as you have a way to trigger a reshuffle.
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Scouting House: Action, $4
+1 Action
Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Victory cards from it, and put them into your hand.
I almost feel like I would buy this more than I buy Scout.
That's because it's awesome. Playing one every turn in a tight deck makes you immune to greening as long as you have a way to trigger a reshuffle.
Keep in mind that all the engine components you've played will miss the shuffle too. In a tight deck, that's probably most of your good stuff.
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Scouting House: Action, $4
+1 Action
Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Victory cards from it, and put them into your hand.
I almost feel like I would buy this more than I buy Scout.
That's because it's awesome. Playing one every turn in a tight deck makes you immune to greening as long as you have a way to trigger a reshuffle.
Keep in mind that all the engine components you've played will miss the shuffle too. In a tight deck, that's probably most of your good stuff.
Maybe "tight" was the wrong word. I'm not thinking of draw-your-deck engines, I'm just thinking of somewhat-trashed-down decks that would get really wonky if you try to green too early. Basically, if you can have a decent turn with half or fewer of the actions in your deck, this card can really help smooth things out. PPE: I can see how you'd think I meant draw-your-deck type engines when I mention playing it every turn. My bad.
It's funny because I've thought about some fan cards that play with the same concept: enabling engines that would otherwise be too finicky by removing green cards from the shuffle. I think Donald X. just accidentally created the perfect card for that.
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Scouting House: Action, $4
+1 Action
Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Victory cards from it, and put them into your hand.
I almost feel like I would buy this more than I buy Scout.
That's because it's awesome. Playing one every turn in a tight deck makes you immune to greening as long as you have a way to trigger a reshuffle.
Keep in mind that all the engine components you've played will miss the shuffle too. In a tight deck, that's probably most of your good stuff.
Maybe "tight" was the wrong word. I'm not thinking of draw-your-deck engines, I'm just thinking of somewhat-trashed-down decks that would get really wonky if you try to green too early. Basically, if you can have a decent turn with half or fewer of the actions in your deck, this card can really help smooth things out. PPE: I can see how you'd think I meant draw-your-deck type engines when I mention playing it every turn. My bad.
It's funny because I've thought about some fan cards that play with the same concept: enabling engines that would otherwise be too finicky by removing green cards from the shuffle. I think Donald X. just accidentally created the perfect card for that.
I'm still not convinced. I think you'd run into the same problem you would have with Counting House. If you only get one Scouting House, it's no guarantee that you'll draw it towards the end of the shuffle. If you get more, then the ones that get drawn early will still be relatively dead and you probably skipped $5s that would have been more useful.
But these are no longer questions for Donald... umm....
I haven't heard anything about Temporum in a while. Any news on that?
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I haven't heard anything about Temporum in a while. Any news on that?
I'm expecting it late this month. I was expecting it around now, but some wooden pieces took longer than expected to get through customs.
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A relevant update on RGG's website:
http://riograndegames.com/
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A relevant update on RGG's website:
http://riograndegames.com/
For those who didn't find it in the wall of text/too lazy to click through:
We are also planning a additions to the Dominion and Race for the Galaxy families of games for 2015. We will provide further information on these games in early 2015.
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You have talked previously about he 4 pillars of Dominion from the Base set. Looking at that and all the expansions, would you expand the list of pillars of Dominion? If so, what would be the additions?
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You have talked previously about he 4 pillars of Dominion from the Base set. Looking at that and all the expansions, would you expand the list of pillars of Dominion? If so, what would be the additions?
It wasn't a thing for any of the other sets. The sets are all trying to have new cards that shake things up, that give you different things to do. They get as many as they can. The main set had the unique position of having to be the simplest set. So there, like, Village shakes things up - you can play multiple actions! In general games can be divided by basic things: whether there's a village, a +buy, a way to draw cards, a trasher. Those remain principle ways that the game varies, and that applies to the main set by itself too.
There was some point when I got it into my head that those four cards were special because of how they pushed at the decks to be bigger or larger. They changed the game a lot and that was an important thing, to have the game play differently from game to game. In later expansions it's just normal, of course cards are trying to make the game play differently. And it's easier; the cards get to be more complex, and you have greater variety just from the variety of cards.
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Hi all - just found this thread. Can't find interview :P but just thought I'd add my view.
First of all congrats to Donald X. for such a cool game - my wife and I have been playing it with 2-3 other people for 18 months now. We bought all the sets pretty early on and are pretty satisfied with the cards.
What I really like is that most cards go happily with most other cards (unlike, say, munchkin where throwing too many sets together can make for lots of cards unable to interact with each other). The only exception really is Alchemy. Love the idea, just feel there are not enough cards needing potions to buy them over repeated gameplay, so my one wish would be some extra Alchemy cards to give that set a bit of oomph.
I found Dark Ages and Hinterlands offered some really entertaining cards to play with and have my vote as most fun expansions FWIW....also does someone have a link to the interview?
cheers
Cas Liber
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The "interview" is an ongoing thing. Post your questions and he'll answer.
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Hi all - just found this thread. Can't find interview :P but just thought I'd add my view.
First of all congrats to Donald X. for such a cool game - my wife and I have been playing it with 2-3 other people for 18 months now. We bought all the sets pretty early on and are pretty satisfied with the cards.
What I really like is that most cards go happily with most other cards (unlike, say, munchkin where throwing too many sets together can make for lots of cards unable to interact with each other). The only exception really is Alchemy. Love the idea, just feel there are not enough cards needing potions to buy them over repeated gameplay, so my one wish would be some extra Alchemy cards to give that set a bit of oomph.
I found Dark Ages and Hinterlands offered some really entertaining cards to play with and have my vote as most fun expansions FWIW....also does someone have a link to the interview?
cheers
Cas Liber
The interview from 2012 is on the main blog, which isn't used that much anymore (here, specifically (http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/12/20/interview-with-donald-x-vaccarino/)). This thread has continued to be a place to ask Donald questions since then.
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You may also be interested in reading the Secret Histories (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=14.0). That forum also contains various other thoughts from Donald about Dominion and game design/development in general. Some of them are posted by theory and taken from other sources (mostly BGG, I think), but it is a nice convenient collection of reading material.
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Hi all - just found this thread. Can't find interview :P but just thought I'd add my view.
First of all congrats to Donald X. for such a cool game - my wife and I have been playing it with 2-3 other people for 18 months now. We bought all the sets pretty early on and are pretty satisfied with the cards.
What I really like is that most cards go happily with most other cards (unlike, say, munchkin where throwing too many sets together can make for lots of cards unable to interact with each other). The only exception really is Alchemy. Love the idea, just feel there are not enough cards needing potions to buy them over repeated gameplay, so my one wish would be some extra Alchemy cards to give that set a bit of oomph.
I found Dark Ages and Hinterlands offered some really entertaining cards to play with and have my vote as most fun expansions FWIW....also does someone have a link to the interview?
cheers
Cas Liber
`
I think this is only true for Transmute and Philosopher's Stone, maybe a bit for Golem because 4P is quite steep.
All of the other cards are definitely good enough that you'd get a Potion just for them. Alchemist is also sometimes skippable, but I don't have many issues with it if it's the only Potion card.
What I mean is: Scrying Pool, Apothecary, University, Familiar, Possession, Alchemist and Vineyards will see about the same amount of play whether there are any other Potion costing cards or not. They are not really influenced by it, rather they're influenced by other factors in the kingdom.
Alchemy has this semi-official rule to include at least 3 Potion-costers if you're playing with a Potion-coster: I think if you've randomly selected Transmute, Philosopher's Stone or Golem, you should include at least one other Potion-coster to make the kingdom more fun.
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The "interview" is an ongoing thing. Post your questions and he'll answer.
Cool, thanks for that!
PS: Thanks all folks - found secret histories and interview now :)
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Hi all - just found this thread. Can't find interview :P but just thought I'd add my view.
First of all congrats to Donald X. for such a cool game - my wife and I have been playing it with 2-3 other people for 18 months now. We bought all the sets pretty early on and are pretty satisfied with the cards.
What I really like is that most cards go happily with most other cards (unlike, say, munchkin where throwing too many sets together can make for lots of cards unable to interact with each other). The only exception really is Alchemy. Love the idea, just feel there are not enough cards needing potions to buy them over repeated gameplay, so my one wish would be some extra Alchemy cards to give that set a bit of oomph.
I found Dark Ages and Hinterlands offered some really entertaining cards to play with and have my vote as most fun expansions FWIW....also does someone have a link to the interview?
cheers
Cas Liber
`
I think this is only true for Transmute and Philosopher's Stone, maybe a bit for Golem because 4P is quite steep.
All of the other cards are definitely good enough that you'd get a Potion just for them. Alchemist is also sometimes skippable, but I don't have many issues with it if it's the only Potion card.
What I mean is: Scrying Pool, Apothecary, University, Familiar, Possession, Alchemist and Vineyards will see about the same amount of play whether there are any other Potion costing cards or not. They are not really influenced by it, rather they're influenced by other factors in the kingdom.
Alchemy has this semi-official rule to include at least 3 Potion-costers if you're playing with a Potion-coster: I think if you've randomly selected Transmute, Philosopher's Stone or Golem, you should include at least one other Potion-coster to make the kingdom more fun.
Oops, what I meant was we've played lots of games, and always have a minimum of 3 Alchemy cards if we're using Alchemy - hence doing this one goes through (and gets familiar with) various combinations of Alchemy cards fairly quickly, so if there is one segment of the game that would benefit from some boosting then this would be my vote for it - another small (guilds/cornucopia/alchemy-sized) box with a bunch of cards that either need be bought or otherwise interact with potions.
I must admit as time's gone on I enjoy cards that interact with other players more. Initially we felt reluctant using attack cards on each other (being a bunch of quiet 40-somethings) while my teenaged son would fling attack cards around with reckless abandon, but as time's gone on I enjoy them more and would like to see more cards like this (action/reaction, or Advisor/Contraband/Masquerade type cards).
So...errr....Donald X. this'd be my request - more Alchemy-compatible (heck, call it Dark Arts and fling in cards for being nefarious against each other :D) and interactive...but in truth am pretty happy...just feel a bit sad as our Alchemy cards are a bit negected.
cheers
Cas
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Looking at Donald's secret histories...yeah I wish Bank had been in Alchemy. I find it a bit overpowered even at a cost of 7, folks gun for it. 4 + P would have been better - slightly less accessible.
Hoard is one card we make a b-line for. I wonder if 6 is still too cheap for it.
Some of those possible cards at the bottom of the secret history of dark ages sound fun too....
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The community voted bank 11th out of 16 6+ cost cards*, it's definitely not overpowered. Yeah, it's crazy good sometimes, but usually just a tiny bit better than gold (and sometimes a lot worse). Hoard is very much where it belongs at 6 too, I doubt it would see much play if it costed 7. Many of the decks that want hoard have trouble reaching 6, let alone 7.
*http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11791.0 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11791.0))
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A relevant update on RGG's website:
http://riograndegames.com/
For those who didn't find it in the wall of text/too lazy to click through:
We are also planning a additions to the Dominion and Race for the Galaxy families of games for 2015. We will provide further information on these games in early 2015.
It IS a new expansion and a large one.
Jay
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A relevant update on RGG's website:
http://riograndegames.com/
For those who didn't find it in the wall of text/too lazy to click through:
We are also planning a additions to the Dominion and Race for the Galaxy families of games for 2015. We will provide further information on these games in early 2015.
It IS a new expansion and a large one.
Jay
The real question is who designed it?
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A relevant update on RGG's website:
http://riograndegames.com/
For those who didn't find it in the wall of text/too lazy to click through:
We are also planning a additions to the Dominion and Race for the Galaxy families of games for 2015. We will provide further information on these games in early 2015.
It IS a new expansion and a large one.
Jay
The real question is who designed it?
I can answer that one. His name starts with D and the end rhymes with Nidorino.
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Who in the world is Didorino?
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A relevant update on RGG's website:
http://riograndegames.com/
For those who didn't find it in the wall of text/too lazy to click through:
We are also planning a additions to the Dominion and Race for the Galaxy families of games for 2015. We will provide further information on these games in early 2015.
It IS a new expansion and a large one.
Jay
The real question is who designed it?
I can answer that one. His name starts with D and the end rhymes with Nidorino.
Really? I thought "D. Nidorino" was done making Dominion expansions and new ones would have to be designed by someone else.
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Oops, what I meant was we've played lots of games, and always have a minimum of 3 Alchemy cards if we're using Alchemy - hence doing this one goes through (and gets familiar with) various combinations of Alchemy cards fairly quickly
Try playing withou the restriction. I think it makes much more interesting. If you always have at least 3 Alcehmy cards, the decison to buy a potion is usually pbvious, if you only have one, it's much more of a strategic choice.
I love the familiar pun by the way.
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Yeah, I firmly think the suggestion of playing with >2 Potion cost cards is a mistake. It's nice when you're first learning the cards, but all of the Alchemy cards are worth buying at some point even if they are alone, and Dominion is designed to be played with random sets of 10 anyway. It'll work out for you.
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all of the Alchemy cards are worth buying at some point even if they are alone
I'm pretty sure I've never gotten a potion just for transmute. There's always been something else. But that's not the fault of alchemy, transmute is just weak.
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all of the Alchemy cards are worth buying at some point even if they are alone
I'm pretty sure I've never gotten a potion just for transmute. There's always been something else. But that's not the fault of alchemy, transmute is just weak.
They can't all be the best $0P ever.
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Try playing withou the restriction. I think it makes much more interesting. If you always have at least 3 Alcehmy cards, the decison to buy a potion is usually pbvious, if you only have one, it's much more of a strategic choice.
This is a common misconception, propagated by players who always play full random and therefore usually have no more than one Alchemy card in a game. In games with several Potion-cost cards, the question of "should I buy a Potion?" is merely expanded to "how many Potions should I buy and when?". And although it's rare, zero Potions is sometimes still a valid answer.
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I'm pretty sure I've never gotten a potion just for transmute. There's always been something else. But that's not the fault of alchemy, transmute is just weak.
Transmute isn't actually weak. Its problem is that—unlike all the other Potion-cost cards—you almost never want more than one copy of it. So buying a Potion just to buy a single Transmute is way too slow and leaves you with a dead Potion in your deck.
So, yeah. I agree that Transmute is almost never worth getting a Potion for. But it's not because it's a weak card. It's because your Potion then becomes a liability in your deck.
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Try playing withou the restriction. I think it makes much more interesting. If you always have at least 3 Alcehmy cards, the decison to buy a potion is usually pbvious, if you only have one, it's much more of a strategic choice.
This is a common misconception, propagated by players who always play full random and therefore usually have no more than one Alchemy card in a game. In games with several Potion-cost cards, the question of "should I buy a Potion?" is merely expanded to "how many Potions should I buy and when?". And although it's rare, zero Potions is sometimes still a valid answer.
Occasionally you want two potions even when there is only one potion-cost (vineyards, sometimes Alchemist). Even with multiple potion cost cards in the kingdom you still almost always will want at most two potions. So I think that with just one potion-cost usually the choices are the same, except that with multiple potion-costs zero potions is very rarely a valid answer, as you say.
I'm pretty sure I've never gotten a potion just for transmute. There's always been something else. But that's not the fault of alchemy, transmute is just weak.
Transmute isn't actually weak. Its problem is that—unlike all the other Potion-cost cards—you almost never want more than one copy of it. So buying a Potion just to buy a single Transmute is way too slow and leaves you with a dead Potion in your deck.
So, yeah. I agree that Transmute is almost never worth getting a Potion for. But it's not because it's a weak card. It's because your Potion then becomes a liability in your deck.
Transmute is weak for it's cost, just like any other weak card. I'd buy adventurer plenty if it only cost 2...
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Transmute isn't actually weak. Its problem is that—unlike all the other Potion-cost cards—you almost never want more than one copy of it. So buying a Potion just to buy a single Transmute is way too slow and leaves you with a dead Potion in your deck.
So, yeah. I agree that Transmute is almost never worth getting a Potion for. But it's not because it's a weak card. It's because your Potion then becomes a liability in your deck.
Transmute is weak for it's cost, just like any other weak card. I'd buy adventurer plenty if it only cost 2...
But Adventurer's cost doesn't swing wildly depending on what else is on the board. Transmute's does. If you can use that Potion to pick up Alchemists and Golems as well, Transmute's cost is drastically lessened.
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Try playing withou the restriction. I think it makes much more interesting. If you always have at least 3 Alcehmy cards, the decison to buy a potion is usually pbvious, if you only have one, it's much more of a strategic choice.
This is a common misconception, propagated by players who always play full random and therefore usually have no more than one Alchemy card in a game. In games with several Potion-cost cards, the question of "should I buy a Potion?" is merely expanded to "how many Potions should I buy and when?". And although it's rare, zero Potions is sometimes still a valid answer.
I have played the heavy Alchemy games (some with you from your horrid/blasphemous ;) two expansion selection method) and they come up in full random anyway. Also there was an Isodom forever ago where we played expansion heavy rounds. This is not a misconception, though one can argue about the percentages, the general effect is to make buying a single Potion extremely favorable.
Vineyards is the easiest case for adding multiple Potions (but it doesn't really require more Potion cost cards to encourage it), with Apothecary/SP/Alchemist it can happen but you probably need +buy on the board (and you need to get the +buy and the money in hand before the cheap Potion cards are gone). My experience (granted it's less than yours) has been that 0 potions is dramatically reduced, >1 is boosted a bit but not as much as the 0s are reduced.
edit: to clarify, I don't really think one way or the other is more interesting, this is just my experience about the number of Potions to buy.
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I think we had this discussions like 100 times before.
I think common agreement is that it both makes interesting games if you cluster alchemy cards, and if you don't. Like with every other set. It's just that because of the line in the rulebook, there are many people who cluster Alchemy and nothing else. And it's definitely not neccessary for getting use out of the potion costs cards.
My opinion is that Alchemy feels overpowered if you always cluster, and maybe is also dislike most for exactly that reason (and Posssession). But as said, like with every* other biased selection, it can make interesting games, especially if you want to go more action-heavy.
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So...errr....Donald X. this'd be my request - more Alchemy-compatible (heck, call it Dark Arts and fling in cards for being nefarious against each other :D) and interactive...but in truth am pretty happy...just feel a bit sad as our Alchemy cards are a bit negected.
Alchemy is the least popular set, so it just doesn't make any sense to make more of it. It wouldn't be doing that instead of not doing it; it would be doing that instead of doing something else. Something else would be better.
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Yeah, I firmly think the suggestion of playing with >2 Potion cost cards is a mistake. It's nice when you're first learning the cards, but all of the Alchemy cards are worth buying at some point even if they are alone, and Dominion is designed to be played with random sets of 10 anyway. It'll work out for you.
I struggled to make the cards in Alchemy worth getting when only one was out. Which is why it has an action theme; the cards all wanted to be spammable (Transmute fits this because you can Transmute a Transmute; Possession is an exception because it costs so much). The action theme made the set slow and well if I had it to do again it would have two VP cards and two treasures.
Valerie and Dale wanted the "play with multiple Alchemy cards" thing in the rulebook. They didn't like the cards when just one was out.
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Transmute isn't actually weak. Its problem is that—unlike all the other Potion-cost cards—you almost never want more than one copy of it.
That's unfortunate if true, given that one of Transmute's abilities is gaining more copies of Transmute.
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Transmute isn't actually weak. Its problem is that—unlike all the other Potion-cost cards—you almost never want more than one copy of it.
That's unfortunate if true, given that one of Transmute's abilities is gaining more copies of Transmute.
What I mean is, you rarely want to buy more than one copy. In the instances where you want more, you can easily gain them with Transmute itself.
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Who in the world is Didorino?
Hi, that's me! Next expansion is awesome!
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Do you know when we'll figure out more about new expansions?
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So...errr....Donald X. this'd be my request - more Alchemy-compatible (heck, call it Dark Arts and fling in cards for being nefarious against each other :D) and interactive...but in truth am pretty happy...just feel a bit sad as our Alchemy cards are a bit negected.
Alchemy is the least popular set, so it just doesn't make any sense to make more of it. It wouldn't be doing that instead of not doing it; it would be doing that instead of doing something else. Something else would be better.
Awww.....no I can see the reasoning.
Been thinking about this overnight. One other card type I'd like to see one more of is something else that sifts through the Trash. I like games that incorporate the Trash into gameplay and when setting up a randomised game, if it looks like trashing will be a key part of the game then I might substitute in a Rogue or Graverobber to liven things up, but another card that incorporates trash sifting with something else would give more options.
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Donald, can you tell us anything about the new expansion coming in 2015?
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Donald, can you tell us anything about the new expansion coming in 2015?
Any announcements are up to RGG. So, so far I can tell you that there's a new large Dominion expansion coming out in 2015.
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Donald, can you tell us anything about the new expansion coming in 2015?
Any announcements are up to RGG. So, so far I can tell you that there's a new large Dominion expansion coming out in 2015.
Is large normal sized or Dark Ages sized?
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Is large normal sized or Dark Ages sized?
Jay doesn't appear to have said.
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I'm guessing the new expansion is going to be completely all-new cards, like Guilds was, since you've already shown all the old outtakes?
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I'm guessing the new expansion is going to be completely all-new cards, like Guilds was, since you've already shown all the old outtakes?
Despite Jay posting again about the set, he has yet to address this issue.
There was this time on BGG, this guy was all, "I heard this thing about the set," a thing that was not true. And I said, that's not true. And he said "oh I also heard this other thing."
It turns out that the way to not tell you guys about the set is to not tell you guys about the set.
I can tell you about Guilds though. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8557.0
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Is it true that the new set will just be repackaged sets of Ascension with "+1 action" written on the cards in sharpie?
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Donald, can you tell us anything about the new expansion coming in 2015?
Any announcements are up to RGG. So, so far I can tell you that there's a new large Dominion expansion coming out in 2015.
What convinced you to come back to Dominion and create a new set? Other than money, which is a totally valid reason.
I'm happy there will be a new set, because more Dominion cards is never a bad thing in my book. But my potential storage solution is getting more back breaking with every new set.
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Donald, can you tell us anything about the new expansion coming in 2015?
Any announcements are up to RGG. So, so far I can tell you that there's a new large Dominion expansion coming out in 2015.
What convinced you to come back to Dominion and create a new set? Other than money, which is a totally valid reason.
I'm happy there will be a new set, because more Dominion cards is never a bad thing in my book. But my potential storage solution is getting more back breaking with every new set.
I recommend modular storage. I use a tuckbox for each set (Alchemy and Cornucopia both in one box and Dark Ages spread across two boxes). I think this is the kind I use: http://www.bcwsupplies.com/cat/trading-card/trading-card-boxes/330-card-storage-box
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Donald, can you tell us anything about the new expansion coming in 2015?
Any announcements are up to RGG. So, so far I can tell you that there's a new large Dominion expansion coming out in 2015.
What convinced you to come back to Dominion and create a new set? Other than money, which is a totally valid reason.
I'm happy there will be a new set, because more Dominion cards is never a bad thing in my book. But my potential storage solution is getting more back breaking with every new set.
I recommend modular storage. I use a tuckbox for each set (Alchemy and Cornucopia both in one box and Dark Ages spread across two boxes). I think this is the kind I use: http://www.bcwsupplies.com/cat/trading-card/trading-card-boxes/330-card-storage-box
Better buy 50 for the 11¢ discount—you know you're going to need them.
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I think this is the kind I use: http://www.bcwsupplies.com/cat/trading-card/trading-card-boxes/330-card-storage-box
Better buy 50 for the 11¢ discount—you know you're going to need them.
Well, I just bought mine from a local game store.
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I think this is the kind I use: http://www.bcwsupplies.com/cat/trading-card/trading-card-boxes/330-card-storage-box
Better buy 50 for the 11¢ discount—you know you're going to need them.
Well, I just bought mine from a local game store.
I got Mine when I bought the regular Dominion set.
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I think this is the kind I use: http://www.bcwsupplies.com/cat/trading-card/trading-card-boxes/330-card-storage-box
Better buy 50 for the 11¢ discount—you know you're going to need them.
Well, I just bought mine from a local game store.
I got Mine when I bought the regular Dominion set.
I thought Mine was in Prosperity?
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I think this is the kind I use: http://www.bcwsupplies.com/cat/trading-card/trading-card-boxes/330-card-storage-box
Better buy 50 for the 11¢ discount—you know you're going to need them.
Well, I just bought mine from a local game store.
I got Mine when I bought the regular Dominion set.
I thought Mine was in Prosperity?
Man, my Mine/Mint confusion was on the level where I thought Beyond Awesome was making that joke.
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What convinced you to come back to Dominion and create a new set? Other than money, which is a totally valid reason.
It wasn't money; it's nice to have a project that you know will get published, but uh a Dominion expansion has no chance of being a dud but also no chance of being a big hit. It only sells to the portion of Dominion fans that want another expansion.
All the reasons for doing spin-offs instead still stand. But I made a spin-off and took out the Dominion part and that's Kingdom Builder. And I made another spin-off and took out the Dominion part and that's Temporum. And it seemed like, even if I manage to make some spin-offs, I'm sure not cranking them out like I once thought I might. So at some point I would be making another Dominion expansion, for the publishers and fans that I wasn't offering spin-offs to. And one day it seemed like a good project to work on next.
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I'm guessing the new expansion is going to be completely all-new cards, like Guilds was, since you've already shown all the old outtakes?
Prince has been in the outtakes, too. We'll see.
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Ironscout: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. For each card, if it is an...
Action card, put it on top of your deck.
Treasure card, put it on top of your deck.
Victory card, put it into your hand.
But then what do you do with Curses and Hovel!?!?!?!?
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Ironscout: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. For each card, if it is an...
Action card, put it on top of your deck.
Treasure card, put it on top of your deck.
Victory card, put it into your hand.
But then what do you do with Curses and Hovel!?!?!?!?
Ironscout just leaves those in the "cards being revealed area" for the rest of the game. It's like an unreliable but reusable Island, naturally.
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Ironscout: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. For each card, if it is an...
Action card, put it on top of your deck.
Treasure card, put it on top of your deck.
Victory card, put it into your hand.
But then what do you do with Curses and Hovel!?!?!?!?
Ironscout just leaves those in the "cards being revealed area" for the rest of the game. It's like an unreliable but reusable Island, naturally.
More like a shittier Native Village.
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Ironscout: Action, $4
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. For each card, if it is an...
Action card, put it on top of your deck.
Treasure card, put it on top of your deck.
Victory card, put it into your hand.
But then what do you do with Curses and Hovel!?!?!?!?
If you aren't told what to do with a revealed card, it stays where it is. Wishing Well for example does not say what to do with the revealed card.
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You'd still have to be careful with the odering. Do you get to resolve the evaluations upon revealing in any order? Or do you do top card first?
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You'd still have to be careful with the odering. Do you get to resolve the evaluations upon revealing in any order? Or do you do top card first?
I don't deny that it would need to specify, were it a real card and not just obviously silly. Given its actual role though, it is free to leave it a mystery.
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You'd still have to be careful with the odering. Do you get to resolve the evaluations upon revealing in any order? Or do you do top card first?
I don't deny that it would need to specify, were it a real card and not just obviously silly. Given its actual role though, it is free to leave it a mystery.
Man I thought you were leaking new expansion cards :(
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You'd still have to be careful with the odering. Do you get to resolve the evaluations upon revealing in any order? Or do you do top card first?
I don't deny that it would need to specify, were it a real card and not just obviously silly. Given its actual role though, it is free to leave it a mystery.
Man I thought you were leaking new expansion cards :(
It's a thread with questions for me, so if I don't answer your question it's like I'm ignoring you. So this is what happens. Let's all try to learn from it.
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What convinced you to come back to Dominion and create a new set? Other than money, which is a totally valid reason.
It wasn't money; it's nice to have a project that you know will get published, but uh a Dominion expansion has no chance of being a dud but also no chance of being a big hit. It only sells to the portion of Dominion fans that want another expansion.
All the reasons for doing spin-offs instead still stand. But I made a spin-off and took out the Dominion part and that's Kingdom Builder. And I made another spin-off and took out the Dominion part and that's Temporum. And it seemed like, even if I manage to make some spin-offs, I'm sure not cranking them out like I once thought I might. So at some point I would be making another Dominion expansion, for the publishers and fans that I wasn't offering spin-offs to. And one day it seemed like a good project to work on next.
Thank you for your answer.
I hope the new expansion will enable some of the currently least loved cards to find decent partners.
I mean, I love games where cards can shine which otherwise don't get bought very often.
I know you can't say anything about the expansion and it's still very much in flux, but this is what I hope. :)
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Please will you name one of the new cards "Squirt"?
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Please will you name one of the new cards "Squirt"?
I can neither confirm nor deny that all future Dominion cards will be named "Squirt."
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I remember ages ago you speculated that one day you might do an on line only promo. I'm not overly interested I that but I do wonder - have you ever considered designing a "board" or card game that could only be played on a computer or iPad?
It occurs to me that there are likely to be lots of interesting mechanics for board or card style games that would be impractical with physical games that might be interesting ...
One that occurs to me is the ability for more "for fog of war" in games. Once a while in a game of dominion I'll think of a really interesting odd strategy ... but it requires buying an unusual card first up and that often telegraphs where you are going to you opponent.
Anyway, I guess there are lots of possibilities for online only type mechanics ... could be some worth basing a game around?
Edit: changed to read "fog of war" rather than "for of war"
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I remember ages ago you speculated that one day you might do an on line only promo. I'm not overly interested I that but I do wonder - have you ever considered designing a "board" or card game that could only be played on a computer or iPad?
Mostly when I think about making computer games, and mostly when I have made them, they are / have been single player, or essentially single player. I have two that stand out from back when. Dudes of Stuff and Things was my take on Heroes of Might and Magic; you can download it in this very thread. And The Little Guy Game was my take on Lode Runner. I don't have a version of that that runs on modern machines. You uh solved puzzles.
I have given a little thought to games for phones and things. Kevin and I made that one that's in a thread in the games forum. I had another premise that was too ambitious for the personnel at hand; it needed a bunch of art. It still sounds good but I don't know if I'll ever get to it.
I have spent some time thinking about how I would fix up different kinds of computer games. I will tell you now, the main trick is to have Magic-style combos - things care about things, two things are greater than the sum of the parts. In a game like Skyrim, it could be that your sword and helmet were a combo, instead of, they just have the best stats you've found. There is also the variety thing; Mario Kart games would have a lot more variety if, instead of a mix of items available every game, there were only two items per game, one for you and one for the opposition (then I would have car designs correspond to items).
I have not spent much time considering making board games for computers. It's easier to make them for real life. And on computers you have so many options. You don't need "cards" to have "rules components."
But uh I can make a game, do all of it except the art and actual production and sales and stuff, you know, I can make the game here at this desk and get it to the point where we are playing it and having fun. If it never gets published we still had a good time, there's that even. And publishing it is low risk for the publisher. Modern computer games have big teams of people and are costly. I mean this is why you see so much more innovation in flash games, where it can still be one guy and sometimes he even does the art. Richard Garfield has endlessly poured time into computer games that never happened. I don't think it's the life for me. If Nintendo says, hey can you make Mario better for us, I will say, man can I, and pitch my ideas. I think that's about as far as I'm going in that direction though.
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How much design space (and storage space) do you feel is left for Dominion? Would you like to see it grow to >500 kingdom cards, or instead create a sequel of sorts that allows the nature of the game to expand without making the original unwieldy? You've mentioned many times your history with Magic, which leads me to believe you are familiar with people owning tens of thousands of cards. Is this a place you'd like Dominion to go?
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How much design space (and storage space) do you feel is left for Dominion? Would you like to see it grow to >500 kingdom cards, or instead create a sequel of sorts that allows the nature of the game to expand without making the original unwieldy? You've mentioned many times your history with Magic, which leads me to believe you are familiar with people owning tens of thousands of cards. Is this a place you'd like Dominion to go?
Well it's not a great comparison for a bunch of reasons. Large Dominion sets are ~26 cards rather than 330. Magic uses rarities to sell more cards (and leech utility from consumers). Magic has a lot of rules "atoms," the simplest things you can do on cards, and Dominion has very few. Giant teams of people are paid to work on Magic sets. Storage solutions aren't an issue for Magic because you don't bring all of your cards somewhere to play, you just bring your current decks. The environment rotates sets to further sell new cards, while old sets go out of print. Magic reprints cards, and makes cards strictly better than other cards (I am not talking about nonsense like Smithy being better than Ruined Library, which it isn't because they have different costs and that's a world of difference, find your own term if you want to talk about cards being better ignoring cost; I am talking about say a 1B 2/2 that does nothing being strictly better than a 1B 2/1 that does nothing, Magic does that, sometimes in the same expansion).
I have many times given reasons for switching from expansions to spin-offs. None of that has changed; spin-offs are still better for all of the previously cited reasons. There is an expansion on the way rather than a spin-off because I have so far not managed to produce a spin-off; I don't want to make something that's just a lame Dominion clone like the million that exist already, and the satisfyingly different stuff I've tried, I've ended up taking the Dominion part out of completely.
Some things seem bad to do because they stray away from what fans wants from the game. For example it seems bad to do an expansion focused on anagramming. Beyond that, there is the usual limit: the number of cards you can make is proportional to the product of the complexity of the game and the amount of space you use for card text. The card abilities have to go somewhere; they are either on the cards or in the rulebook. People expect to mostly understand Dominion cards without looking at the rulebook; at the same time they don't want microtext. And cards can't be too similar to existing cards. So, the expansions necessarily get more wordy and thus less what-people-want at the same time as they already have more than they can carry and plenty of variety and well I have covered this in such detail already.
So anyway the amount of design space left depends on what you're willing to do. Are you willing to do anagramming? Then you will never run out of things to do. Do you want mostly cards as simple as Smithy? Bad news.
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The people demand anagramming.
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The people demand anagramming.
The marmalade-appending gnome.
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The people demand anagramming.
A propaganda melding theme, men!
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A Mint/Madman doppelgaenger, eh?
2P Game night: Remodel Dame Anna
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A Mine/Madman doppelgatnger, eh?
2P Game night: Remodel Dame Anna
FTFY
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A Mine/Madman doppelgatnger, eh?
2P Game night: Remodel Dame Anna
FTFY
This slight misspelling is even more thematic:
A Hermit/Madman doppelgaengen!
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How much design space (and storage space) do you feel is left for Dominion? Would you like to see it grow to >500 kingdom cards, or instead create a sequel of sorts that allows the nature of the game to expand without making the original unwieldy? You've mentioned many times your history with Magic, which leads me to believe you are familiar with people owning tens of thousands of cards. Is this a place you'd like Dominion to go?
Well it's not a great comparison for a bunch of reasons. Large Dominion sets are ~26 cards rather than 330. Magic uses rarities to sell more cards (and leech utility from consumers). Magic has a lot of rules "atoms," the simplest things you can do on cards, and Dominion has very few. Giant teams of people are paid to work on Magic sets. Storage solutions aren't an issue for Magic because you don't bring all of your cards somewhere to play, you just bring your current decks. The environment rotates sets to further sell new cards, while old sets go out of print. Magic reprints cards, and makes cards strictly better than other cards (I am not talking about nonsense like Smithy being better than Ruined Library, which it isn't because they have different costs and that's a world of difference, find your own term if you want to talk about cards being better ignoring cost; I am talking about say a 1B 2/2 that does nothing being strictly better than a 1B 2/1 that does nothing, Magic does that, sometimes in the same expansion).
I have many times given reasons for switching from expansions to spin-offs. None of that has changed; spin-offs are still better for all of the previously cited reasons. There is an expansion on the way rather than a spin-off because I have so far not managed to produce a spin-off; I don't want to make something that's just a lame Dominion clone like the million that exist already, and the satisfyingly different stuff I've tried, I've ended up taking the Dominion part out of completely.
Some things seem bad to do because they stray away from what fans wants from the game. For example it seems bad to do an expansion focused on anagramming. Beyond that, there is the usual limit: the number of cards you can make is proportional to the product of the complexity of the game and the amount of space you use for card text. The card abilities have to go somewhere; they are either on the cards or in the rulebook. People expect to mostly understand Dominion cards without looking at the rulebook; at the same time they don't want microtext. And cards can't be too similar to existing cards. So, the expansions necessarily get more wordy and thus less what-people-want at the same time as they already have more than they can carry and plenty of variety and well I have covered this in such detail already.
So anyway the amount of design space left depends on what you're willing to do. Are you willing to do anagramming? Then you will never run out of things to do. Do you want mostly cards as simple as Smithy? Bad news.
But not strictly better, because the spinoff can have a different cost than the expansion.
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I know you can't say much about the expansion, but I was wondering, how many cards have a horizontal line separating bottom text from top text?
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I know you can't say much about the expansion, but I was wondering, how many cards have a horizontal line separating bottom text from top text?
Oh, oh, I know the answer to that one:
"Let me check if Jay has answered that... nope, no he hasn't. So there's enough of them, but not too many either."
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I know you can't say much about the expansion, but I was wondering, how many cards have a horizontal line separating bottom text from top text?
Do any of them have more than one horizontal line?
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I know you can't say much about the expansion, but I was wondering, how many cards have a horizontal line separating bottom text from top text?
Do any of them have more than one horizontal line?
What Wizards of the Coast found out years ago was, that even tiny amounts of information could reveal way more than they intended. They'd preview a card in advance of regular previews, and people would work out, oh, this set has 15 artifacts, due to this collector's number.
The first real information on the set will be the blurb; I don't know when that will show up.
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Did you write it with the same amount of irony we've come to expect, compared to blurbs that are written with different amounts of irony?
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I know you can't say much about the expansion, but I was wondering, how many cards have a horizontal line separating bottom text from top text?
Do any of them have more than one horizontal line?
What Wizards of the Coast found out years ago was, that even tiny amounts of information could reveal way more than they intended. They'd preview a card in advance of regular previews, and people would work out, oh, this set has 15 artifacts, due to this collector's number.
The first real information on the set will be the blurb; I don't know when that will show up.
I know small info can say a lot. Knowing how many cards have speaks to the complexity of cards. It means extra rules, on gains, on trash, stuff like that. But creative questions are always more interesting to ask than things like "how many reaction cards? Huh? Well? I like the colour blue!"
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Did you write it with the same amount of irony we've come to expect, compared to blurbs that are written with different amounts of irony?
It was definitely written with a lot of irony compared to the less ironic expansion blurbs, but less irony when compared with some of the more ironic expansion blurbs.
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Did you write it with the same amount of irony we've come to expect, compared to blurbs that are written with different amounts of irony?
It was definitely written with a lot of irony compared to the less ironic expansion blurbs, but less irony when compared with some of the more ironic expansion blurbs.
There are secret expansions brewing, I'm sure of it. At the very least, there are fan ones. A new poster wrote, "The cards are on the table." I frantically searched the forum for the translation before realizing he meant that a RL game was ready. Excellent. Everything is going according to plan.
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Did you write it with the same amount of irony we've come to expect, compared to blurbs that are written with different amounts of irony?
It was definitely written with a lot of irony compared to the less ironic expansion blurbs, but less irony when compared with some of the more ironic expansion blurbs.
That's fair enough. They can't all be the least ironic blurb ever.
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We're happy to get more Dominion cards. But for people who play with all cards randomly, do you see a problem in having so many cards? Just because with only one or two sets, you are likely to get interesting kingdoms; with all sets, it is more likely to draw no-combo kingdoms, like 10 Villages.
For that reason, I created "card pools (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11968.0)" that contain specific cards from each set which may be interesting to play with combined (like, "buying decisions", "cantrips", "combo with Copper", or just "power cards").
Do you recommend any restrictions on kingdom generating?
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Just because with only one or two sets, you are likely to get interesting kingdoms; with all sets, it is more likely to draw no-combo kingdoms, like 10 Villages.
I don't want to take away from the rest of your question, but this part isn't actually true. Provided the total proportion of villages stays constant, extreme numbers of villages become less likely as the card pool grows. There are more Kingdoms with lots of villages, but there are also far more Kingdoms in total, and the numbers work out so that having lots of villages becomes less likely.
EDIT: No.
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I'm not sure about the exact maths behind it. Maybe you are right if we consider only Villages (despite you won't find 10 Villages in 2 sets, but we could count kingdoms with at least 5 Villages).
But I'm pretty sure that it is less likely to have synergistic kingdoms in general when playing with all cards.
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The number of villages in the kingdom should follow a hypergeometric distribution. If the proportion of villages per expansion is constant, it should approximate a binomial distribution which you should get if you draw from the same expansion with replacement. The variance of the hypergeometric is lower than of the binomial, so the probability to draw kingdoms with 8 villages should increase in the number of expansions.
If the proportion of synergies is constant between kingdoms the same should hold. The probability both to draw very synergistic and very combo-lacking kingdoms should increase. But there's a caveat here. Everybody knows for instance that Scout, generally a sought-after $4 card, is especially powerful when in the same kingdom with Great Hall, Harem, or Nobles. They all "happen to be" in the same expansion. If synergies within an expansion are especially manifold, even if the number of synergies is similar between expansions, the proportion of synergetic kingdoms will decrease rather than increase with the number of expansions.
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Just because with only one or two sets, you are likely to get interesting kingdoms; with all sets, it is more likely to draw no-combo kingdoms, like 10 Villages.
I don't want to take away from the rest of your question, but this part isn't actually true. Provided the total proportion of villages stays constant, extreme numbers of villages become less likely as the card pool grows. There are more Kingdoms with lots of villages, but there are also far more Kingdoms in total, and the numbers work out so that having lots of villages becomes less likely.
Well, that depends on how many expansions you allready have.
Let's assume you only have Base Dominion, so you own exactly 2 Villages (Village and Festival). The chance of having more then two in one set is 0. Let's assume you then buy the new, yet unrevealed expansion, and that expansion has only two Villages for 35 kingdom cards. This decreases the Village density, and your chance to have 1 or 2 Villages in a kingdom goes down. The chance to have 3 or 4 of them in one kingdom goes up, though, as it was zero before and isn't anymore. So in a way market squire is right, as you need to own a certain number of X before lining up that number of X becomes possible in the first place. Of course, if you allready own 10 Villages and buy the mentioned expansion, the chance of hitting Village-heavy kingdoms goes down, in general.
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We're happy to get more Dominion cards. But for people who play with all cards randomly, do you see a problem in having so many cards? Just because with only one or two sets, you are likely to get interesting kingdoms; with all sets, it is more likely to draw no-combo kingdoms, like 10 Villages.
For that reason, I created "card pools (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11968.0)" that contain specific cards from each set which may be interesting to play with combined (like, "buying decisions", "cantrips", "combo with Copper", or just "power cards").
Do you recommend any restrictions on kingdom generating?
At some point transporting everything is too hard; I recommend not doing that. You can play with everything at home, or just bring a subset with you to a game night. You can have the subset be random if you do the thing where you have little packets of cards, a plastic thing holding the 10 copies of a card, and you just shuffle those around in a big box and grab some for the evening. Or you can just bring two or three boxes with you and play those cards. I have mostly only played with two expansions at once irl.
Using just a couple sets at once, you will see the synergies built into the sets more often. That's a benefit of playing just a couple sets. It's fun to mix it up too though.
When making a game such as this, it's an immediate question: can you get away with pure random. It's great if you can, but sometimes to make things work you have to compartmentalize to some degree. Obv. I felt I could get away with pure random with Dominion. Categories of cards that I want to appear at certain frequencies, appear at certain frequencies; when a particular category doesn't appear in some games, that's a feature not a bug. I have not noticed any issues when playing with a random mix of everything published plus the new set.
Things vary from set to set, and over time as I figured out what I was doing; but the idea has always been, that I can't assume you own any particular sets, and want the game to work for whatever mix of sets you own, and that means making each set provide a good amount of everything I care about.
As always I recommend that people do whatever they want. If you always want Moat in the game, I don't mind. I personally play pure random online (or, pure random except force N cards from the expansion being tested or something similar), and irl play with two expansions (usually 5 cards from each but not always). If you generate a random set of 10 and are displeased with it in some way, you can change it.
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If you always want Moat in the game,
Grrrr!
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@all correcting my maths—mea culpa. I spend my days looking at extreme events that get less likely as the parameter I'm interested in goes to infinity. I have never been interested in the "width" of a hypergeometric random variable. :-[
The true statement would be that Kingdoms with 80% villages get less likely as Kingdom size tends to infinity, which is obviously not relevant.
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The number of villages in the kingdom should follow a hypergeometric distribution. If the proportion of villages per expansion is constant, it should approximate a binomial distribution which you should get if you draw from the same expansion with replacement. The variance of the hypergeometric is lower than of the binomial, so the probability to draw kingdoms with 8 villages should increase in the number of expansions.
Yes. An intuition here is to realize that it isn't even possible to have 10 villages in a kingdom until you have enough expansions. So the probability must increase, at least for a while. The fact that it never turns around to decrease is because of what you wrote here.
If the proportion of synergies is constant between kingdoms the same should hold. The probability both to draw very synergistic and very combo-lacking kingdoms should increase.
I don't agree with this, but maybe it depends what is meant by synergy. Consider a simplified case: kingdom size is 2, and every expansion has two kingdom cards, a village and a smithy. Obviously, the more expansions you have, the less likely you are to put out village+smithy, because the only other cases are village+village and smithy+smithy, which become more likely.
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If the proportion of synergies is constant between kingdoms the same should hold. The probability both to draw very synergistic and very combo-lacking kingdoms should increase.
I don't agree with this, but maybe it depends what is meant by synergy. Consider a simplified case: kingdom size is 2, and every expansion has two kingdom cards, a village and a smithy. Obviously, the more expansions you have, the less likely you are to put out village+smithy, because the only other cases are village+village and smithy+smithy, which become more likely.
You deleted my caveat starting with "If the synergies within an expansion are especially manifold ...". The proportion of synergies in your example is 100 per cent within an expansion, but only 50 per cent within a pair of expansions.
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@all correcting my maths—mea culpa. I spend my days looking at extreme events that get less likely as the parameter I'm interested in goes to infinity. I have never been interested in the "width" of a hypergeometric random variable. :-[
The true statement would be that Kingdoms with 80% villages get less likely as Kingdom size tends to infinity, which is obviously not relevant.
Don't worry. I spent quite some time deleting mentionings of "kingdom" in my post and replacing them with "expansion".
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If the proportion of synergies is constant between kingdoms the same should hold. The probability both to draw very synergistic and very combo-lacking kingdoms should increase.
I don't agree with this, but maybe it depends what is meant by synergy. Consider a simplified case: kingdom size is 2, and every expansion has two kingdom cards, a village and a smithy. Obviously, the more expansions you have, the less likely you are to put out village+smithy, because the only other cases are village+village and smithy+smithy, which become more likely.
You deleted my caveat starting with "If the synergies within an expansion are especially manifold ...". The proportion of synergies in your example is 100 per cent within an expansion, but only 50 per cent within a pair of expansions.
I'm confused. I thought the caveat was specifically referring to cards that, like Scout, synergize especially well with other cards from their expansion but not so well with cards from other expansions. But in the example I gave, that's not the case, at least not in an intuitive sense--it seems like a cheat to observe that the village from one expansion doesn't synergize with the village from another expansion. I'm struggling to think of a natural example of how expansions could be set up to increase probability to draw a very synergistic kingdom. (The best I can think of is to deliberately unbalance the expansions, so that, say, one has only villages, and other only terminal draw. But that's a terrible model of how the expansions are actually composed.)
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This is an example of a dispute where examples seem to blur rather than to clarify. You specified an example where the conditional probability of Synergy given "same expansion" is 100 per cent but only 50 per cent when they are from different expansions. It doesn't matter if it's Market Square/Hermit, Village/Smithy or Chancellor/Stash.
I'm struggling to think of a natural example of how expansions could be set up to increase probability to draw a very synergistic kingdom. (The best I can think of is to deliberately unbalance the expansions, so that, say, one has only villages, and other only terminal draw. But that's a terrible model of how the expansions are actually composed.)
That would be poor design indeed. Closest example would be the duration cards from Seaside and Horn of Plenty. If Cornucopia had more cards that value variety of cards in play, that would be a point. Obviously, if all expansions were random samples of published cards, the amount of synergy would be constant with expansions.
So yes, generally I am with Donald in that I select Kingdoms from two or three pre-specified expansions, at least when playing in real life. Seems that engine potential is higher then.
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Guilds had a placeholder name I cannot reveal at this time.
I've had a look and can't see if this was ever revealed.
I'm assuming that the reason you couldn't reveal it at the time was because it would spoil the theme.
Are you able to say what the placeholder name was now that Guilds has been released, or is this still a secret?
Was it "Coins" or something?
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Guilds had a placeholder name I cannot reveal at this time.
I've had a look and can't see if this was ever revealed.
I'm assuming that the reason you couldn't reveal it at the time was because it would spoil the theme.
Are you able to say what the placeholder name was now that Guilds has been released, or is this still a secret?
Was it "Coins" or something?
Tokens.
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On that note, at the recent Pax Australia I went to a talk by Boyan Radakovich on what makes for a good game design.
One of his tips was that you can't underestimate the marketing power of high production values and a game's visual appeal.
The high quality artwork for each individual card is apparent in Dominion, but it's not particularly unique in that regard (see Magic, for instance).
What really impressed me about the production values was when I first got my hands on an expansion with tokens.
Given that most tabletop games tend to come with cardboard or cheap plastic tokens, what drove the decision to use such high quality metal tokens for Dominion?
Was this something you fought for or even had a say in, or was it completely the decision of RGG?
Do you think it made a difference that Dominion was already a hit before the first expansion with tokens was published?
Do they even cost that much more to produce than cardboard/plastic tokens?
Sorry if this seems like a weird thing to ask about. I really like the tokens!
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Given that most tabletop games tend to come with cardboard or cheap plastic tokens, what drove the decision to use such high quality metal tokens for Dominion?
Was this something you fought for or even had a say in, or was it completely the decision of RGG?
Do you think it made a difference that Dominion was already a hit before the first expansion with tokens was published?
Do they even cost that much more to produce than cardboard/plastic tokens?
The tokens were entirely Jay. It's fair to say that we expected people would pay what Seaside would cost, that it wasn't a risk there. They'd paid for Dominion and Intrigue. We could have a slightly cheaper product (which eventually happened with Hinterlands), or have nice tokens; why not have the nice tokens? But uh I think a significant thing for Jay was just, this will be cool.
I don't know component prices but I am pretty sure they cost more than cardboard.
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In an alternate timeline, Donald X has recently released his new game which is set in a restaurant. Players are indecisive customers trying to come to a decision about what they should order for each of four courses. They will gain influence within their social circle as they change their mind about what dish would make a good main course, and of course if we have that then desert has to be one of these two options, nothing else would do! The first release is set in a Japanese restaurant. The game is called Tempura.
W. Eric Martin thought the medieval theme had been done too much, and argued that Dominion should have a restaurant theme. [Before it was published.]
Did you explore the restaurant theme for Dominion? What kept you from pursuing it?
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W. Eric Martin thought the medieval theme had been done too much, and argued that Dominion should have a restaurant theme. [Before it was published.]
Did you explore the restaurant theme for Dominion? What kept you from pursuing it?
I did not take it seriously, and anyway was happy with the medieval theme. No-one else complained about it. Sir Bailey specifically said he hoped they didn't change the theme.
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W. Eric Martin thought the medieval theme had been done too much, and argued that Dominion should have a restaurant theme. [Before it was published.]
Did you explore the restaurant theme for Dominion? What kept you from pursuing it?
I did not take it seriously, and anyway was happy with the medieval theme. No-one else complained about it. Sir Bailey specifically said he hoped they didn't change the theme.
Why? He would have fitted to the restaurant theme as well...
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Well it's 2015. Any more info on the expansion (or info about when there will be more info)? Or is it all up to the mythical Jay?
Also, how will the process work for getting the expansion into online dominion? Is that something that won't start until after the expansion is released, or are they going to be able to implement it in advance?
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Well it's 2015. Any more info on the expansion (or info about when there will be more info)? Or is it all up to the mythical Jay?
Also, how will the process work for getting the expansion into online dominion? Is that something that won't start until after the expansion is released, or are they going to be able to implement it in advance?
Jay will put up whatever info when he does; I am not sure why this concept is tricky. If somewhere on the net someone had posted some real information, I am sure it would be here at f.ds by now.
Online the expansion will be sold like the others, but will probably not be available in halves, because it turns out no-one ever buys half an expansion. Making Fun would obv. like the expansion to be available online the same day it's in stores, but it has yet to be determined whether or not that will happen. It will depend on what Jay wants and how things go with their new software.
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Well it's 2015. Any more info on the expansion (or info about when there will be more info)? Or is it all up to the mythical Jay?
Also, how will the process work for getting the expansion into online dominion? Is that something that won't start until after the expansion is released, or are they going to be able to implement it in advance?
Jay will put up whatever info when he does; I am not sure why this concept is tricky. If somewhere on the net someone had posted some real information, I am sure it would be here at f.ds by now.
Online the expansion will be sold like the others, but will probably not be available in halves, because it turns out no-one ever buys half an expansion. Making Fun would obv. like the expansion to be available online the same day it's in stores, but it has yet to be determined whether or not that will happen. It will depend on what Jay wants and how things go with their new software.
Aha! Donald didn't even bother to deny that Jay is mythical.
I mean, there are videos out there that claim to be interviews with this legendary being, but that Bigfoot video turned out to be fake too.
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In the early part of this thread there are a lot of answers that consist of "I can't talk about that until Guilds is released".
Are you prepared to deal with the next three months or so of deflecting questions that you aren't able to answer?
Also, are there any Duration Attack cards in Adventures? ;)
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Sorry if this has already been asked, but are you going to do another expansion after this one? After saying Guilds would be last, that didn't happen...
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In the early part of this thread there are a lot of answers that consist of "I can't talk about that until Guilds is released".
Are you prepared to deal with the next three months or so of deflecting questions that you aren't able to answer?
Also, are there any Duration Attack cards in Adventures? ;)
I'm prepared.
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Sorry if this has already been asked, but are you going to do another expansion after this one? After saying Guilds would be last, that didn't happen...
I was certainly hoping Guilds would be the last. I don't feel like I ever committed to that though, instead repeatedly saying how, who knows, maybe not. Here are the quotes theory has archived: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=73.0
It's the same situation as it was before this expansion. All of the reasons for doing spin-offs instead still stand. I made the expansion because, after the second time I took the Dominion part out of an intended spin-off, it was clear that I wasn't just going to crank out spin-offs. I would still like to though.
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Donald, as you've mentioned before, you must wait for Jay to give anything away about unreleased sets. If you didn't need to wait for him, how early would you want to "spill the beans" and what kind of things would you tell us first?
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Donald, as you've mentioned before, you must wait for Jay to give anything away about unreleased sets. If you didn't need to wait for him, how early would you want to "spill the beans" and what kind of things would you tell us first?
If I thought it was better to release more information earlier, I'd push for it. I'm happy with the blurb going out about when distributors would get it anyway, and then previews the week before the set's released.
The previews potentially promote the product. We'll never know just how much they accomplish, but that's okay. They seem like a good idea and people like them. In my imagination, they think, oh yeah, that new Dominion expansion, and then having something to read every day is nice, you can turn over that small manageable chunk of new stuff in your mind, and it's keeping Dominion on your mind and building whatever momentum.
I don't think we get anything out of information released much earlier. At the same time I'm not missing out on whatever joy of spoiling stuff; I play the set with people, I see their reactions.
Wizards of the Coast thinks that early spoilers hurt them. I don't know how they could really have that data, since each expansion is always whatever new thing, and you can't factor that out. It makes sense though. Not for players at a certain level of serious, but for players who don't buy everything; the set stops seeming as exciting when you've known about it for forever.
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Donald, as you've mentioned before, you must wait for Jay to give anything away about unreleased sets. If you didn't need to wait for him, how early would you want to "spill the beans" and what kind of things would you tell us first?
If I thought it was better to release more information earlier, I'd push for it. I'm happy with the blurb going out about when distributors would get it anyway, and then previews the week before the set's released.
The previews potentially promote the product. We'll never know just how much they accomplish, but that's okay. They seem like a good idea and people like them. In my imagination, they think, oh yeah, that new Dominion expansion, and then having something to read every day is nice, you can turn over that small manageable chunk of new stuff in your mind, and it's keeping Dominion on your mind and building whatever momentum.
I don't think we get anything out of information released much earlier. At the same time I'm not missing out on whatever joy of spoiling stuff; I play the set with people, I see their reactions.
Wizards of the Coast thinks that early spoilers hurt them. I don't know how they could really have that data, since each expansion is always whatever new thing, and you can't factor that out. It makes sense though. Not for players at a certain level of serious, but for players who don't buy everything; the set stops seeming as exciting when you've known about it for forever.
I think MtG thrives on newness in a way that a standalone product doesn't, though.
Not that I would really push hard for early spoilers; I think not knowing is part of the fun of anticipation.
Still, I'm looking forward to the previews.
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When was DA/Guilds officially completed? I mean, when were you pretty much done with these products. I know that Guilds was the last expansion you made, but DA was the last one finalized, correct? Were you burnt out after all those Dominion expansions you made? When did you start working on Adventures? How long did it take you to complete?
Even though it's not going to happen, it would have been hilarious to see on Goko the Adventures of the Adventures.
PS: 3 years from now will be the 10th Anniversary of Dominion. A treasure chest expansion still sounds awesome.
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When was DA/Guilds officially completed? I mean, when were you pretty much done with these products. I know that Guilds was the last expansion you made, but DA was the last one finalized, correct?
I started working on "War" in February 2007. The last change to Dark Ages cards was January 2012. I was working on the rulebook in March / April 2012. "Work" in some form continues past that point, since there is proofreading whenever the files are ready, and complaining about art to the degree that I get to, and writing previews and a secret history, and making sets of 10 for the online version, and we could keep going to today, when I'm answering this question.
I started working on Guilds in July 2010. The last change to Guilds cards was February 2011. I was working on the rulebook in November 2012. Dark Ages was going to come out afterwards and was finished later card-wise.
Were you burnt out after all those Dominion expansions you made?
I have the hardest time working on new games. It's just, maybe this won't work, what was I thinking, people will hate this and I'll feel bad. Then once a game is working it's a breeze. And I do everything ever really worth doing and that's the game. Then if I make an expansion, it turns out that in fact not only are there more things to do, but it's even easier now; you know the lay of the land, you know where the interesting space is and what kind of thing tends to work. For example with Dominion, early on a card was only going to draw cards if that was the concept; same for making $. That was harder. It turned out that to balance cards, lots of cards were going to need +2 Cards or +$2 or something. Or like, at first I didn't see how to do discard-based attacks; "Each other player discards a card" was both awful and broken. Once I had a solution it was available for more cards.
Dominion has so many expansions that it has gotten to the point of being hard to do stuff that feels new that isn't really wordy. I avoided things like doing say four versions of each concept; you know, like there are a bunch of cards that do something when you gain/buy them, but Nomad Camp is the only one that goes on your deck. I could have made a Lab version of that and a Smithy version of that and so on, but I kept it at one card. So, factor that in, a lot of simple cards are ruled out. And the cards don't want to be so wordy that normal people don't want to play with them. It's a significant issue and I have often cited it as a reason to switch to spin-offs. For Guilds I cheated and added components (and also did a really wordy mechanic, overpay). The coin tokens let me do simple things that feel new. For Adventures I cheated again, there are mats and tokens. There are also duration cards, that was another trick for getting in simple cards; there were more simple things left to do with them. With the amount of new stuff it has, Adventures just could have been a spin-off; it's certainly more of a shake-up than many Dominion clones. Probably it would have been a better move for me to make it a spin-off. I didn't think of it at the time and anyway the friendlier thing is to let you mix everything together.
Anyway uh. It was nice being done with the expansions, feeling like I could devote more time to other things, like I would have fewer game-specific responsibilities. At the same time the other things aren't always as easy. And a lot of what I do, once a game is working, is make cards and tweak them, whichever game it is. For Dominion I have more playtesters and know there's an audience for the product; both are big pluses for Dominion. The main bad thing about Dominion expansions as projects is just the difficulty of doing sufficiently simple things. And I mean, wanting to not just be the Dominion guy.
It was great working on Adventures though, just a blast from start to finish. At the very beginning it seemed hard, I tried some previously rejected ideas and it wasn't clear how much good stuff I'd manage to end up with. In the end there was too much for a normal set and it's 400 cards.
When did you start working on Adventures? How long did it take you to complete?
I started Adventures in May 2014. The last changes (actually just wording tweaks) were November 2014. I was working on the rulebook in November, except I didn't manage to write the intro paragraph until a week ago.
Even though it's not going to happen, it would have been hilarious to see on Goko the Adventures of the Adventures.
They always should have been called campaigns, I have always thought of them as campaigns, and one day they will finally be the campaigns they always were.
PS: 3 years from now will be the 10th Anniversary of Dominion. A treasure chest expansion still sounds awesome.
A treasure chest (an expansion with more cards for each existing expansion) is seeming less likely than ever. Early on for Adventures, I thought, what's easy, how can I possibly make this task seem doable, hey how about making a treasure chest expansion? And I looked at the mechanics that would tie in with each existing set and hey let's categorize them.
C - Components required, so, not great for a treasure chest, you absolutely have to include the components and really don't want to. A set could revisit a particular C area as a major theme, but not just for a couple cards.
W - Whatever; mechanics that appear all the time or just don't advertise themselves much. You'd see the connection if it was pointed out, but how great is that really. Again if there were a lot of them it could be a real revisited theme, but they don't do anything special when you just do a couple.
D - Done; special case for extra components that aren't kingdom cards and so wouldn't be treasure chest kingdom card mechanics anyway.
Intrigue - VP cards that do something (W); choose one (W)
Seaside - Duration cards; next-turn theme (W); misc tokens (C)
Alchemy - Potion (C)
Prosperity - VP tokens (C); cost $7 (W once I do it); treasures that do things (W); friendly interaction theme (W); platinum/colony (D)
Cornucopia - variety (W)
Hinterlands - when-gain/buy
Dark Ages - when-trashed; care about trash; ruins and spoils (C); shelters (D); upgrade theme (W)
Guilds - coin tokens (C); overpay
The winners are duration cards, when-gain/buy, when-trashed, care about trash, and overpay. But wait. Overpay is a subset of when-gain/buy. I felt like when-gain/buy could appear in all sets once it debuted (like W mechanics), here and there, and hey Dark Ages has Death Cart and then Guilds has overpay. When-gain/buy would feel like more Hinterlands and overpay would def. feel like more Guilds, but they don't make a treasure chest special, any set can riff on when-gain. And then when-trashed, any set could have that too, but without the context of Dark Ages they are less exciting. Caring about the trash was hard, or Dark Ages would have had more of it.
So the real winner is duration cards. That's what I could revisit without including components, that would feel like I was revisiting something, that would have good things I could do. And I did this math. And put duration cards in Adventures. And things I could do in any set, it has some of those too. So: Enjoy your treasure chest.
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I think it is time for a meta question: Why did you open yourself to answer questions in this thread? For some extra PR? For the fun? Because you were bored? To be nice? Has the answer changed since you started answering questions two years ago?
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I think it is time for a meta question: Why did you open yourself to answer questions in this thread? For some extra PR? For the fun? Because you were bored? To be nice? Has the answer changed since you started answering questions two years ago?
theory wanted to do an interview (see: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.0). That hasn't changed, it's in the past.
I enjoy answering the questions, talking about my stuff and what I think about it.
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I know you've said you want to wait for Dominion Online's code to be overhauled before MF implements the upcoming expansion, but have you talked to MF at all about its contents to give them an idea of what sort of coding will be needed when the time comes?
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I know you've said you want to wait for Dominion Online's code to be overhauled before MF implements the upcoming expansion, but have you talked to MF at all about its contents to give them an idea of what sort of coding will be needed when the time comes?
They are waiting for the new version in order to implement the expansion - it's nothing to do with me. They sensibly want to have a good program before worrying about more content for it.
I have not talked with them about what's in the expansion.
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C - Components required, so, not great for a treasure chest, you absolutely have to include the components and really don't want to. A set could revisit a particular C area as a major theme, but not just for a couple cards.
FWIW, I would absolutely pay for a Treasure Chest expansion that included Ruins, Spoils, and all of the tokens, along with an assortment of new cards that used them.
After all, Potion, Colony, and Platinum got reissued in the Base Cards mini-set, so there's some precedent.
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After all, Potion, Colony, and Platinum got reissued in the Base Cards mini-set, so there's some precedent.
Only so's to be pretty. Ruins and Shelters are already pretty.
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A plausible way of reissuing Ruins would be to make new Ruins. In the grand scheme, junk action cards are junk action cards even if they do slightly different things. For those that already have Dark Ages, they would still get new cards to mix in. For those that don't, they get Looter cards.
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A plausible way of reissuing Ruins would be to make new Ruins. In the grand scheme, junk action cards are junk action cards even if they do slightly different things. For those that already have Dark Ages, they would still get new cards to mix in. For those that don't, they get Looter cards.
That's true, and that also works for Prizes. However! For Ruins I can fall back on, wait, how exciting is this, who is it out there that really wants even more of these attacks, wants them so much as to give up 50 additional cards in an expansion to get them. It's hard to believe I can't make better use of that space.
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I really want a curse looter.
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A plausible way of reissuing Ruins would be to make new Ruins. In the grand scheme, junk action cards are junk action cards even if they do slightly different things. For those that already have Dark Ages, they would still get new cards to mix in. For those that don't, they get Looter cards.
That's true, and that also works for Prizes. However! For Ruins I can fall back on, wait, how exciting is this, who is it out there that really wants even more of these attacks, wants them so much as to give up 50 additional cards in an expansion to get them. It's hard to believe I can't make better use of that space.
Why not a special expansion that plays with the pirate ship boards, ruins, and other components? I understand the concern about always wanting to be able to play an expansion with base, but it's also not like you could play just Seaside and Dark Ages. Perfect for players that have all the expansions, encourages getting more of them, and people could just leave cards out that require a resource they don't have if they don't have a particular expansion.
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I really want a curse looter.
Cultist at one point gave out Curses after the Ruinses ran out. The world was not ready.
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Why not a special expansion that plays with the pirate ship boards, ruins, and other components? I understand the concern about always wanting to be able to play an expansion with base, but it's also not like you could play just Seaside and Dark Ages. Perfect for players that have all the expansions, encourages getting more of them, and people could just leave cards out that require a resource they don't have if they don't have a particular expansion.
Any product happens instead of other products. That's a key thing for any considerations like these. Some people really want Alchemy 2. Why not do that? Because there are more people that would prefer anything else, anything but that.
The potential audience for a product that requires Dominion is larger than the potential audience for a product that requires Dominion and Seaside. Why limit ourselves to the smaller audience? So we can use the pirate ship mat without including it? I'm not seeing it.
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It's nice that people have their favourite game mechanics and such that they would like to see explored further, but I feel like you are fundamentally misunderstanding the economics of publishing these expansions. It's easy for the die-hard fans on these forums to say they'd buy an expansion with 50 new Ruins or cards that require owning specific other expansions, but to be profitable they have to sell to a wider audience. A new expansion needs to get the casual Dominion fans excited about the game again, or create enough buzz to draw in new fans.
Edit: Yeah, what he said ^
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I like the old mechanics, but there's so much space left unexplored.
For instance, you could have conditions, like debts, which can be permanent effects or are like VP/Curse cards except that you can remove them from your deck by doing something special, like paying them off.
And then at the end of the game, any remaining condition would do something bad, or a gained benefit would do something good.
When given the choice between old and new mechanics, just give me new! The only problem is that we want just more of everything. More duration cards, but also more looters, potion cards, etc... and there's not enough room for it all.
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I like the old mechanics, but there's so much space left unexplored.
For instance, you could have conditions, like debts, which can be permanent effects or are like VP/Curse cards except that you can remove them from your deck by doing something special, like paying them off.
And then at the end of the game, any remaining condition would do something bad, or a gained benefit would do something good.
When given the choice between old and new mechanics, just give me new! The only problem is that we want just more of everything. More duration cards, but also more looters, potion cards, etc... and there's not enough room for it all.
Wrong thread! Wrong thread, wrong subforum, take it outside dude.
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I like the old mechanics, but there's so much space left unexplored.
For instance, you could have conditions, like debts, which can be permanent effects or are like VP/Curse cards except that you can remove them from your deck by doing something special, like paying them off.
And then at the end of the game, any remaining condition would do something bad, or a gained benefit would do something good.
When given the choice between old and new mechanics, just give me new! The only problem is that we want just more of everything. More duration cards, but also more looters, potion cards, etc... and there's not enough room for it all.
Wrong thread! Wrong thread, wrong subforum, take it outside dude.
Oh I'm sorry, I was watching a youtube video about Eldritch Horror, I must have suffered an "every game needs a condition condition" by watching it.
The point I was trying to make was that I too would love to see some old mechanics return (yay Durations!), but are also excited about whatever new mechanics you come up with and I think there's still a lot of stuff you can do with just cards.
For me there can never be too many Dominion expansions (and mechanics), mostly because I'm only playing online anyway.
Now, let's end with an actual question, that would be good:
Would you ever consider making an online only expansion for Dominion? Maybe there's stuff you can't or don't want to do in real life or maybe physical sales are dwindling or maybe Goko explodes with new paying players...
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I realize you have an expansion that's releasing soon to worry about, but do you think there are any interesting enough possible new mechanics left with enough intrinsic variations to support an entire expansion? That is, are there things left that are worth doing after Adventures?
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Would you ever consider making an online only expansion for Dominion? Maybe there's stuff you can't or don't want to do in real life or maybe physical sales are dwindling or maybe Goko explodes with new paying players...
Well it's not out of the question but not likely. There would need to be a compelling reason to make that instead of a set that could be both online and physical. Even if the online version became massively popular, it seems like it would still be better to make a set that worked both ways.
An individual card could happen though; there the idea would just be, that they wanted something unique to promote the online version. As I've said before it would need to be something not doable with a physical card.
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I realize you have an expansion that's releasing soon to worry about, but do you think there are any interesting enough possible new mechanics left with enough intrinsic variations to support an entire expansion? That is, are there things left that are worth doing after Adventures?
It's just too hard to say without doing the work. Anything I haven't already worked on might not work out if I ever tried it; I just don't know.
This is with the provision that the set be simple enough and close enough to Dominion. If you don't care about those things then of course you can endlessly make expansions, in the same way that you can endlessly make new games. For Magic I always used the example of a Scrabble expansion - you make words from the cards. It's just an example of how broad your options are, if you are willing to have them be that broad. At this point someone has done a version of Dominion where you make words with the cards, so sometime I will have to come up with a different example.
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Why not a special expansion that plays with the pirate ship boards, ruins, and other components? I understand the concern about always wanting to be able to play an expansion with base, but it's also not like you could play just Seaside and Dark Ages. Perfect for players that have all the expansions, encourages getting more of them, and people could just leave cards out that require a resource they don't have if they don't have a particular expansion.
Any product happens instead of other products. That's a key thing for any considerations like these. Some people really want Alchemy 2. Why not do that? Because there are more people that would prefer anything else, anything but that.
The potential audience for a product that requires Dominion is larger than the potential audience for a product that requires Dominion and Seaside. Why limit ourselves to the smaller audience? So we can use the pirate ship mat without including it? I'm not seeing it.
The same logic could be applied to the expansions themselves: why make expansions that require base Dominion and not just spin-offs/other games? Because there is a market for them.
I understand the economic concerns of manufacturing and selling games and that a 2-deep prerequisite has less audience than a 1-deep prerequisite.
I think most game expansions are fairly unlikely to bring a significant percentage of new players to the game unless you are talking about licensed product, which does not appear to be a direction Dominion is going in.
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The same logic could be applied to the expansions themselves: why make expansions that require base Dominion and not just spin-offs/other games?
It would be better to make spin-offs, yes! I have said this many times.
It is great to have a product that you know has an audience. Any new game I make, maybe no-one likes. OTOH a new game could be a hit; a Dominion expansion has both upper and lower bounds on how successful it can be.
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Two early cards, Chancellor and Mining Village, have optional effects that have to be done "immediately". Is there a reason why this wording was used initially, but then later dropped in similar cards?
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Two early cards, Chancellor and Mining Village, have optional effects that have to be done "immediately". Is there a reason why this wording was used initially, but then later dropped in similar cards?
I never wanted that word, other people were involved early on, and at some later point it was all up to me.
Everything is immediate unless it says otherwise. I think that word just makes it look like maybe something else that doesn't say it might have a mysterious delay.
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How far in advance, if at all, do foreign-language publishers (999 games, etc) get the card names and text in order to make translations?
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How far in advance, if at all, do foreign-language publishers (999 games, etc) get the card names and text in order to make translations?
They do get them in advance, in order to have the expansion come out in their country on the same day (for partners that commit that early). I don't know how far in advance. The German translator leaked three Alchemy cards (asking for help naming them), so with some research you could work out a minimum for how far in advance he had them.
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Should this go in the puzzle section?
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If you were to make still more expansions, would you use Reserve cards again every so often, or would they have to wait for another expansion specifically adding more of them, as was the case with Durations?
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If you were to make still more expansions, would you use Reserve cards again every so often, or would they have to wait for another expansion specifically adding more of them, as was the case with Durations?
There does not appear to have been enough official information released to make a good guess there. And I don't want to give out more information.
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If you could change the price of a single Dominion card, which one would it be?
What are names you wanted to give some cards that never got used?
Cats or dogs?
Besides Dominion, what is your favorite board game?
What does the X stand for in your name?
Did every single question I ask already get answered?
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What's your favorite Temporum card?
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If you could change the price of a single Dominion card, which one would it be?
This doesn't get me anywhere.
The best possible change would be to replace some dud in the main set. I can't just make a dud a great card by changing the cost though; the cards I want improved, if you change the cost, are still cards I want improved. Like, Thief could cost $0; it just looks bad now, I mean it makes my work on the cards look bad. The card doesn't become one I scoop up; it becomes more powerful in the rare games where I already want it, and that's not doing me any good. Or, Spy becomes more worth-getting at $2, but it fails to become more make-game-good. It would still be slow to resolve and often ignored.
Okay next best would be to improve a dud from Intrigue. No, not doing anything here either.
I could take a powerful card and make it suck by making it cost more. That's probably my best move but it's just awful.
What are names you wanted to give some cards that never got used?
Well if I didn't use the name but like it, won't I try again in the future, if there is a future? And thus I won't tell you whatever it is, even though, how exciting is it really. What, you can read the outtakes article, there are probably lots of names there that I thought were fine but didn't use for whatever reason.
I can tell you that I preferred Late Cretaceous to Late Jurassic in Temporum. That one got changed because the art had Jurassic dinosaurs, and it was easiest to rename it. Similarly Anubis Statuette was supposed to be Anubis Figurine. In Dominion, Boomtown got renamed to City after talking about how the art shouldn't be wild-west-y, but I think that was a good change, I'm not pining over Boomtown. Otherwise, man, Jay has not turned down names. I guess he turned down having a Sir Jay.
They renamed nearly everything on me in Pina Pirata. I had lots of good names too. I am going to cite Any Reptile Will Do, which they changed to, Alligaturtle.
Cats or dogs?
I wouldn't have either if I had to take care of it myself. I appreciate aspects of both.
Besides Dominion, what is your favorite board game?
Besides my own games, Magic: The Gathering. Dominion doesn't have a board so I figured this answer was okay. Whatever is after Magic is way down below it. I'm a Knizia fan; I can cite Clash of Gladiators and Taj Mahal as especially good ones (Clash of Gladiators: obscure and out of print). I made an expansion for Medici. I liked Netrunner a lot, the WotC version, I haven't tried the new one.
If my own non-Dominion games count then it's a question, is Magic 2nd or is one of my own games. When I have played Magic in the last few years, I have been struck by the ways that I prefer Dominion. Like, I always get to play Dominion. I don't always get to play Magic; sometimes I just get to watch you play. That game isn't so amazing for you either. But uh there's still lots of fun to have with Magic. It's hard compare fairly, it has loomed large in my life.
What does the X stand for in your name?
It's a variable.
Did every single question I ask already get answered?
Ugh, not this question again.
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What's your favorite Temporum card?
For published player cards, possibly Inventor, just for, turn one, play Inventor, advance two crowns, now I rule here, get benefit (let's make it Industrial Revolution). I like Anubis Statuette as much as the next guy. Step on a Butterfly is cool because it's a weak effect that you sometimes get a lot out of.
For published zones, Plague, Plutocracy, and Police State (when it matters) are stand-outs. Industrial Revolution and Age of Cybernetics.
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They renamed nearly everything on me in Pina Pirata. I had lots of good names too. I am going to cite Any Reptile Will Do, which they changed to, Alligaturtle.
That's absolutely horrific. The change, that is. What was the thought, "Well, crocodiles are like alligators, and the last syllable of alligator is almost like the first syllable of turtle in a few English dialects," I mean, what the hell people?
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Did every single question I ask already get answered?
Ugh, not this question again.
I mean, this question is pretty easily answered since it was the last one.
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Have you answered this question before?
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Have you answered this question before?
There's a story I've often told. They set up a bunch of interviews when I went to Essen. The first question in the first interview was, "what question are you asked the most often in interviews?"
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Have you answered this question before?
There's a story I've often told. They set up a bunch of interviews when I went to Essen. The first question in the first interview was, "what question are you asked the most often in interviews?"
and, which on was it?
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Have you answered this question before?
There's a story I've often told. They set up a bunch of interviews when I went to Essen. The first question in the first interview was, "what question are you asked the most often in interviews?"
and, which on was it?
The joke is, that that question was itself the most commonly asked question (though I think it was tied with a bunch of things since I'd had a pre-Essen interview). Now I have explained the joke and am sad. This isn't how I thought it would be.
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Have you answered this question before?
There's a story I've often told. They set up a bunch of interviews when I went to Essen. The first question in the first interview was, "what question are you asked the most often in interviews?"
and, which on was it?
The joke is, that that question was itself the most commonly asked question (though I think it was tied with a bunch of things since I'd had a pre-Essen interview). Now I have explained the joke and am sad. This isn't how I thought it would be.
I got the joke at first when you replied to Seprix, and I thought it was funny. Does that make you less sad?
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Have you answered this question before?
There's a story I've often told. They set up a bunch of interviews when I went to Essen. The first question in the first interview was, "what question are you asked the most often in interviews?"
and, which on was it?
The joke is, that that question was itself the most commonly asked question (though I think it was tied with a bunch of things since I'd had a pre-Essen interview). Now I have explained the joke and am sad. This isn't how I thought it would be.
to join in explaining jokes, this was completely clear from the beginning ;)
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Have you answered this question before?
There's a story I've often told. They set up a bunch of interviews when I went to Essen. The first question in the first interview was, "what question are you asked the most often in interviews?"
and, which on was it?
The joke is, that that question was itself the most commonly asked question (though I think it was tied with a bunch of things since I'd had a pre-Essen interview). Now I have explained the joke and am sad. This isn't how I thought it would be.
On the bright side, the joke is now funnier.
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I got the joke at first when you replied to Seprix, and I thought it was funny. Does that make you less sad?
Is that a rhetorical question, like this is?
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I got the joke at first when you replied to Seprix, and I thought it was funny. Does that make you less sad?
Is that a rhetorical question, like this is?
Does it matter?
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I got the joke at first when you replied to Seprix, and I thought it was funny. Does that make you less sad?
Is that a rhetorical question, like this is?
Does it matter?
Well it's a thread for interviewing me. I mean. I'm expected to answer questions. It's the whole premise.
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I got the joke at first when you replied to Seprix, and I thought it was funny. Does that make you less sad?
Is that a rhetorical question, like this is?
Does it matter?
Well it's a thread for interviewing me. I mean. I'm expected to answer questions. It's the whole premise.
Like this one?
EDIT: meh, I am redoing your joke, that IS sad. Still, I think that, technically, the only rhetorical question in this exchange was "does it matter?", because it was the only one that didn't expect an answer.
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Is the answer to this question no?
What video games do you play?
Do you own any hats?
Favorite books?
Movies?
Favorite carbonated beverage?
If you could send a message to the entire world, what would you say in under 30 words?
Any sports you like?
Star Trek or Star Wars? If you don't want to answer this question for religious reasons, that's cool.
Is it true there is a Hot Air Balloon card in Dominion: Adventures?
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Is the answer to this question no?
No, it's "No, it's "No, it's "No it's [...] """
What video games do you play?
I play lots of Wii U games with my kids. Lately the one I want is Pikmin 3 while the one they want is Kirby's Epic Yarn. Rayman Legends and Super Mario 3D World were top-notch.
I haven't gotten a PC game in a while, I think since Fallout New Vegas (the DLC was way better than the main game). On the PC these days I play quick flash games like Amorphous+, Spectromancer, tower defense, Wordsplay (Boggle).
Do you own any hats?
Yes.
Favorite books?
I'm a big Gene Wolfe fan; try Shadow of the Torturer, or the short stories best-of. Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World is top-notch. When people ask for a recommendation my go-to fiction book is The Anubis Gates. It's a real crowd-pleaser.
For "science entertainment" I especially like Jared Diamond's best books - The Third Chimpanzee and Guns Germs & Steel. William Poundstone has some good ones. I liked a couple Pinker books but man I don't need to endlessly hear the different ways people are wrong about blank slates, for chapter after chapter. Just make that point in a paragraph and move on to something else.
Trouser Press Record Guide 4th edition is great. I found a lot of bands from reading that.
Movies?
Brazil, Blue Velvet, Annie Hall, Dr. Strangelove, Miller's Crossing.
Favorite carbonated beverage?
I rarely drink anything carbonated these days; I drink a Snapple once a week, then put water in it from the tap for the rest of the week. I liked Coke better than Pepsi. I like black cherry Thomas Kemper; vanilla Hansens.
If you could send a message to the entire world, what would you say in under 30 words?
Quick, look behind you!
Any sports you like?
Not really. Hockey was the most fun in P.E.
Star Trek or Star Wars?
I like science fiction and they both have that element. To me Star Trek is the TV show with William Shatner, while Star Wars is those two movies everyone loves but which are just fine plus the third one that is worse than you can ever remember. Star Trek was basically original, with a weird focus on powerful children. Star Wars was imitating old serials, and has Dr. Doom as the villain, and the cranes from the Oakland docks as giant war machines. Yoda lives in Bodega Bay, I mean on Dagobah. Also he's a muppet, I don't know if you knew that.
Anyway man. I am not a huge fan of either universe. Star Wars is more of a fantasy in a good way, and, when we narrow our focus as I must, was 2/3 entertaining, whereas Star Trek is just what's on, I mean it's that or Eight Is Enough, which has like no sci-fi element. If you broaden your view to everything, then man, Star Trek is endless shows and movies I haven't seen and can't evaluate, while Star Wars is those two movies and that third one and then those awful awful movies, plus the X-Wing computer game back when, that was fine.
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So since you're a music fan, here are some questions.
Favorite genres?
How do you view classical music?
Music today?
Oasis or Blur? (Entire wars in the UK have been started over this question back in the day)
Beatles or Beach Boys?
Do you like melody and tune or lyrics more in a song?
Favorite song?
Any instruments you play?
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Can you sing well?
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Favorite genres?
Power pop, novelty, prog / arty rock but within reason, showtunes.
As we speak I am listening to a collection (I made) of songs from 1998. The first two tracks were Neutral Milk Hotel and Liz Phair, but what's playing as I type this is Red Elvises - I Wanna See You Bellydance.
My latest purchases were the new Decemberists and Belle & Sebastian albums, both disappointing.
How do you view classical music?
Through a monocle.
Music today?
Get off my lawn.
Oasis or Blur? (Entire wars in the UK have been started over this question back in the day)
I only like maybe two Oasis songs. Blur were good from Modern Life Is Rubbish through The Great Escape, I guess that's just three albums. I only like a few Blur songs since then, but I like some Gorillaz, The Good the Bad and the Queen, and some stuff on the Albarn album. If there's a new Albarn-related album I'll buy it, unless it's another opera; I'm not interested in what Oasis is doing.
However I do really like the Amanda Palmer song Oasis.
Beatles or Beach Boys?
Well for the Beatles I have a stack of albums, plus some John Lennon solo and a pile of Paul McCartney. For the Beach Boys I have Pet Sounds. For Brian Wilson solo I have nothing.
Do you like melody and tune or lyrics more in a song?
Depends on the song. In general while I like clever lyrics, the artists who write the music first have way more longevity. But I don't listen to instrumentals much.
Favorite song?
I used to always say Ana Ng. I don't feel like putting work into getting a more accurate answer.
Any instruments you play?
Not really.
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Can you sing well?
Where are these questions going, what do you guys have planned.
I don't know, probably not. I can sing better than the people around me, but they can't sing, and I've got about as much range as Katharine Hepburn.
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Yoda lives in Bodega Bay, I mean on Dagobah.
"Attacking me the birds are."
In germany, Scrooge Mc Duck from Duck Tales' name is "Dagobert Duck". I always thought Dagobah had to do with him, though it was REALLY hard to find a connection.
By the way, if your kids like Kirby, i think that "Return to Dreamland / Kirbys Adventure Wii" (depends on region) is a great Kirby game.
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In your opinion, is Goko or Isotropic better for playing Dominion?
You can't play Dominion over Isotropic. So, Goko.
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Some people can play Dominion on Isotropic...
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In your opinion, is Goko or Isotropic better for playing Dominion?
You can't play Dominion over Isotropic. So, Goko.
You can't play Dominion on Goko, either. So, Making Fun. (Yes, I will continue to roll my eyes at comments like this).
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Do you prefer online Dominion (modulo implementation issues) or playing with the physical game in person?
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In your opinion, is Goko or Isotropic better for playing Dominion?
You can't play Dominion over Isotropic. So, Goko.
You can't play Dominion on Goko, either. So, Making Fun. (Yes, I will continue to roll my eyes at comments like this).
Technically, isn't Making Fun still running Goko Dominion until they get their own version up?
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In your opinion, is Goko or Isotropic better for playing Dominion?
You can't play Dominion over Isotropic. So, Goko.
You can't play Dominion on Goko, either. So, Making Fun. (Yes, I will continue to roll my eyes at comments like this).
Technically, isn't Making Fun still running Goko Dominion until they get their own version up?
How is it "Goko Dominion" in any way?
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I prefer to call it Making Fun Agility Goko Rio Grande Games Donald X Vaccarino Dominion.
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I prefer to call it Making Fun Agility Goko Rio Grande Games Donald X Vaccarino Dominion.
BY OUR POWERS COMBINED
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How is it "Goko Dominion" in any way?
Exactly in the way that it's a version of Dominion as was implemented and marketed by Goko, a now defunct company
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How could Goko possibly go defunct? They had all those other games to generate revenue.
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In your opinion, is Goko or Isotropic better for playing Dominion?
You can't play Dominion over Isotropic. So, Goko.
You can't play Dominion on Goko, either. So, Making Fun. (Yes, I will continue to roll my eyes at comments like this).
Technically, isn't Making Fun still running Goko Dominion until they get their own version up?
How is it "Goko Dominion" in any way?
The Goko logo is right there on the page!
Insisting people call it "Making Fun Dominion" is like insisting that people call Cadbury chocolates "Mondelez chocolates".
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By the way, if your kids like Kirby, i think that "Return to Dreamland / Kirbys Adventure Wii" (depends on region) is a great Kirby game.
Return to Dreamland was fine. I never like the old "the guy you were working for is now the bad guy." But it did work with 3 players. Obv. the giant special forms are hits. But uh it just doesn't compare as a platformer to Rayman Legends or Super Mario 3D World.
The 3DS Kirby game saw some action, but no-one ever finished it. We got the collection of older Kirby games, but only liked the new stuff that was similar to Return to Dreamland. I am sure we will get the upcoming one, though it doesn't look great from the first level, and it looks like either one player or essentially one player.
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In your opinion, is Goko or Isotropic better for playing Dominion?
Obv. it depends on what you're looking for, who you are, what time of day it is even, not even a joke.
Goko's edge over isotropic is graphics and bots. Obv. graphics don't make the difference when the game keeps freezing. You may really want to play against bots though, and isotropic just doesn't have them.
Isotropic's edge is text mode and handling internet/matchmaking well. Text is important when you're at work and don't want people to see a computer game on your screen. That was what I meant by time of day. Internet is important when it's not working for Goko, and matchmaking, that would be an issue if Salvager didn't address it (it does right?).
I imagine for most people, Goko would be better than isotropic if only it had Salvager features and didn't lag/hang/crash/burn/die/wtf.
Me personally, I mostly am playtesting when I play. I can only playtest new cards on isotropic so there you go.
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Do you prefer online Dominion (modulo implementation issues) or playing with the physical game in person?
I enjoy physical games more, but online is better for getting playtesting done. The games go faster and are available more often.
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If you could talk to any food, and that food could respond, what food would you talk to and what would you say?
(I used this in a job interview once. Phenomenal answer by the one I hired.)
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If you could talk to any food, and that food could respond, what food would you talk to and what would you say?
(I used this in a job interview once. Phenomenal answer by the one I hired.)
Was his/her answer, "I think I'm going to go now. Thank you for your time"?
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If you could talk to any food, and that food could respond, what food would you talk to and what would you say?
(I used this in a job interview once. Phenomenal answer by the one I hired.)
I'd ask a lobster how they feel about the fact that they evolved to have this great natural armor to protect themselves, yet humans are just like "screw it, we'll just boil it and crack that open", despite the fact that there is much more accessible food in the ocean.
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If you could talk to any food, and that food could respond, what food would you talk to and what would you say?
(I used this in a job interview once. Phenomenal answer by the one I hired.)
Was his/her answer, "I think I'm going to go now. Thank you for your time"?
As long as it wasn't "I'm doing it right now."
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Obviously, the right answer would be some sort of food that you don't like, unless you are the kind of person that would revel in the screams of agony of, say, pizza.
If you are trying to "break the setup", another possible answer would be some sort of eadible arthropod, like spiders. Being able to speak to beings that can get anywhere and not be noticed would give you access to a great wealth of sensitive information, and from there the sky's the limit.
As long as it wasn't "I'm doing it right now."
Upvoting this and another random post of yours right now.
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If you could talk to any food, and that food could respond, what food would you talk to and what would you say?
(I used this in a job interview once. Phenomenal answer by the one I hired.)
I'd talk to an omniscient pineapple, and ask it how to stop people from asking questions like this one.
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If you could talk to any food, and that food could respond, what food would you talk to and what would you say?
(I used this in a job interview once. Phenomenal answer by the one I hired.)
What was the answer? (Not asking Donald X.)
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Did you have any input in the color scheme of the game? Like, why are Victories green, why are Curses purple, etc.
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Did you have any input in the color scheme of the game? Like, why are Victories green, why are Curses purple, etc.
Ooh! I know victories. I remember him sometime saying that he just had a lot of green paper lying around.
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Land is green and a victorious color. Gold is golden (the stuff in treasure chests is yellow too) and curses are cast by witches which are purple. And yes, I am Donald X.
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Also time is orange and housing is red and rubble is brown and CENSORED is CENSORED. Oh and defense is blue, duh.
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Apparently dominion gave liopoil synaesthesia.
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Reactions are blue because moats are full of water.
I can't see an answer about purple or orange though, other than this generic answer about why different types have different colours in the first place.
1. Why is the background of Action - Reaction cards blue instead of White and Blue? It seems that either this or Treasure - Reaction or Action - Victory is "wrong", i.e., there seems to be no simple to explain convention regarding how to assign colors. Maybe a Treasure - Reaction was not planned when Moat got full blue background?
I remember answering this one on BGG, and hey here's that post.
I did think of this back when, and mentioned it in case anyone cared.
In Dominion, color indicates type, but type doesn't always mean a color, and the Action type does not always have its color represented.
The way to think of this is in terms of functionality. Why have colors at all?
- Green lets you know that you don't need to look at those cards in your hand, they are doing nothing. And it helps you sort them at the end too.
- Yellow lets you know you can play that card in your buy phase.
- Blue lets you know that this card does something at an unusual time. Look at your hand, see if there's a blue card.
- Orange reminds you that this might stay out an extra turn instead of being discarded.
Curses didn't strictly need their own color but it seemed nice to help sort them and they got one. Attacks were originally pink but I switched to the default white there because that word "attack" didn't have any meaning. It's just there so cards can refer to it.
White is just the default color; an Action with nothing extra going on is white.
So then, why make Nobles etc. white-green? Because normally you can ignore victory cards in hand, that's their deal, but you don't want to ignore Nobles. So it reminds you that it's an action.
Whereas orange-white isn't needed for duration cards because the orange color doesn't mean "ignore this."
For Moat in particular, there it was as the only reaction in the main set. It did not want to be two colors, that seemed more confusing rather than less confusing.
The "when-gain" ability could have had a type and color, to help remind you to do something when you gain one. But then Mint couldn't have been in Prosperity, and I didn't consider this back then.
Anyway, Moat could have been blue-white, this did not go unnoticed but it did go undone.
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Did you have any input in the color scheme of the game? Like, why are Victories green, why are Curses purple, etc.
Ooh! I know victories. I remember him sometime saying that he just had a lot of green paper lying around.
Correct.
In October 2006 I didn't have a color printer. I printed black & white images on colored paper. Actions were white because that was the most plentiful paper. Initially attacks were pink, the color that makes bulls mad (only not so dark that you can't read text printed on it). Treasures were obv. yellow like gold. Victory cards, you can say it's because land is green, but I had a bunch of green paper and so it was the obvious choice. Moats have water in them and initially it was the only reaction; so, blue. I didn't have endless color selection and that left purple for Curse / Confusion. I ended up not keeping attacks pink, because "attack" didn't have any functionality beyond cards getting to refer to it.
Initially duration cards didn't have a type or color - they just did something next turn. I had already done that kind of thing in multiple games (e.g. Greed has a couple and is from 2003). When Seaside was being more heavily tested, I gave them a type and color and picked orange just as a basic color I hadn't used yet. I was also thinking, well, they wanted to be blue for the Seaside flavor but couldn't be, but hey, orange, that's like sand.
Then in Dark Ages, since I hadn't used pink it was available for Shelters, and dark gray was an obvious candidate for Ruins. They're more red and brown in the published version and well they aren't in the prototype; I imagine Matthias Catrein made that call.
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If you could talk to any food, and that food could respond, what food would you talk to and what would you say?
(I used this in a job interview once. Phenomenal answer by the one I hired.)
What was the answer? (Not asking Donald X.)
Kebabs from the late night kebab stands, to apologize for the drunken antics of humans.
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Victory cards, you can say it's because land is green, but I had a bunch of green paper and so it was the obvious choice.
Well, that suggests an interesting chicken-and-egg question.
Is it possible that the VPs are named after landholdings because the original VP cards were green?
I mean, were the original VP cards just nameless cards with points and you came up with the names later, or were they always called Estate/Duchy/Province?
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Victory cards, you can say it's because land is green, but I had a bunch of green paper and so it was the obvious choice.
Well, that suggests an interesting chicken-and-egg question.
Is it possible that the VPs are named after landholdings because the original VP cards were green?
I mean, were the original VP cards just nameless cards with points and you came up with the names later, or were they always called Estate/Duchy/Province?
Actually, day one VP cards were white and Action cards were green; I forgot about that but it's easier to remember when you're staring at the cards (I flipped through a box of outtakes that I kept one copy of in case I ever wanted to make a collage). I had a lot of green paper! When it became clear that I was going to endlessly make more Actions (but not so many new VP cards), I switched Actions to white and VP cards to green. My memory is originally VP cards were not named, but I don't know for sure. Probably I named them when I switched the colors. It was obvious that VP cards and treasures needed names, so cards could refer to them. I know treasures weren't named originally.
I don't think I ever had names other than Estate / Duchy / Province. I had always thought of the theme as kingdom building. The initial card mix involved castles so I called it Castle Builder (then we kept calling it that after I expanded outside the castle). When I named the VP cards I named them after tracts of lands though. Sir Bailey had the second copy of the game. He renamed the VP cards to parts of a castle, to fit the name.
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When I named the VP cards I named them after tracts of lands though.
So... are you a Monty Python fan? (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1204.msg458773#msg458773)
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When I named the VP cards I named them after tracts of lands though.
So... are you a Monty Python fan? (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1204.msg458773#msg458773)
Sure. I didn't even notice that.
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When I named the VP cards I named them after tracts of lands though.
So... are you a Monty Python fan? (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1204.msg458773#msg458773)
Sure. I didn't even notice that.
Being clever is just second nature to you now.
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Based on how this thread has been going, have you ever considered standup comedy?
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Do you want Dominion to gain the kind of widespread following that, for example, M:tG has? If not, why not? If so, what would you say has been the biggest obstacle to that goal?
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Based on how this thread has been going, have you ever considered standup comedy?
I've considered being a writer, and wrote an Airplane!-style comedy screenplay in the early oughts, which the Hinterlands blurb comes from. "It's a big city out there, and we're little people..."
I did try a local stand-up competition when I was 16. It ran weekly. The first night, the top 3 people finished in the money, and I came in 4th. The next night, attendance was down, they split the money between the top 2; I came in 3rd. The next night, just the top guy got paid; I came in 2nd. I skipped the next week and they never had it again.
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Do you want Dominion to gain the kind of widespread following that, for example, M:tG has? If not, why not? If so, what would you say has been the biggest obstacle to that goal?
I would like Dominion to be all things to all people. The biggest obstacle is reality.
The game is done, you know, it's there on shelves, waiting for customers. I am not seeing much downside to people buying it. I don't even need to worry about negative aspects of fame; for most people the name on the box is a blind spot.
Magic has a lot more promotion, the Pro Tour and so on. It sells you cards you already have and don't want more of as a way to rake in cash; for one format it replaces "shuffle" with "open a new booster of cards." It's collectible. These are all significant things that aren't even about how the game plays. I don't see doing that stuff.
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If Dominion were to become a major national pastime, like football, with televised tournaments and adorable merchandising ("get yer Mountebank hats, right here!"), so that new expansions releases were practically a national holiday... I'm sorry, I seem to have forgotten a question here.
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What would a "Donald X." Dominion card do?
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What would a "Donald X." Dominion card do?
That one is easy.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8930421/dominion/stache.png)
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What would a "Donald X." Dominion card do?
I was the original Knights randomizer card. Sir X. So, trash the top card of each other player's deck, and then something else moderately exciting, depending on the Knight.
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What would a "Donald X." Dominion card do?
I was the original Knights randomizer card. Sir X. So, trash the top card of each other player's deck, and then something else moderately exciting, depending on the Knight.
I love that you're not even paraphrasing. That is pretty close to the exact wording on the original Sir X card. (http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/06/24/dominion-outtakes/)
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Looking at those outtake sheets, I notice the original VP symbol is a crown, which seems entirely appropriate.
Was it changed to a shield because the colour of a crown is too close to the colour of a coin?
How did you choose the shield?
Were any other symbols considered?
What is the design on the shield (it looks like 4 playing card clubs in a cross to me)?
Does it bother you that it breaks the heraldic rule of tincture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_tincture)?
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Looking at those outtake sheets, I notice the original VP symbol is a crown, which seems entirely appropriate.
Was it changed to a shield because the colour of a crown is too close to the colour of a coin?
How did you choose the shield?
Were any other symbols considered?
What is the design on the shield (it looks like 4 playing card clubs in a cross to me)?
Does it bother you that it breaks the heraldic rule of tincture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_tincture)?
I picked the crown, I liked the crown. I don't know why it was changed to a shield. A crown is better. If they considered other symbols they did not tell me about it.
I don't have any more information on the shield; I don't know what that's supposed to be. I don't know anything about heraldry; I have tried to get anachronisms fixed when I've spotted them. I don't even see the shield except when testing campaigns or something online; the prototype has crowns.
-
Looking at those outtake sheets, I notice the original VP symbol is a crown, which seems entirely appropriate.
Was it changed to a shield because the colour of a crown is too close to the colour of a coin?
How did you choose the shield?
Were any other symbols considered?
What is the design on the shield (it looks like 4 playing card clubs in a cross to me)?
Does it bother you that it breaks the heraldic rule of tincture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_tincture)?
I picked the crown, I liked the crown. I don't know why it was changed to a shield. A crown is better. If they considered other symbols they did not tell me about it.
I don't have any more information on the shield; I don't know what that's supposed to be. I don't know anything about heraldry; I have tried to get anachronisms fixed when I've spotted them. I don't even see the shield except when testing campaigns or something online; the prototype has crowns.
Does that sort of "executive meddling" bother you, or are you happy to leave design decisions to publishers?
Do you get more of a say in things now that you are a well-known creator of a smash hit game?
Can you give any examples of anachronisms that you fixed?
Any that made it into the final game?
-
Can you give any examples of anachronisms that you fixed?
Any that made it into the final game?
The Poor House depicted in the artwork is definitely not contemporary with Knights and Wandering Minstrels.
-
Does that sort of "executive meddling" bother you, or are you happy to leave design decisions to publishers?
Do you get more of a say in things now that you are a well-known creator of a smash hit game?
Can you give any examples of anachronisms that you fixed?
Any that made it into the final game?
I will make any decisions they let me; I like everything the way I like it. How much I'm bothered depends on how badly they blow it; possibly they improve on something, that would be ideal. I wouldn't say I get more say now in general. It varies a lot from company to company. These days I have a lot of say on how things go at RGG; that doesn't mean they're going to send me all of the art sketches though, that's just more work.
The padlock on Philosopher's Stone is an example of an anachronism in the game. There was a gun on an Adventures card that I got taken out.
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Does that sort of "executive meddling" bother you, or are you happy to leave design decisions to publishers?
Do you get more of a say in things now that you are a well-known creator of a smash hit game?
Can you give any examples of anachronisms that you fixed?
Any that made it into the final game?
I will make any decisions they let me; I like everything the way I like it. How much I'm bothered depends on how badly they blow it; possibly they improve on something, that would be ideal. I wouldn't say I get more say now in general. It varies a lot from company to company. These days I have a lot of say on how things go at RGG; that doesn't mean they're going to send me all of the art sketches though, that's just more work.
The padlock on Philosopher's Stone is an example of an anachronism in the game. There was a gun on an Adventures card that I got taken out.
Don't padlocks date back to the Roman Empire era?
-
Does that sort of "executive meddling" bother you, or are you happy to leave design decisions to publishers?
Do you get more of a say in things now that you are a well-known creator of a smash hit game?
Can you give any examples of anachronisms that you fixed?
Any that made it into the final game?
I will make any decisions they let me; I like everything the way I like it. How much I'm bothered depends on how badly they blow it; possibly they improve on something, that would be ideal. I wouldn't say I get more say now in general. It varies a lot from company to company. These days I have a lot of say on how things go at RGG; that doesn't mean they're going to send me all of the art sketches though, that's just more work.
The padlock on Philosopher's Stone is an example of an anachronism in the game. There was a gun on an Adventures card that I got taken out.
Don't padlocks date back to the Roman Empire era?
Yeah, but they didn't look like that, I don't think. The one in PStone looks pretty much like a modern padlock with the hole in the top for the lock to push into. I think that style is modern.
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Is there going to be a tenth annversary expansion?
If yes: Large or small?
-
Is there going to be a tenth annversary expansion?
If yes: Large or small?
Cake
$π Inaction
This card is a lie.
-
Is there going to be a tenth annversary expansion?
If yes: Large or small?
I can't remember Jay saying something about this...
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Don't padlocks date back to the Roman Empire era?
Yes, but my minimal research suggested that the style of padlock on Philosopher's Stone was post-medieval.
-
Is there going to be a tenth annversary expansion?
If yes: Large or small?
The thing is, if I had any actual information then I would have to say, dude, any new products will be announced by RGG when they want to announce them. That's not my department; it's not up to me; I care more about RGG being pleased with those announcements than I do about you, petegeo, being pleased with them.
If I don't have any actual information then I have to say the same thing, or people can just keep asking if something is coming until I stop saying no.
-
Is there going to be a tenth annversary expansion?
If yes: Large or small?
The thing is, if I had any actual information then I would have to say, dude, any new products will be announced by RGG when they want to announce them. That's not my department; it's not up to me; I care more about RGG being pleased with those announcements than I do about you, petegeo, being pleased with them.
If I don't have any actual information then I have to say the same thing, or people can just keep asking if something is coming until I stop saying no.
(http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/dc/dc2fd6da2c741a3b2f6ae5fcf700e06fafe43267ea271579118ef4292ffb25c6.jpg)
-
Is there going to be a tenth annversary expansion?
If yes: Large or small?
The thing is, if I had any actual information then I would have to say, dude, any new products will be announced by RGG when they want to announce them. That's not my department; it's not up to me; I care more about RGG being pleased with those announcements than I do about you, petegeo, being pleased with them.
If I don't have any actual information then I have to say the same thing, or people can just keep asking if something is coming until I stop saying no.
Yeah I always hate it in movies when after someone says "I don't know", someone responds with "you tell me if you did?" I mean, how can you answer that? If you say "no", then how can they believe your original "I don't know"?
-
Is there going to be a tenth annversary expansion?
If yes: Large or small?
The thing is, if I had any actual information then I would have to say, dude, any new products will be announced by RGG when they want to announce them. That's not my department; it's not up to me; I care more about RGG being pleased with those announcements than I do about you, petegeo, being pleased with them.
If I don't have any actual information then I have to say the same thing, or people can just keep asking if something is coming until I stop saying no.
(http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/dc/dc2fd6da2c741a3b2f6ae5fcf700e06fafe43267ea271579118ef4292ffb25c6.jpg)
Hey, guys, one expansion at a time. This one's a doozy.
-
This one's a doozy.
Hey, you're not supposed to give away the names of new cards!
-
This one's a doozy.
Hey, you're not supposed to give away the names of new cards!
Er, I mean, a bombshell! Crap, I MEAN
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This one's a doozy.
Hey, you're not supposed to give away the names of new cards!
Er, I mean, a bombshell! Crap, I MEAN
Wait, Bomb is one of the new cards? All is lost! Donald has lost his mind!
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This one's a doozy.
(https://41.media.tumblr.com/b4676f2b59fc9218daa8b1220720aac5/tumblr_n59c9tS1yD1snbyf0o1_500.jpg)
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(http://i.imgur.com/NRLjJPU.jpg)
Sorry I couldn't get those swirly things on the side edited in. I'm sure it's possible.
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(http://i.imgur.com/NRLjJPU.jpg)
Sorry I couldn't get those swirly things on the side edited in. I'm sure it's possible.
Have you even read the fan card creation guide? This card should appropriately cost $0, or $1 at best, compare with Moat. I mean, duh.
Mr. Vaccarino, I assume Temporum will be released in Germany as well. Do you know when? I can't wait to play it!
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Mr. Vaccarino, I assume Temporum will be released in Germany as well. Do you know when? I can't wait to play it!
I think it's coming out in Germany, but don't know when or for sure.
-
It has probably been asked already.
I know it is far into future but, have you or are you thinking about, releasing a 10th anniversary expansion?
FYI, you yourself asked this very question 15 posts ago.
I admire your persistence, though. Donald might slip something at some point.
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/97/Curse.jpg/200px-Curse.jpg)
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/97/Curse.jpg/200px-Curse.jpg)
Fun fact, this was the original Curse card art:
(http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/58821422.jpg)
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/97/Curse.jpg/200px-Curse.jpg)
(http://fs1.directupload.net/images/150204/7uggakp4.jpg)
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What colors would you still consider using for new card types?
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What colors would you still consider using for new card types?
Uh, anything not being used already? If there continued to be new card types, it would get harder to pick colors that looked nicely different, but there's always changing the frame graphics too.
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What colors would you still consider using for new card types?
Uh, anything not being used already? If there continued to be new card types, it would get harder to pick colors that looked nicely different, but there's always changing the frame graphics too.
See, I always had you down as a Red man, maybe Scarlet or Vermilion at a push.
-
I have a couple of questions
Do we Have Free Will?
What happens when we die?
Is the Universe Determinalistic?
What happens after you die?
Who will replace Homo Sapiens?
Is there life on other planets?
Daddy or Chips?
(lot of work for a joke only English people who watched TV in the 90's)
-
I have a couple of questions
Do we Have Free Will?
I glanced at this and thought Ozle was asking if DonaldX had a Wii.
Speaking of which,
Do you have a Wii?
-
I have a couple of questions
Do we Have Free Will?
I glanced at this and thought Ozle was asking if DonaldX had a Wii.
Speaking of which,
Do you have a Wii?
...
I play lots of Wii U games with my kids.
...
-
I have a couple of questions
Do we Have Free Will?
I glanced at this and thought Ozle was asking if DonaldX had a Wii.
Speaking of which,
Do you have a Wii?
...
I play lots of Wii U games with my kids.
...
There a multiple edge cases in which this does not imply that he has one.
-
I have a couple of questions
Do we Have Free Will?
I glanced at this and thought Ozle was asking if DonaldX had a Wii.
Speaking of which,
Do you have a Wii?
...
I play lots of Wii U games with my kids.
...
There a multiple edge cases in which this does not imply that he has one.
A Wii U is not an accessory to the Wii though. It is it's its own console.
(considering I'm a grammar nazi, the fact I did that really bugs me)
-
It is it's own console.
It is it is own console?
-
It is it's own console.
It is it is own console?
It is, it is.
-
It is its own console, but the edge case is that it does not mean it is his own console.
-
...
(considering I'm a grammar nazi, the fact I did that really bugs me)
Not as much as it bothered us.
To ameliorate your pain, stop considering it a grammar error. Treat it as a punctuation error.
-
...
(considering I'm a grammar nazi, the fact I did that really bugs me)
Not as much as it bothered us.
To ameliorate your pain, stop considering it a grammar error. Treat it as a punctuation error.
Isn't it technically either a spelling or diction error?
-
...
(considering I'm a grammar nazi, the fact I did that really bugs me)
Not as much as it bothered us.
To ameliorate your pain, stop considering it a grammar error. Treat it as a punctuation error.
Isn't it technically either a spelling or diction error?
My original version of my post read "treat it as a spelling error, caused by the misuse of a piece of punctuation". Don't know why I changed it.
Having now thought about it, it really is use of the wrong word (possessive pronoun vs. contraction). So is that a grammar error after all, or is it a vocabulary error? They are admittedly homophones, but not homographs, as they are spelled differently, so that brings us (potentially) back to spelling.
-
...
(considering I'm a grammar nazi, the fact I did that really bugs me)
Not as much as it bothered us.
To ameliorate your pain, stop considering it a grammar error. Treat it as a punctuation error.
Isn't it technically either a spelling or diction error?
My original version of my post read "treat it as a spelling error, caused by the misuse of a piece of punctuation". Don't know why I changed it.
Having now thought about it, it really is use of the wrong word (possessive pronoun vs. contraction). So is that a grammar error after all, or is it a vocabulary error? They are admittedly homophones, but not homographs, as they are spelled differently, so that brings us (potentially) back to spelling.
Does anyone else think this should be moved to the RSP (Rules of Speling and Punction) subforum? I would think there going to have a better time with they're argument their.
-
Does anyone else think this should be moved to the RSP (Rules of Speling and Punction) subforum? I would think there going to have a better time with they're argument their.
I see what you did their.
-
I see what you did their.
*they're
-
I see what you did their.
*they're
*thair
-
I see what you did their.
*they're
*thair
Maibe it's Mordbelline.
-
Do we Have Free Will?
Scissor Sisters - I Can't Decide
What happens when we die?
Pogues - Worms
Is the Universe Determinalistic?
Ed's Redeeming Qualities - Random
What happens after you die?
Martin Newell - My Funeral
Who will replace Homo Sapiens?
David Bowie - Oh! You Pretty Things
Is there life on other planets?
David Bowie - Life on Mars?
Daddy or Chips?
Indelicates - Be Afraid of Your Parents
Sorry, were you asking me something? I was busy listening to music.
-
Do you have a Wii?
I have a Wii U. I had a Wii. I think we still have it but we might have given it away.
-
Does anyone else think this should be moved to the RSP (Rules of Speling and Punction) subforum? I would think there going to have a better time with they're argument their.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U39sZgwSr_s
-
How old are your kids?
-
How old are your kids?
Adam Green - Sixes & Sevens
-
Is there any question for which you don't have a song title to answer?!
Are you a fan of the "Song Titles" segment of Whose Line is it Anyway?
-
Is there any question for which you don't have a song title to answer?!
A.C. Newman - There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve
Are you a fan of the "Song Titles" segment of Whose Line is it Anyway?
They Might Be Giants - No!
-
Which metal has the atomic number of 79?
-
Which metal has the atomic number of 79?
XTC - Gold
For me the bonus tracks really make this album (Mummer). It's pretty weak without them. But the bonus tracks are all good. Now if you had gone with say 81, I would have been stuck with
Tom Lehrer - The Elements
XTC - Complicated Game
-
Which metal has the atomic number of 79?
XTC - Gold
For me the bonus tracks really make this album (Mummer). It's pretty weak without them. But the bonus tracks are all good. Now if you had gone with say 81, I would have been stuck with
Tom Lehrer - The Elements
XTC - Complicated Game
But, but... Spandau Ballet...
-
Which metal has the atomic number of 79?
XTC - Gold
For me the bonus tracks really make this album (Mummer). It's pretty weak without them. But the bonus tracks are all good. Now if you had gone with say 81, I would have been stuck with
Tom Lehrer - The Elements
XTC - Complicated Game
But, but... Spandau Ballet...
...are there that many references to thallium in popular music?
-
Which metal has the atomic number of 79?
XTC - Gold
For me the bonus tracks really make this album (Mummer). It's pretty weak without them. But the bonus tracks are all good. Now if you had gone with say 81, I would have been stuck with
Tom Lehrer - The Elements
XTC - Complicated Game
But, but... Spandau Ballet...
...are there that many references to thallium in popular music?
If your definition of Thallium in popular music is 33 YouTube views, then we can answer with a resounding yes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s57LrCT-L1U
-
Which metal has the atomic number of 79?
XTC - Gold
For me the bonus tracks really make this album (Mummer). It's pretty weak without them. But the bonus tracks are all good. Now if you had gone with say 81, I would have been stuck with
Tom Lehrer - The Elements
XTC - Complicated Game
But, but... Spandau Ballet...
...are there that many references to thallium in popular music?
Are you suggesting that Tom Lehrer is not popular music?
-
Which metal has the atomic number of 79?
XTC - Gold
For me the bonus tracks really make this album (Mummer). It's pretty weak without them. But the bonus tracks are all good. Now if you had gone with say 81, I would have been stuck with
Tom Lehrer - The Elements
XTC - Complicated Game
But, but... Spandau Ballet...
Agreed!
Although I would also have accepted East 17 or Shirley Bassey
-
Is one of your kids called Donald XI?
-
Which metal has the atomic number of 79?
XTC - Gold
For me the bonus tracks really make this album (Mummer). It's pretty weak without them. But the bonus tracks are all good. Now if you had gone with say 81, I would have been stuck with
Tom Lehrer - The Elements
XTC - Complicated Game
But, but... Spandau Ballet...
...are there that many references to thallium in popular music?
Are you suggesting that Tom Lehrer is not popular music?
Certainly he is (was? hard to say), but I was surprised that any other song, ever, had mentioned thallium. Then again, the lyrics for Complicated Game dont' appear to actually involve thallium, and I have no idea what Spandau Ballet song is being referenced, nor what the heck Ozle is talking about.
-
Which metal has the atomic number of 79?
XTC - Gold
For me the bonus tracks really make this album (Mummer). It's pretty weak without them. But the bonus tracks are all good. Now if you had gone with say 81, I would have been stuck with
Tom Lehrer - The Elements
XTC - Complicated Game
But, but... Spandau Ballet...
...are there that many references to thallium in popular music?
Are you suggesting that Tom Lehrer is not popular music?
Certainly he is (was? hard to say), but I was surprised that any other song, ever, had mentioned thallium. Then again, the lyrics for Complicated Game dont' appear to actually involve thallium, and I have no idea what Spandau Ballet song is being referenced, nor what the heck Ozle is talking about.
Spandau Ballet & East 17 both have songs called "Gold".
Shirley Bassey has one called "Goldfinger".
I'm guessing Donald mentioned the song "Complicated Game" as a reference to the fact that although finding songs that mention gold is easy, finding songs that mention thallium is... complicated.
Am I correct in thinking that, according to the rules of the forum, this is all suddenly much funnier now that I have explained it?
I'm relatively new to this.
-
Am I correct in thinking that, according to the rules of the forum, this is all suddenly much funnier now that I have explained it?
I'm relatively new to this.
So what you're saying is, you want somebody to explain to you the explaining the joke joke?
-
Is one of your kids called Donald XI?
One of my kids doesn't look much like Dame Sylvia, and the other doesn't look much like Dame Natalie.
-
I'm guessing Donald mentioned the song "Complicated Game" as a reference to the fact that although finding songs that mention gold is easy, finding songs that mention thallium is... complicated.
Sebadoh - Close Enough
-
In your very interesting article "Complexity in Rules on Cards" (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=121.0), you have stated the Vanilla card problem.
For example Dominion does not have a card that just says "+1 Card +1 Action +$1." If I made that card, it would limit what other cards I could make. So instead I just do variations on it.
In the Fan Cards Forum, people discuss sometimes about this. What exactly is the reason not to make a one-dollar-cantrip for $4? Would it be too strong at $4 but too weak at $5? Or would it be okay at $4 but just boring?
-
In your very interesting article "Complexity in Rules on Cards" (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=121.0), you have stated the Vanilla card problem.
For example Dominion does not have a card that just says "+1 Card +1 Action +$1." If I made that card, it would limit what other cards I could make. So instead I just do variations on it.
In the Fan Cards Forum, people discuss sometimes about this. What exactly is the reason not to make a one-dollar-cantrip for $4? Would it be too strong at $4 but too weak at $5? Or would it be okay at $4 but just boring?
A $4 Peddler (are we clear on what I mean here, yes, okay) would probably be fine. I mean it would be good, but it would be acceptable power-level-wise.
The Vanilla card problem is, vanilla cards limit what other cards can do (in games where cards can't naturally just be blatantly different in power level). For example Village at $3 means Village-with-a-bonus has to cost $4+. Otherwise some people are unhappy. It is really about that unhappiness, not necessarily any other issues. If say Walled Village cost $3, there would be people who were pissed. It would have no other negative consequences; it's still worth avoiding.
So, again just in certain kinds of games, you want to ration out the vanilla cards. They're valuable for being very simple cards, but limit what other cards can do.
My feeling was that $4-Peddler was a good one not to do. I did it, right away, but didn't use it; the main set got Market instead. With Market I can replace the +1 Buy with a different bonus and get a parade of cards that aren't clearly better/worse across the board. And then at $4 there are a couple cards that are some mix of better and worse than $4-Peddler, although that makes them more complex cards.
In the end, well the decision not to do $4-Peddler was an early one, and the years did not produce as many comparable $4's as expected. It probably would have been fine to have had $4-Peddler exist all these years. Tournament is obviously both better and worse; Ironmonger has acceptable differences. And Peddler itself you are hoping to pay $0 for.
-
Is one of your kids called Donald XI?
One of my kids doesn't look much like Dame Sylvia, and the other doesn't look much like Dame Natalie.
If one of your kids wouldn't look much like you, would you call it Donald XI?
-
We updated our Business Objects software from BO 3.5 to BO XI a few years back.
For years I have been thinking that they changed to a Roman Numeral system of numbering.
Turns out no, that stands for actual words!
Not really relevant to this conversation, but while we were on the XI conversation I just wanted to share
-
In your very interesting article "Complexity in Rules on Cards" (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=121.0), you have stated the Vanilla card problem.
For example Dominion does not have a card that just says "+1 Card +1 Action +$1." If I made that card, it would limit what other cards I could make. So instead I just do variations on it.
In the Fan Cards Forum, people discuss sometimes about this. What exactly is the reason not to make a one-dollar-cantrip for $4? Would it be too strong at $4 but too weak at $5? Or would it be okay at $4 but just boring?
A $4 Peddler (are we clear on what I mean here, yes, okay) would probably be fine. I mean it would be good, but it would be acceptable power-level-wise.
The Vanilla card problem is, vanilla cards limit what other cards can do (in games where cards can't naturally just be blatantly different in power level). For example Village at $3 means Village-with-a-bonus has to cost $4+. Otherwise some people are unhappy. It is really about that unhappiness, not necessarily any other issues. If say Walled Village cost $3, there would be people who were pissed. It would have no other negative consequences; it's still worth avoiding.
So, again just in certain kinds of games, you want to ration out the vanilla cards. They're valuable for being very simple cards, but limit what other cards can do.
My feeling was that $4-Peddler was a good one not to do. I did it, right away, but didn't use it; the main set got Market instead. With Market I can replace the +1 Buy with a different bonus and get a parade of cards that aren't clearly better/worse across the board. And then at $4 there are a couple cards that are some mix of better and worse than $4-Peddler, although that makes them more complex cards.
In the end, well the decision not to do $4-Peddler was an early one, and the years did not produce as many comparable $4's as expected. It probably would have been fine to have had $4-Peddler exist all these years. Tournament is obviously both better and worse; Ironmonger has acceptable differences. And Peddler itself you are hoping to pay $0 for.
Most pretension name for a song title ever?
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What should I have for dinner tonight?
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What should I have for dinner tonight?
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/9c/Feast.jpg/200px-Feast.jpg)
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If one of your kids wouldn't look much like you, would you call it Donald XI?
The X isn't a Roman numeral, it's a variable. So the real question is, what about Donald Y?
And the answer is no. I like having an uncommon first name and don't want to spoil that by assigning it to more people.
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If one of your kids wouldn't look much like you, would you call it Donald XI?
The X isn't a Roman numeral, it's a variable. So the real question is, what about Donald Y?
And the answer is no. I like having an uncommon first name and don't want to spoil that by assigning it to more people.
Can you just make the first name the variable? X Vaccarino?
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If one of your kids wouldn't look much like you, would you call it Donald XI?
The X isn't a Roman numeral, it's a variable. So the real question is, what about Donald Y?
And the answer is no. I like having an uncommon first name and don't want to spoil that by assigning it to more people.
Donald is an uncommon first name?
I've got a friend called Cooroo who might like to talk to you about that.
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I would say it's fairly uncommon. I'm 55 and I've only known one other person that went by Donald. Everyone else shortens it to Don, or their legal name is just Don, not Donald.
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I would say it's fairly uncommon. I'm 55 and I've only known one other person that went by Donald. Everyone else shortens it to Don, or their legal name is just Don, not Donald.
Interesting, because according to http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/century.html, Donald is the 14th most common male first name in the last 100 years.
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I'm 55 and I've only known one other person that went by Donald.
What did he look, swim and quack like?
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Most pretension name for a song title ever?
And what part of it is the band name? It's just a mess all around.
There are a bunch of pretenders vying for the pretentious song title throne. It's tempting to go with one of the long titles on the Sufjan Stevens album Illinois, e.g.
Sufjan Stevens - "The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!'"
It's always disappointing when an interesting title turns out to be an instrumental, even if the instrumental is good. I'm not sure I want to fault one of those though. I could just pick an awful instrumental with a grandiose title, like
Pink Floyd - The Grand Vizier's Garden Party (Part 1: Entrance; Part 2: Entertainment; Part 3: Exit)
Man, that's good enough. I can't spend all day looking for pretentious song titles.
Now long titles that are great, there are plenty of those. Guided by Voices / Pollard and Game Theory / Loud Family have a bunch. Man, you know you're in for a good time with a title like
Loud Family - Screwed Over by Stylish Introverts
or
Loud Family - Asleep and Awake on the Man's Freeway
or
Loud Family - Ballad of How You Can All Shut Up
The most sublime title though, sadly just thrown onto an instrumental snippet, is
Game Theory - All Clockwork and No Bodily Fluids Makes Hal a Dull Metal Humbert
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What should I have for dinner tonight?
Acid Ranch - Salvation Army Bacon and Eggs
Yes, there were many delightful meals you could have had instead. Just be glad I didn't give you
Eels - Hospital Food
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I would say it's fairly uncommon. I'm 55 and I've only known one other person that went by Donald. Everyone else shortens it to Don, or their legal name is just Don, not Donald.
Interesting, because according to http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/century.html, Donald is the 14th most common male first name in the last 100 years.
It was common a couple generations before me; it was not so common in my generation.
See: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-tell-someones-age-when-all-you-know-is-her-name/
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I would say it's fairly uncommon. I'm 55 and I've only known one other person that went by Donald. Everyone else shortens it to Don, or their legal name is just Don, not Donald.
Interesting, because according to http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/century.html, Donald is the 14th most common male first name in the last 100 years.
Hmm. Clearly I've been hanging out with the wrong people.
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Here is a graph of how popular it is (taken from here (http://www.behindthename.com/top/name/donald/us?viewing=graph)).
(http://www.behindthename.com/top/image.php?m=donald,&f=donald,®ion=us&type=percent&hidekey=1)
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Here is a graph of how popular it is (taken from here (http://www.behindthename.com/top/name/donald/us?viewing=graph)).
(http://www.behindthename.com/top/image.php?m=donald,&f=donald,®ion=us&type=percent&hidekey=1)
I looked up the same thing. The interesting thing to me was that it was very close to cracking top 500 for girls circa 1930
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1930's.
Clearly influemced by the topical sucess of either Bradman or Duck
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Here is a graph of how popular it is (taken from here (http://www.behindthename.com/top/name/donald/us?viewing=graph)).
(http://www.behindthename.com/top/image.php?m=donald,&f=donald,®ion=us&type=percent&hidekey=1)
Donald Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions.
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Too slow!
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Here is a graph of how popular it is (taken from here (http://www.behindthename.com/top/name/donald/us?viewing=graph)).
(http://www.behindthename.com/top/image.php?m=donald,&f=donald,®ion=us&type=percent&hidekey=1)
Donald Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions.
or... because it was a common name, they gave it to a prominent cartoon character. It was on the rise prior to 1934.
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Here is a graph of how popular it is (taken from here (http://www.behindthename.com/top/name/donald/us?viewing=graph)).
(http://www.behindthename.com/top/image.php?m=donald,&f=donald,®ion=us&type=percent&hidekey=1)
Donald Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions.
or... because it was a common name, they gave it to a prominent cartoon character. It was on the rise prior to 1934.
Obviously, and I was implying Donald Duck was responsible for the ensuing steep drop ;)
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I own very few physical boxes of Dominion, so I'm not familiar with the extra materials for all the expansions. I just noticed that the f.ds wiki says that Prosperity has 8 victory token mats. Why are there 8?
Also, a google image search turns up these two images:
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDgwWDY0MA==/z/RjkAAMXQrhdTUSYS/$_35.JPG) (http://www.boardgame.de/bilder/dompros3.jpg)
Is the different art from different editions of the game? Or maybe one set is fan-made?
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I've never seen the thing on the right, but I own the ones on the left, and there are 8. I don't know why.
Actually, I do know why (read: I have a guess). There is also the trade route mat. There need to be at least 6, one for each player, but 7 is prime, eww. Might as well make there 8 mats so the mats fit nicely in a 3x3 cardboard punch-out.
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I suspect 8 mats is so you can play two 4p games at once.
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I own very few physical boxes of Dominion, so I'm not familiar with the extra materials for all the expansions. I just noticed that the f.ds wiki says that Prosperity has 8 victory token mats. Why are there 8?
Also, a google image search turns up these two images:
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDgwWDY0MA==/z/RjkAAMXQrhdTUSYS/$_35.JPG) (http://www.boardgame.de/bilder/dompros3.jpg)
Is the different art from different editions of the game? Or maybe one set is fan-made?
Looks like the odd mats on the right are from a foreign edition, though I'm not 100% sure.
http://www.boardgame.de/reviews/dompros.htm
Did a google search of the image, that was the only link that came up.
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I've never seen the thing on the right, but I own the ones on the left, and there are 8. I don't know why.
Actually, I do know why (read: I have a guess). There is also the trade route mat. There need to be at least 6, one for each player, but 7 is prime, eww. Might as well make there 8 mats so the mats fit nicely in a 3x3 cardboard punch-out.
Adventures apparently only has 6 mats though. What would the rest of the cardboard be for then? :P
The ones on the right look like Dominion art. Middle left is from the Prosperity box, bottom left is Alchemy, bottom right is Seaside.
Actually, the top two on the image on the left are also from Prosperity/Seaside, matching the ones in the right image. Huh. The one in the middle is from the Intrigue box and bottom left looks like base. Middle right is Vineyards. Middle left looks like a different section of the Seaside box.
Can anybody identify what all the other images are from?
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I own very few physical boxes of Dominion, so I'm not familiar with the extra materials for all the expansions. I just noticed that the f.ds wiki says that Prosperity has 8 victory token mats. Why are there 8?
Also, a google image search turns up these two images:
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDgwWDY0MA==/z/RjkAAMXQrhdTUSYS/$_35.JPG) (http://www.boardgame.de/bilder/dompros3.jpg)
Is the different art from different editions of the game? Or maybe one set is fan-made?
I don't know why there are 8; it was just something Jay did. And as you can see he reused box/card art for them. Some of the ones on the right are from the original German covers for the main set and/or Intrigue, which are different from the English covers.
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I've never seen the thing on the right, but I own the ones on the left, and there are 8. I don't know why.
Actually, I do know why (read: I have a guess). There is also the trade route mat. There need to be at least 6, one for each player, but 7 is prime, eww. Might as well make there 8 mats so the mats fit nicely in a 3x3 cardboard punch-out.
Adventures apparently only has 6 mats though. What would the rest of the cardboard be for then? :P
The ones on the right look like Dominion art. Middle left is from the Prosperity box, bottom left is Alchemy, bottom right is Seaside.
Actually, the top two on the image on the left are also from Prosperity/Seaside, matching the ones in the right image. Huh. The one in the middle is from the Intrigue box and bottom left looks like base. Middle right is Vineyards. Middle left looks like a different section of the Seaside box.
Can anybody identify what all the other images are from?
Adventures doesn't have a lone Trade Route map bumping up the number, though, so it can go with 2x3. Prosperity couldn't; that'd mean one Trade Route and five VP mats.
How did Seaside handle the mats thing? The only physical copy I've seen is missing them.
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I own very few physical boxes of Dominion, so I'm not familiar with the extra materials for all the expansions. I just noticed that the f.ds wiki says that Prosperity has 8 victory token mats. Why are there 8?
Also, a google image search turns up these two images:
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDgwWDY0MA==/z/RjkAAMXQrhdTUSYS/$_35.JPG) (http://www.boardgame.de/bilder/dompros3.jpg)
Is the different art from different editions of the game? Or maybe one set is fan-made?
Looks like the odd mats on the right are from a foreign edition, though I'm not 100% sure.
The mats on the right are from the german edition of Prosperity. Actually, i find them much less "odd" looking than the ones you seem to use. I mean, honestly, what kind of design decision is "let's show a tree and half of a man", anyway?
Either way, you know the Prosperity boat, the Seaside ship and the alchemy alchemist. The other three come from the german Base game and Intrigue, respectively. Hans im Glück (who sold it at that time) disliked the "military" looks of the base game (which is weird anyhow, considering there's exactly one "military" card in base, Militia) and so they decided to do their own. For Intrigue, which was sold as another standalone, they used another part of the same big image, which makes for the cute feature that base and Intrigue, when placed next to each other, form one big scenery. all that changed now, since Rio Grande Games now does the Dominion sale in germany, too, and went back to their own design for both games.
Here are my Base and Intrigue boxes which i use as a storage solution:
(http://fs1.directupload.net/images/150210/zta7xzrm.jpg)
PS: When i wrote this, i accidentally went back and had to write all the text again. So i expect massive amounts of respect for my selfless giving of information and the hardships i had to endure for it. :P
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So what cards do the bottom 3 mats come from?
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So what cards do the bottom 3 mats come from?
I do not understand your question. All six on the right are mats for Victory tokens. None of them is card-specific. About the cards on the left, i have no clue. The Trade Route mat in germany shows the Trade Route art, a giant coin symbol and a descriptive text how the mat is used.
By the way, there are 8 VP mats in the german version of Prosperity, too. I guess the reason why there are eight is that this way, you can play with whatever mat you find the most appealing. Personally, i like to "be" the alchemist :)
(http://fs1.directupload.net/images/150210/raymshb6.jpg)
Edit: Ah, i guess you are talking about those on the left. Pretty sure they are box art. The tree thing is from Prosperity, and the left one might be is from base.
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I've never seen the thing on the right, but I own the ones on the left, and there are 8. I don't know why.
Actually, I do know why (read: I have a guess). There is also the trade route mat. There need to be at least 6, one for each player, but 7 is prime, eww. Might as well make there 8 mats so the mats fit nicely in a 3x3 cardboard punch-out.
Adventures apparently only has 6 mats though. What would the rest of the cardboard be for then? :P
The ones on the right look like Dominion art. Middle left is from the Prosperity box, bottom left is Alchemy, bottom right is Seaside.
Actually, the top two on the image on the left are also from Prosperity/Seaside, matching the ones in the right image. Huh. The one in the middle is from the Intrigue box and bottom left looks like base. Middle right is Vineyards. Middle left looks like a different section of the Seaside box.
Can anybody identify what all the other images are from?
Adventures doesn't have a lone Trade Route map bumping up the number, though, so it can go with 2x3. Prosperity couldn't; that'd mean one Trade Route and five VP mats.
How did Seaside handle the mats thing? The only physical copy I've seen is missing them.
The Seaside mats are much larger than the Prosperity mats.
They are tall and skinny, fitting only two down and three across in the box.
So there are actually three sheets of cardboard to punch out the eighteen mats.
Does that make sense?
Here's a picture of two of them that shows the scale:
(http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1926869_md.jpg)
That's also presumably why they are likely missing from the set you've played.
I can understand not wanting to pack them, they are kind of huge.
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Edit: Ah, i guess you are talking about those on the left. Pretty sure they are box art. The tree thing is from Prosperity, and the left one might be is from base.
Yes, that's what I meant. And whoops, I actually did identify the left as Base and the middle as another Prosperity image, but I may have forgotten to mention it and then forgotten I'd figured that out at all. But I definitely didn't figure out the bottom right.
Edit: Why not just use one mat for the Seaside cards? Island cards and Native Village cards can be kept separate by the fact that the former are face up and the latter are face down.
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Here is a graph of how popular it is (taken from here (http://www.behindthename.com/top/name/donald/us?viewing=graph)).
(http://www.behindthename.com/top/image.php?m=donald,&f=donald,®ion=us&type=percent&hidekey=1)
I looked up the same thing. The interesting thing to me was that it was very close to cracking top 500 for girls circa 1930
The majority of the "Donald" girls are probably the result of typos—boys named Donald for whom someone accidentally checked the wrong box somewhere along the data-entry chain.
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Here is a graph of how popular it is (taken from here (http://www.behindthename.com/top/name/donald/us?viewing=graph)).
(http://www.behindthename.com/top/image.php?m=donald,&f=donald,®ion=us&type=percent&hidekey=1)
I looked up the same thing. The interesting thing to me was that it was very close to cracking top 500 for girls circa 1930
The majority of the "Donald" girls are probably the result of typos—boys named Donald for whom someone accidentally checked the wrong box somewhere along the data-entry chain.
I'm assuming this data is from the same source as on this page (http://www.nameplayground.com/Donald), which means it is from the US Social Security Administration.
So, basically, these are officially registered births.
I actually have a much harder time believing that, in 1930, 174 parents accidentally registered their son Donald as female and never corrected the error, than if 174 parents had just decided that Donald was a perfectly fine name for a girl.
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Or other typos, like girls who are actually named Donalda or Dinald or Ronald.
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The majority of the "Donald" girls are probably the result of typos—boys named Donald for whom someone accidentally checked the wrong box somewhere along the data-entry chain.
I'm assuming this data is from the same source as on this page (http://www.nameplayground.com/Donald), which means it is from the US Social Security Administration.
So, basically, these are officially registered births.
I actually have a much harder time believing that, in 1930, 174 parents accidentally registered their son Donald as female and never corrected the error, than if 174 parents had just decided that Donald was a perfectly fine name for a girl.
The Social Security Administration's info page on name data (http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/background.html) says "Name data are not edited. For example, the sex associated with a name may be incorrect."
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(Also:
1. This data doesn't allow parents opportunities to "correct the error". It's just what was filled out on the initial forms, dumped into a database. If people "registered their son Donald as female" and did correct the error, that wouldn't make it into the name file.
2. The Social Security Administration didn't yet exist in 1930, so the 1930 data isn't about how "parents registered their son" in 1930 anyway.)
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I would say it's fairly uncommon. I'm 55 and I've only known one other person that went by Donald. Everyone else shortens it to Don, or their legal name is just Don, not Donald.
Obviously, it's me, right?
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(Also:
1. This data doesn't allow parents opportunities to "correct the error". It's just what was filled out on the initial forms, dumped into a database. If people "registered their son Donald as female" and did correct the error, that wouldn't make it into the name file.
2. The Social Security Administration didn't yet exist in 1930, so the 1930 data isn't about how "parents registered their son" in 1930 anyway.)
That's interesting. I guess the point is that the name file is supposed to be a completely anonymous data dump, so if the details on your child's birth registration is later amended, there is no identifying info in the name file to allow a correction to be made.
I stand corrected, typos seem the obvious source of female Donalds. Especially as it correlates perfectly with peak popularity of the name for boys.
I would say it's fairly uncommon. I'm 55 and I've only known one other person that went by Donald. Everyone else shortens it to Don, or their legal name is just Don, not Donald.
Obviously, it's me, right?
You're not Donald Glover by any chance, are you?
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Edit: Why not just use one mat for the Seaside cards? Island cards and Native Village cards can be kept separate by the fact that the former are face up and the latter are face down.
I don't think anyone proposed that so there you go. Possibly someone thought of it and rejected it without telling me though. I had cards for Native Village and Pirate Ship mats, and nothing for Island, I just used the first Island set aside.
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I think the best song title I've heard so far is: I Didn't Say I Was Powerful, I Said I Was a Wizard.
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I think the best song title I've heard so far is: I Didn't Say I Was Powerful, I Said I Was a Wizard.
By the same band, "If I cut my hair, Hawaii will sink"
In fact, that band seems to exclusively have long titles for their songs.
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I think the best song title I've heard so far is: I Didn't Say I Was Powerful, I Said I Was a Wizard.
By the same band, "If I cut my hair, Hawaii will sink"
In fact, that band seems to exclusively have long titles for their songs.
Looking at their discography, I'd say that their titles are longer on average than most bands, but not exclusively long. I think a close second favorite title of theirs is: The Undertaker's Thirst for Revenge is Unquenchable (The Final Battle)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFYv7ly-7EM
Actual song. Not a huge fan of it, but I appreciate that they tried something different.
Do you like weird song titles, Donald?
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Do you like weird song titles, Donald?
Man. I like good song titles. Weird or not. Weird stands out, that's a thing about weirdness. That long Sufjan Stevens title was awful; Chicago was a much better song title on that album (and a much better song). But there isn't as much to say about the short normal title.
Robert Pollard was asked in an interview once, that age-old question: which do you write first, the music or the lyrics. He said, "the titles." He would make a track listing for an album and then write songs for the titles. For Bee Thousand, he went through a yearbook, assigned band names to group photos in it - as if they were pictures of rock bands - and then wrote songs for those bands.
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The Seaside mats are much larger than the Prosperity mats.
They are tall and skinny, fitting only two down and three across in the box.
So there are actually three sheets of cardboard to punch out the eighteen mats
So the adventures mats will be seaside sized
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Now I want to hear a cover of Sufjan Stevens' "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!" by Tim and Sam's Tim and the Sam Band with Tim and Sam.
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I would say it's fairly uncommon. I'm 55 and I've only known one other person that went by Donald. Everyone else shortens it to Don, or their legal name is just Don, not Donald.
Obviously, it's me, right?
Do I know you?
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So what cards do the bottom 3 mats come from?
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDgwWDY0MA==/z/RjkAAMXQrhdTUSYS/$_35.JPG)
Prosperity Box - Seaside Box
Seaside Box - Intrigue Box - Vineyard
Dominion Instructions - Prosperity Box - Dominion Instructions
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Is the posted Adventures release date of April 8 an accurate announcement of the current plans?
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Is the posted Adventures release date of April 8 an accurate announcement of the current plans?
I don't have any more information than you. My reasoning would be, why would Jay put up that date now without expecting it to be accurate?
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Is the posted Adventures release date of April 8 an accurate announcement of the current plans?
I don't have any more information than you. My reasoning would be, why would Jay put up that date now without expecting it to be accurate?
I think he may be asking because the same page is displaying a March 31 release date for Temporum.
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Is the posted Adventures release date of April 8 an accurate announcement of the current plans?
I don't have any more information than you. My reasoning would be, why would Jay put up that date now without expecting it to be accurate?
I think he may be asking because the same page is displaying a March 31 release date for Temporum.
Well that one at least is easy to explain.
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Is the posted Adventures release date of April 8 an accurate announcement of the current plans?
I don't have any more information than you. My reasoning would be, why would Jay put up that date now without expecting it to be accurate?
I think he may be asking because the same page is displaying a March 31 release date for Temporum.
It's easy enough to repeat here: That was a 2nd printing date, put up when Temporum was already out. Yes it's mislabeled as a release date. I don't know if Temporum's 2nd printing will actually make that date.
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Is the posted Adventures release date of April 8 an accurate announcement of the current plans?
I don't have any more information than you. My reasoning would be, why would Jay put up that date now without expecting it to be accurate?
When do you typically get more information than us? I assume you do before the actual release, because you know when to start giving previews.
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If a few of us from the forum showed up at your house suddenly without announcement, would you call the cops on us, or could we play board games?
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If a few of us from the forum showed up at your house suddenly without announcement, would you call the cops on us, or could we play board games?
At my house might be too scary, who are these stalkers. If you show up at a public place where I play board games then I will play with you, provided my table isn't full already.
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When do you typically get more information than us? I assume you do before the actual release, because you know when to start giving previews.
I typically never have more information than you. I read about the release date on BGG. If it gets changed, I read about that on BGG.
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If a few of us from the forum showed up at your house suddenly without announcement, would you call the cops on us, or could we play board games?
I would call the cops. People just showing up at your house is frightening.
YBut hey, at least he wouldn't pull out a rifle and shout "Get off my lawn, you punks!"
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If a few of us from the forum showed up at your house suddenly without announcement, would you call the cops on us, or could we play board games?
SEE!
I told you it was a bad idea and that we should just rent the house opposite, accidently bump into him, ingratiate ourselves into his confidence and THEN reveal ourselves as Forumites
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If a few of us from the forum showed up at your house suddenly without announcement, would you call the cops on us, or could we play board games?
SEE!
I told you it was a bad idea and that we should just rent the house opposite, accidently bump into him, ingratiate ourselves into his confidence and THEN reveal ourselves as Forumites
It's no good. None of those houses are available.
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You could just do it at Wandering Winder's place, cuz, you know, he's everyone.
(I guess he'd probably know it's coming though, for the same reason)
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It's not that he is everyone, it's that we are all him.
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It's not that he is everyone, it's that we are all him.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_relation
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If a few of us from the forum showed up at your house suddenly without announcement, would you call the cops on us, or could we play board games?
At my house might be too scary, who are these stalkers. If you show up at a public place where I play board games then I will play with you, provided my table isn't full already.
ZOMG my new mission in life is to make this happen. I could get a selfie with DXV! Maybe get him to autograph my Steward randomizer or my Dominion Box!
SQUEEEE!!!!!! ;D
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If a few of us from the forum showed up at your house suddenly without announcement, would you call the cops on us, or could we play board games?
At my house might be too scary, who are these stalkers. If you show up at a public place where I play board games then I will play with you, provided my table isn't full already.
ZOMG my new mission in life is to make this happen. I could get a selfie with DXV! Maybe get him to autograph my Steward randomizer or my Dominion Box!
SQUEEEE!!!!!! ;D
Instead of finding a random public place, why not try Origins or GenCon? I bet Donald would even let you know if he would be there...
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It's not that he is everyone, it's that we are all him.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_relation
Maybe it's just an implication. You know, like "Any Dromedary is a Camel, but not every Camel is a Dromedary."
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Who knows what the meaning of "is" is?
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If a few of us from the forum showed up at your house suddenly without announcement, would you call the cops on us, or could we play board games?
At my house might be too scary, who are these stalkers. If you show up at a public place where I play board games then I will play with you, provided my table isn't full already.
ZOMG my new mission in life is to make this happen. I could get a selfie with DXV! Maybe get him to autograph my Steward randomizer or my Dominion Box!
SQUEEEE!!!!!! ;D
It should be the Knights randomizer.
-
If a few of us from the forum showed up at your house suddenly without announcement, would you call the cops on us, or could we play board games?
At my house might be too scary, who are these stalkers. If you show up at a public place where I play board games then I will play with you, provided my table isn't full already.
ZOMG my new mission in life is to make this happen. I could get a selfie with DXV! Maybe get him to autograph my Steward randomizer or my Dominion Box!
SQUEEEE!!!!!! ;D
It should be the Knights randomizer.
No, Explorer. Then he'd write "They can't all be the best game designer ever"
-
The more I think about it, the more I would want an autograph on the Dominion box, then I could use the wood-burning tool to burn it in and make it go with the design that's already on there. That would be SO COOL!!!!
-
My favorite song title from that Sufjan Stevens album is "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!"
-
The more I think about it, the more I would want an autograph on the Dominion box, then I could use the wood-burning tool to burn it in and make it go with the design that's already on there. That would be SO COOL!!!!
God, why don't you marry him already?
-
The more I think about it, the more I would want an autograph on the Dominion box, then I could use the wood-burning tool to burn it in and make it go with the design that's already on there. That would be SO COOL!!!!
God, why don't you marry him already?
I think he may be married already.
-
It's not that he is everyone, it's that we are all him.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_relation
Maybe it's just an implication. You know, like "Any Dromedary is a Camel, but not every Camel is a Dromedary."
All forumites are Wandering Winters, but not all Wandering Winters are forumites.
Or, something.
-
Through the winter wander, winder that want'er.
-
Dear Dr Vaccarino,
Lately I've noticed that I like talking about board games, reading about board games and arguing about board games much more than I like actually playing board games. What is wrong with me?
Confused
Albuquerque
-
Dear Dr Vaccarino,
Lately I've noticed that I like talking about board games, reading about board games and arguing about board games much more than I like actually playing board games. What is wrong with me?
Confused
Albuquerque
It's not uncommon to find your game life missing a little spice as you get older. Here are some handy tips to help you out in the game room.
- Put on mood music. Perhaps the Queen album The Game, or something from Game Theory.
- Wear a special outfit. You could dress up like that guy from Monopoly, or a meeple.
- Get scented dice.
- You can make a game out of playing a game. Whoever wins the game, wins the game.
- Try playing games in public. It can be a real rush.
- Try unusual positions. In a game of Chess, group all of your pieces on the right side of the board. See where it leads you.
- Incorporate food into the action. Use gummi bears for meeples, or play Dominion using slices of cheese, drawn on with food coloring.
- Take a bath first. Man. I wasn't going to say anything but really. You don't have to fit a stereotype to be a gamer.
- Roleplay. "I go to my village... I visit the smithy..."
- Videotape yourself playing. Then you can put it online later as a podcast.
-
play Dominion using slices of cheese, drawn on with food coloring.
Whoa hey, did Jay give you the go-ahead to reveal this upcoming Dominion product?
-
I play with the cheese. It does not play with me.
-
Dear Dr Vaccarino,
Lately I've noticed that I like talking about board games, reading about board games and arguing about board games much more than I like actually playing board games. What is wrong with me?
Confused
Albuquerque
It's not uncommon to find your game life missing a little spice as you get older. Here are some handy tips to help you out in the game room.
- Put on mood music. Perhaps the Queen album The Game, or something from Game Theory.
- Wear a special outfit. You could dress up like that guy from Monopoly, or a meeple.
- Get scented dice.
- You can make a game out of playing a game. Whoever wins the game, wins the game.
- Try playing games in public. It can be a real rush.
- Try unusual positions. In a game of Chess, group all of your pieces on the right side of the board. See where it leads you.
- Incorporate food into the action. Use gummi bears for meeples, or play Dominion using slices of cheese, drawn on with food coloring.
- Take a bath first. Man. I wasn't going to say anything but really. You don't have to fit a stereotype to be a gamer.
- Roleplay. "I go to my village... I visit the smithy..."
- Videotape yourself playing. Then you can put it online later as a podcast.
Wow. You just came up with all of this out of your head, didn't you? I am constantly amazed and bedazzled and captivated by your unique written style. Also, there is lots of great content for the "taken out of context" thread here.
-
Dear Dr Vaccarino,
Lately I've noticed that I like talking about board games, reading about board games and arguing about board games much more than I like actually playing board games. What is wrong with me?
Confused
Albuquerque
It's not uncommon to find your game life missing a little spice as you get older. Here are some handy tips to help you out in the game room.
- Put on mood music. Perhaps the Queen album The Game, or something from Game Theory.
- Wear a special outfit. You could dress up like that guy from Monopoly, or a meeple.
- Get scented dice.
- You can make a game out of playing a game. Whoever wins the game, wins the game.
- Try playing games in public. It can be a real rush.
- Try unusual positions. In a game of Chess, group all of your pieces on the right side of the board. See where it leads you.
- Incorporate food into the action. Use gummi bears for meeples, or play Dominion using slices of cheese, drawn on with food coloring.
- Take a bath first. Man. I wasn't going to say anything but really. You don't have to fit a stereotype to be a gamer.
- Roleplay. "I go to my village... I visit the smithy..."
- Videotape yourself playing. Then you can put it online later as a podcast.
Wow. You just came up with all of this out of your head, didn't you? I am constantly amazed and bedazzled and captivated by your unique written style. Also, there is lots of great content for the "taken out of context" thread here.
Don't be too impressed, he has a team of writers standing beside him feeding him jokes and writing his lines.
The funny ones he keeps, the unfunny ones he sends to make NPH stand in his underpants.
-
- You can make a game out of playing a game. Whoever wins the game, wins the game.
We can go deeper...
-
- You can make a game out of playing a game. Whoever wins the game, wins the game.
We can go deeper...
DAMNIT, just lost the game
-
Dear Dr Vaccarino,
Lately I've noticed that I like talking about board games, reading about board games and arguing about board games much more than I like actually playing board games. What is wrong with me?
Confused
Albuquerque
It's not uncommon to find your game life missing a little spice as you get older. Here are some handy tips to help you out in the game room.
- Put on mood music. Perhaps the Queen album The Game, or something from Game Theory.
- Wear a special outfit. You could dress up like that guy from Monopoly, or a meeple.
- Get scented dice.
- You can make a game out of playing a game. Whoever wins the game, wins the game.
- Try playing games in public. It can be a real rush.
- Try unusual positions. In a game of Chess, group all of your pieces on the right side of the board. See where it leads you.
- Incorporate food into the action. Use gummi bears for meeples, or play Dominion using slices of cheese, drawn on with food coloring.
- Take a bath first. Man. I wasn't going to say anything but really. You don't have to fit a stereotype to be a gamer.
- Roleplay. "I go to my village... I visit the smithy..."
- Videotape yourself playing. Then you can put it online later as a podcast.
Wow. You just came up with all of this out of your head, didn't you? I am constantly amazed and bedazzled and captivated by your unique written style. Also, there is lots of great content for the "taken out of context" thread here.
Don't be too impressed, he has a team of writers standing beside him feeding him jokes and writing his lines.
It's funny that at some point i wanted to claim you had this, but forgot.
-
Dear Dr Vaccarino,
Lately I've noticed that I like talking about board games, reading about board games and arguing about board games much more than I like actually playing board games. What is wrong with me?
Confused
Albuquerque
It's not uncommon to find your game life missing a little spice as you get older. Here are some handy tips to help you out in the game room.
- Put on mood music. Perhaps the Queen album The Game, or something from Game Theory.
- Wear a special outfit. You could dress up like that guy from Monopoly, or a meeple.
- Get scented dice.
- You can make a game out of playing a game. Whoever wins the game, wins the game.
- Try playing games in public. It can be a real rush.
- Try unusual positions. In a game of Chess, group all of your pieces on the right side of the board. See where it leads you.
- Incorporate food into the action. Use gummi bears for meeples, or play Dominion using slices of cheese, drawn on with food coloring.
- Take a bath first. Man. I wasn't going to say anything but really. You don't have to fit a stereotype to be a gamer.
- Roleplay. "I go to my village... I visit the smithy..."
- Videotape yourself playing. Then you can put it online later as a podcast.
Wow. You just came up with all of this out of your head, didn't you? I am constantly amazed and bedazzled and captivated by your unique written style. Also, there is lots of great content for the "taken out of context" thread here.
Don't be too impressed, he has a team of writers standing beside him feeding him jokes and writing his lines.
It's funny that at some point i wanted to claim you had this, but forgot.
Nope, I am an automated reply machine
You just failed the Turin test!
-
You just failed the Turin test!
Is that the test where you try to determine whether the entity in the box is a human or the burial shroud of Jesus?
-
You just failed the Turin test!
Is that the test where you try to determine whether the entity in the box is a human or the burial shroud of Jesus?
No, it's the test where you state whether you are a fan of Juventus or not and if you are you get a dirty look.
-- edited because I felt bad --
-
Is there a gaming convention that Adventures will be released at, as has been done with expansions since... well, I think all of them?
-
Is there a gaming convention that Adventures will be released at, as has been done with expansions since... well, I think all of them?
<Donald X Voice>
I only know as much as the rest of you. I guess Jay will announce it when he is ready, because, well, its up to him.
</Donald X Voice>
-
Is there a gaming convention that Adventures will be released at, as has been done with expansions since... well, I think all of them?
<Donald X Voice>
I only know as much as the rest of you. I guess Jay will announce it when he is ready, because, well, its up to him.
</Donald X Voice>
Now that is just eerie
-
Agh jsh what happened to your face!?
-
Agh jsh what happened to your face!?
<Donald X Voice>
Squeeze: Messed Around
</Donald X Voice>
-
Agh jsh what happened to your face!?
He got Promoted.
-
Is there a gaming convention that Adventures will be released at, as has been done with expansions since... well, I think all of them?
I'm looking at a chart of cons, and not seeing one. There might be a small con, but Jay is less likely to go to one of those.
It will still be at cons though. That's a thing about cons. It will be at Origins and GenCon and whatever. It won't be new as of the con but it's still good to have it at the con.
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Sorry if this was brought up before, but did you intentionally name Altar as a pun on "alter"?
-
Sorry if this was brought up before, but did you intentionally name Altar as a pun on "alter"?
No. Originally it was Foundry. At some point I renamed it to Tinker, then learned that tinkers worked with tin (hence the name) and were not around in the appropriate time period. I changed it to Altar specifically so that you could sacrifice Cultists on an altar.
-
Sorry if this was brought up before, but did you intentionally name Altar as a pun on "alter"?
No. Originally it was Foundry. At some point I renamed it to Tinker, then learned that tinkers worked with tin (hence the name) and were not around in the appropriate time period. I changed it to Altar specifically so that you could sacrifice Cultists on an altar.
al-tar or awl-turr?
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Sorry if this was brought up before, but did you intentionally name Altar as a pun on "alter"?
No. Originally it was Foundry. At some point I renamed it to Tinker, then learned that tinkers worked with tin (hence the name) and were not around in the appropriate time period. I changed it to Altar specifically so that you could sacrifice Cultists on an altar.
al-tar or awl-turr?
all-tər
-
I'll tour.
-
Sorry if this was brought up before, but did you intentionally name Altar as a pun on "alter"?
No. Originally it was Foundry. At some point I renamed it to Tinker, then learned that tinkers worked with tin (hence the name) and were not around in the appropriate time period. I changed it to Altar specifically so that you could sacrifice Cultists on an altar.
I like the name "Altar" because it continues the minor subtheme of religious trashers from Chapel and Bishop.
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You've given your reasons, here and elsewhere, why you wouldn't consider another expansion with potion-cost cards. Is there a chance we'd ever get a potion-cost promo card?
-
You've given your reasons, here and elsewhere, why you wouldn't consider another expansion with potion-cost cards. Is there a chance we'd ever get a potion-cost promo card?
I'm not DXV, but the issue there is that it'd be a promo card dependent on another expansion, which means it would be useless to a lot of people. Not to mention many people disliked Potion cost cards, for one reason or another. Or in other words, as a promo it has mostly the same issues it would have in an expansion.
You could have it interact with Potions in a way that doesn't depend on them, maybe (similar to Apprentice), but that's about it.
-
I was frequently surprised that promos weren't expansion-dependent. It seems like you'd want to promote the recent expansions.
-
I was frequently surprised that promos weren't expansion-dependent. It seems like you'd want to promote the recent expansions.
But then why weren't the promos just part of the expansion? Then you feel like you're missing something.
-
I was frequently surprised that promos weren't expansion-dependent. It seems like you'd want to promote the recent expansions.
But then why weren't the promos just part of the expansion? Then you feel like you're missing something.
Haven't you ever heard of Day 1 DLC?
-
al-tar or awl-turr?
I pronounce it normally. Try to stay focused on questions that it would be even remotely interesting for me to answer.
-
You've given your reasons, here and elsewhere, why you wouldn't consider another expansion with potion-cost cards. Is there a chance we'd ever get a potion-cost promo card?
I would have considered it right then, around when Alchemy came out. It would suck if there was one now. Here's a promo you can avoid getting at all excited about.
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But then why weren't the promos just part of the expansion? Then you feel like you're missing something.
Promos suck. It's straightforward. If the promo is good, then yes, why isn't it in an expansion, any expansion? Put the good cards in expansions please. If the promo sucks, why bother at all? You can make a special case for wacky things, it's not in the expansion because it's wacky but maybe some people will like it. Then you have the issue of, the rules tend to be especially confusing for wacky things and you aren't managing to hold onto the piece of paper with the rules for the promo. Yes in this enlightened era there is the internet.
Envoy wasn't good enough for Intrigue and still isn't. Black Market was too wacky and well it still needs to be fixed up, though it's a fun card that it's nice got to exist. Stash is the perfect promo: just wacky enough to bother some people who are happier having it as a promo they can avoid getting, just wacky enough to seem special, and in the end not interesting enough to miss having in an expansion. Walled Village wasn't good enough for Guilds and still isn't. Governor was made to cross-promote Puerto Rico and is a good enough card that it should be in an expansion (probably tweaked to be less automatic of a purchase). Prince was made when there were no expansions so that's one case where it was fine to have something cool that wasn't in an expansion.
The first two Kingdom Builder promos, Capitol and Caves, were from expansions that they would have been in. They were good and those expansions missed out by not getting to include those things. The third, Island, was an outtake from the 4th expansion and still isn't good enough.
Gauntlet of Fools got 3 promos and that was nice, because it never got an expansion. So really that's the good situation for promos: when there's no expansion.
-
You've given your reasons, here and elsewhere, why you wouldn't consider another expansion with potion-cost cards. Is there a chance we'd ever get a potion-cost promo card?
I would have considered it right then, around when Alchemy came out. It would suck if there was one now. Here's a promo you can avoid getting at all excited about.
Do you feel the design space for Potion-cost cards has been fully explored, or do you have more ideas if it were feasible to do more?
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Have you ever had to stop everything and change the rules mid-game because you realized something going wrong?
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Do you feel the design space for Potion-cost cards has been fully explored, or do you have more ideas if it were feasible to do more?
Well they really aren't that limited. It's bad if too many of them make you build slow chaining decks, like the ones in Alchemy do, but any given one can be a slow chaining card. A Potion-coster's thing is that it needs to be playable in multiples when there are no other Potion-costers out; it wants to either have +1 action or more, or play actions directly, or be a VP card or treasure, or be a Remodel/Vault, or be really expensive. With a few extra more obscure niches. There's no special limit on how many cards like that you can make; they're normal cards that every expansion has.
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Have you ever had to stop everything and change the rules mid-game because you realized something going wrong?
Yes, I've blown it on a phrasing so that something was sufficiently messed up that it made sense to just immediately switch to what it should have been. Other times we've just abandoned the game or lived with the messed up thing. It depends. Maybe somebody was counting on the messed-up part and would have done completely different things if they'd worked out that obviously the card couldn't be whatever it was; or maybe no-one has gotten the card yet or considered this angle and I spot it and explain how oops that's no good. Maybe there's an outside chance it's not too messed up so it seems worth playing out.
We've also set up, and I put out the new card to play with, and we chat about it, and it's clear it doesn't work, without having tried it yet.
It's really just a contest between getting useful playtesting done and having people be happy with the games being played. I have to keep people happy enough to stay at my table. And aside from that would prefer to get useful playtesting done.
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Can you design your next game with aliens, dinosaur cops and a victory condition that involves colouring a picture with crayons.
There's a huge gap in the market there!
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Can you design your next game with aliens, dinosaur cops and a victory condition that involves colouring a picture with crayons.
There's a huge gap in the market there!
I'm sorry, Mr. Triceratops, you need a permit for those horns.
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Can you design your next game with aliens, dinosaur cops and a victory condition that involves colouring a picture with crayons.
There's a huge gap in the market there!
Well, Temporum has aliens, dinosaurs, and cops. I'm getting there.
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Dinosaur
Action - $8
+$2
You may immediately put your deck into your discard pile.
+1 Buy
+$2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each player (including you) reveals the top card of his deck and either discards it or puts it back, your choice.
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 2 Treasure cards. Put those Treasure cards in your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put the revealed Victory cards into your hand. Put the other cards on top of your deck in any order.
+$P
-
Dinosaur
Action - $8
+$2
You may immediately put your deck into your discard pile.
+1 Buy
+ $2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each player (including you) reveals the top card of his deck and either discards it or puts it back, your choice.
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 2 Treasure cards. Put those Treasure cards in your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put the revealed Victory cards into your hand. Put the other cards on top of your deck in any order.
+$P
Temporum
Action - $6
Choose one: +2 cards; or +$4; or play a card from your hand.
-
Given that LastFootnote is a playtester, is there any likelihood of his fan expansion getting an official release? Perhaps a better question, have you played with any of his cards?
-
Given that LastFootnote is a playtester, is there any likelihood of his fan expansion getting an official release? Perhaps a better question, have you played with any of his cards?
No. No. I feel like Donald has made it super clear that he doesn't consider fan cards at all.
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Given that LastFootnote is a playtester, is there any likelihood of his fan expansion getting an official release? Perhaps a better question, have you played with any of his cards?
No. No. I feel like Donald has made it super clear that he doesn't consider fan cards at all.
But LastFootnote is a playtester now, and Donald has added playtester suggested cards before.
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Given that LastFootnote is a playtester, is there any likelihood of his fan expansion getting an official release? Perhaps a better question, have you played with any of his cards?
LF has affected some cards, as you will see in the Secret History of Adventures, and conceivably he might suggest a new card that made it into a set someday if there are more sets, as a couple people have managed in the past. A whole expansion by someone else, I dunno, it never sounds great to me, I would put in a lot of the same work as if I made it, without the best part. It's conceivable that someday I will co-author an expansion with another world famous game designer; until that happens the chance of an entire fan expansion is just so remote (and afterwards, it's still not great).
I have not played with any of LF's cards, although I know an outtake from Adventures was very similar to one of his cards (discard any number of cards, draw up to 7, each other player draws up to 6).
-
I have not played with any of LF's cards, although I know an outtake from Adventures was very similar to one of his cards (discard any number of cards, draw up to 7, each other player draws up to 6).
I'm taking one of those for my next Governor deck. :D
-
That got taken out?! :'(
-
Are the translated versions of the expansion planned to release at the same time as the English one?
-
That got taken out?! :'(
After a while, nobody was buying it. It looked too weak or was too weak. Or both. And hey, you can always just use my version (http://i.imgur.com/GqSKTgT.png), which continues to be popular in my playtest games (it has a different bonus for other players). Donald already knows about it, so hopefully it's fine to just post the link here.
I did suggest two Reserve cards early on because I obviously wasn't going to use them for Enterprise. Donald did take the time to critique them, which I appreciate. They did not end up being tested an any form. I took the Reserve part completely out of one of them and it became Auction. I may fix up the other one someday, we'll see.
I appreciate that Donald is receptive to suggestions for card changes and sometimes for loose card concepts. I really don't see myself suggesting more specific cards just because the reception tends to be very cool. Donald really wants to be the guy that came up with these cards, and that is 100% his prerogative, and I have tried to respect that.
-
For the record, I personally liked that cut card. It was really fun for Draw to X decks. However, it was not overall very exciting. I mean, it was a case of "this is just 3 cards slapped together that already existed" and didn't fit the theme of the set in any way. Maybe it could be tested again if a future set ever happens, who knows.
-
NOOOOO that was one of my favorite cards from the meetup! I'm shocked it was found to be weak; I thought it was very strong. Well as long as all that other cards I liked are still in it... ;)
EDIT: I can't actually think of any cards I didn't like at the meetup, so never mind, I'm sure whatever cards he did keep are great.
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From what I've been hearing from you, jsh, a lot of the cards that I liked at the meetup were taken out. I don't know, I'm not sure I'm even excited for this expansion anymore :P
-
Well, one thing to keep in mind (and I'm not entirely sure how strict this is, so I could be speaking out of turn) is that it's important to keep the set at 500 cards or less. If a cool card had to be replaced, sometimes the reason is that other cool ideas came up and those less cool ones had to be set aside. There are other good reasons to cut cards, too. Many of the cards shown at the Chicago meetup were eliminated after further testing for one reason or another, and some evolved in to different versions of their original concepts.
-
Are the translated versions of the expansion planned to release at the same time as the English one?
It will depend on when the foreign partner opts in. At least a few other versions will come out at the same time. I am going to guess, German and Dutch, for starters. Japan seems likely though I haven't heard about it specifically.
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NOOOOO that was one of my favorite cards from the meetup! I'm shocked it was found to be weak; I thought it was very strong. Well as long as all that other cards I liked are still in it... ;)
EDIT: I can't actually think of any cards I didn't like at the meetup, so never mind, I'm sure whatever cards he did keep are great.
I didn't think it was too weak. It may even have been strong. The issue was just that it wasn't popular. We rarely bought it.
As usual it's never "that card or nothing," it's always "that card or something else." It sounded better to have something else. I don't know what specifically replaced it but I don't see what I'd take out for it so there you go. The "discard then draw to X" thing still sounds good; I was not expecting to take it out and then it was that card we weren't playing with.
Probably the most memorable outtake that was at Chicago was the victory card that rewarded you for having a small deck (13 VP minus 1 VP per 2 cards). It seemed like I could balance it at a Counting House level of playability for either 2 player games or 4 player games, but not both at once (yes without really awkward awful caring about the number of players).
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NOOOOO that was one of my favorite cards from the meetup! I'm shocked it was found to be weak; I thought it was very strong. Well as long as all that other cards I liked are still in it... ;)
EDIT: I can't actually think of any cards I didn't like at the meetup, so never mind, I'm sure whatever cards he did keep are great.
I didn't think it was too weak. It may even have been strong. The issue was just that it wasn't popular. We rarely bought it.
As usual it's never "that card or nothing," it's always "that card or something else." It sounded better to have something else. I don't know what specifically replaced it but I don't see what I'd take out for it so there you go. The "discard then draw to X" thing still sounds good; I was not expecting to take it out and then it was that card we weren't playing with.
Probably the most memorable outtake that was at Chicago was the victory card that rewarded you for having a small deck (13 VP minus 1 VP per 2 cards). It seemed like I could balance it at a Counting House level of playability for either 2 player games or 4 player games, but not both at once (yes without really awkward awful caring about the number of players).
I totally forgot about that card. That one I actually didn't like at all. I guess I only remember cards I like...
It's true that discard then draw to X has no connection to the adventures themes, whatever they are. I wonder why it wasn't popular though. True, no new mechanic, but I sure would enjoy discarding 4 coppers with it after playing a village.
-
I did suggest two Reserve cards early on because I obviously wasn't going to use them for Enterprise. Donald did take the time to critique them, which I appreciate. They did not end up being tested an any form. I took the Reserve part completely out of one of them and it became Auction. I may fix up the other one someday, we'll see.
I appreciate that Donald is receptive to suggestions for card changes and sometimes for loose card concepts. I really don't see myself suggesting more specific cards just because the reception tends to be very cool. Donald really wants to be the guy that came up with these cards, and that is 100% his prerogative, and I have tried to respect that.
I would like to be that great guy, sharing his thing. At the same time I got Dominion, it's mine, I get to make it. That's pretty hard to let go of. It's a bummer when people are all "why aren't you a good enough person to publish fan cards." I guess I'm just not that good of a person, that's all I've got for that. Why not talk about my good points, they make for better conversation. If you ask me.
I have checked, the one Reserve idea never got tried because I thought it was redundant with the rest of the set. The set could have changed so that it wasn't but that didn't happen. I also didn't try a related concept that I thought of. I mean, my idea wasn't worth trying either, that is what I am saying there (not, look at my similar idea). The other thing required an extra pile so if it could have been made to work it was going to be hard to commit to.
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I have checked, the one Reserve idea never got tried because I thought it was redundant with the rest of the set. The set could have changed so that it wasn't but that didn't happen. I also didn't try a related concept that I thought of. I mean, my idea wasn't worth trying either, that is what I am saying there (not, look at my similar idea). The other thing required an extra pile so if it could have been made to work it was going to be hard to commit to.
Ah, sorry. I was not trying to say, "Man, why didn't you use these ideas, grumble grumble." I can see where it could have come across that way. I was simply giving an account. Ideas are cheap and those two were just ideas, not even tested cards. I only suggested them in case they piqued your interest and I don't regret that they didn't get tested.
Why not talk about my good points, they make for better conversation. If you ask me.
I think it's fantastic that you're so involved with the community. Also, you've made a bunch of cool games.
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Why not talk about my good points, they make for better conversation. If you ask me.
I think it's fantastic that you're so involved with the community. Also, you've made a bunch of cool games.
You also have a very cool grey-green shirt.
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Ah, sorry. I was not trying to say, "Man, why didn't you use these ideas, grumble grumble." I can see where it could have come across that way. I was simply giving an account. Ideas are cheap and those two were just ideas, not even tested cards. I only suggested them in case they piqued your interest and I don't regret that they didn't get tested.
I was just trying to clarify that it wasn't that I coolly received your ideas because I am so into my own ideas at the expense of all others or some such. I coolly received your ideas because I am harshly critical of all things, my own stuff especially. Your ideas at least had the benefit of knowing that one person liked them, and yet still I was harshly critical.
I think it's fantastic that you're so involved with the community. Also, you've made a bunch of cool games.
Thanks, you're there for me.
That part of that post was of course me grumbling about werothegreat bringing this up.
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You also have a very cool grey-green shirt.
I'm just glad I'm not wearing it now, or I'd be scared.
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How do you personally determine whether or not to use Colonies and Shelters in a game? Do you use the recommended random selection out of the cards picked, or some other method like a decision from the players?
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How do you personally determine whether or not to use Colonies and Shelters in a game? Do you use the recommended random selection out of the cards picked, or some other method like a decision from the players?
I usually just have two expansions to play with me - what I'm testing, and one other one. When one of those sets is Prosperity / Dark Ages, I use Platinum/Colony / Shelters, unless I have a specific reason to want to see certain cards without them for a game.
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A couple more questions about how you playtest:
Are there certain cards every new card gets tested with? Like Throne Room, Bridge, or cards it's particularly similar to? Do you make a point of getting every published card in a game with each new card? Or is random playtesting sufficient?
How do you decide when a card is sufficiently playtested? Does it have to survive a certain amount of games/time without being tweaked? Or do you just judge when it's hit the right balance of power, interesting-ness, and originality?
These questions must not always be interesting to answer, but I find all the behind-the-stuff fascinating. Thanks!
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What do you think arbout asymmetrical games? You know, where player abilities or something like that put players at different levels of what they can achieve how from the start.
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I was wondering why Rats is your favorite card. It's one of my favorites to play with, but I guess I was wondering if there's any reason in particular that Rats stands out to you.
I also find it interesting that of all the published cards, Rats seems to rely the most heavily on needing another specific card type (a trasher) to be in the kingdom in order for it to be worth buying. (although, this being the dominion strategy forum, I'm sure you guys will find some edge cases!) Sure, without a source of +buy Highway is basically an overpriced Peddler, but theres still some situations where one would help you, whereas without a way to trash your Rats, buying them will usually hurt your deck.
That being said, what is your favorite Rats "enabler?" Are there any trashers that you especially like to combo with Rats?
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I also find it interesting that of all the published cards, Rats seems to rely the most heavily on needing another specific card type (a trasher) to be in the kingdom in order for it to be worth buying. Sure, without a source of +buy Highway is basically an overpriced Peddler, but theres still some situations where one would help you, whereas without a way to trash your Rats, buying them will usually hurt your deck.
I one time got Rats without a trasher and won...
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I also find it interesting that of all the published cards, Rats seems to rely the most heavily on needing another specific card type (a trasher) to be in the kingdom in order for it to be worth buying. Sure, without a source of +buy Highway is basically an overpriced Peddler, but theres still some situations where one would help you, whereas without a way to trash your Rats, buying them will usually hurt your deck.
I one time got Rats without a trasher and won...
Was it a game with cursers? Getting a single Rats early can effectively turn most of those Curses into confusions.
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I also find it interesting that of all the published cards, Rats seems to rely the most heavily on needing another specific card type (a trasher) to be in the kingdom in order for it to be worth buying. Sure, without a source of +buy Highway is basically an overpriced Peddler, but theres still some situations where one would help you, whereas without a way to trash your Rats, buying them will usually hurt your deck.
I one time got Rats without a trasher and won...
Was it a game with cursers? Getting a single Rats early can effectively turn most of those Curses into confusions.
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150203/log.5068c69551c38622de84eb0e.1422992479526.txt
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I would have guessed that he got the Rats to Ambassador it over to Lord Bottington.
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Are there certain cards every new card gets tested with? Like Throne Room, Bridge, or cards it's particularly similar to? Do you make a point of getting every published card in a game with each new card? Or is random playtesting sufficient?
How do you decide when a card is sufficiently playtested? Does it have to survive a certain amount of games/time without being tweaked? Or do you just judge when it's hit the right balance of power, interesting-ness, and originality?
I don't focus on "every card" in any sense. A set gets played with each existing set and also in mixes. New cards get specifically played as I make them; then they're just in the mix and will come up sometimes. IRL I play through the set so everything from the new set does get in a game most nights. Cards that seem like they need extra testing get more testing. If some combo seems potentially like an issue, e.g. Throne Room plus whatever, I might specifically test that some; but I don't just test Throne Room with everything or anything like that.
A big classic specific testing thing is just, some players must buy the card, others can't. Typically, the ones that can't get a substitute, e.g. we're testing a Remodel and the ones who can't buy it get Remodel itself instead. That's just to reduce the chance that the new card seems strong because this is just a good board for its kind of thing. Those games are a lot less fun than regular playtesting though, for me anyway. I don't enjoy feeling pressure to prove that a card is beatable when obv. it may win due to factors other than how strong it is.
At some point the set feels done. The list of cards that maybe won't work out has shrunk down to some things that maybe still seem worth paying attention to but have consistently failed to produce problems. You can always keep making the set better but want to release the expansion eventually.
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What do you think arbout asymmetrical games? You know, where player abilities or something like that put players at different levels of what they can achieve how from the start.
I like the premise fine. I've done cosmic power things but typically you draft them at the start. It feels less asymmetrical as a result but really we still each have different options. I mean what, drawing a hand from a random deck at the start gives us each different options and is not really so symmetrical; Temporum and Nefarious give you random starting cards, Greed and Infiltration give you a draft (if you use that variant in Infiltration and now that it's out of print that's the deal, there's always a draft okay). And our openings are different in Kingdom Builder due to our draws. Of my published games it's really just Dominion and Gauntlet of Fools that are symmetrical, and what, Dominion may give me a 5/2 while you get 4/3, and later expansions make even 3/4 vs. 4/3 meaningful sometimes.
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I was wondering why Rats is your favorite card. It's one of my favorites to play with, but I guess I was wondering if there's any reason in particular that Rats stands out to you.
I also find it interesting that of all the published cards, Rats seems to rely the most heavily on needing another specific card type (a trasher) to be in the kingdom in order for it to be worth buying. (although, this being the dominion strategy forum, I'm sure you guys will find some edge cases!) Sure, without a source of +buy Highway is basically an overpriced Peddler, but theres still some situations where one would help you, whereas without a way to trash your Rats, buying them will usually hurt your deck.
That being said, what is your favorite Rats "enabler?" Are there any trashers that you especially like to combo with Rats?
I am all about combos. Rats is a combo card and I like that part. I also really like that you make things bad for yourself and yet this will turn out well.
Rats is narrow, but there are other narrow cards. Poor House also wants a trasher, but also a village to go with it that Rats doesn't need. Counting House needs, you know, something.
I especially like Fortress with Rats, I think just because it doesn't get rid of the Rats. If you have say Upgrade / Rats, that's good times, but the Rats are just so not a problem there; if anything you are trying not to run out of Rats too fast. Fortress / Rats, man, you might be in trouble. What are you even thinking there. But it comes up, there will be Vineyard or Knights or Scrying Pool or something and you will think, Fortress / Rats, maybe I can pull that off. And just live with the Rats.
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How do you like Market Square/Rats?
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How do you feel about all the card types and categories players have come up with (cantrip, terminal Silver, disappearing money, etc)? Do you use them yourself when talking about cards or coming up with them? Or how about names for strategies (duchy dancing, PPR, etc)?
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How do you like Market Square/Rats?
I don't want to veer into the space of just giving strategy advice. Market Square and Rats, they interact, see what they can do for you.
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How do you feel about all the card types and categories players have come up with (cantrip, terminal Silver, disappearing money, etc)? Do you use them yourself when talking about cards or coming up with them? Or how about names for strategies (duchy dancing, PPR, etc)?
I use some of them. Obv. it's handy to have names for things you want to refer to. I don't talk about PPR because there's nothing to say there, it's not something that involves new cards. I say cantrip and terminal. I used to say "free" for cantrip, before the game was out.
A category I refer to some that you guys don't so much is Remodel/Vault. I guess I don't have a catchy name for it. The category is, cards that if you draw two of them give you a use for the other one despite being terminal. Sets want a good number of Remodels/Vaults; it's a basic way to deal with the one-action-a-turn rule. To let you build basic different kinds of decks, you have terminals, Villages, cantrips, Remodels/Vaults.
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A category I refer to some that you guys don't so much is Remodel/Vault. I guess I don't have a catchy name for it. The category is, cards that if you draw two of them give you a use for the other one despite being terminal. Sets want a good number of Remodels/Vaults; it's a basic way to deal with the one-action-a-turn rule. To let you build basic different kinds of decks, you have terminals, Villages, cantrips, Remodels/Vaults.
Self-synergy?
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Interesting, especially that you want a number of those in each set. It makes sense, but I never looked at it that way.
As for a name, I'd go with supercolliders!
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Interesting, especially that you want a number of those in each set. It makes sense, but I never looked at it that way.
As for a name, I'd go with supercolliders!
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gUItLACJTDQ/VP00ql-UmZI/AAAAAAAAAxY/MTFTAtX4qRI/s1600/acollider.png)
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I have never considered Remodel and Vault being similar. Fascinating. Also, I think Mitigaters would be a semantically meaningful and short name, but Supercolliders is catchier.
Edit: Case in point, Supercolliders got a meme in the time I wrote this.
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Minus your additions, that's the image I use for Doomsday Machine in the Nefarious prototype.
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How do you like Market Square/Rats?
Medium rare.
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Why does Venture play the Treasure it finds, and not just put it in your hand?
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Why does Venture play the Treasure it finds, and not just put it in your hand?
Because it's more fun chaining them that way.
(Also I guess it's more interesting thinking about how it interacts with other treasures this way.)
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Why does Venture play the Treasure it finds, and not just put it in your hand?
To screw with Counterfeit.
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Why does Venture play the Treasure it finds, and not just put it in your hand?
I would guess that it's because it's less confusing that way, especially for new players.
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Why does Venture play the Treasure it finds, and not just put it in your hand?
I do not remember any specifics there. My guess is that it just seemed simpler to play the card, which you were almost always going to do, than to put it into your hand. It's fewer words too. The original concept was a treasure that drew a card; it immediately turned into digging for a treasure since you'd be unhappy to draw an action.
IGG had several wordings that were similar but varied how it interacted with Trader and an empty Copper pile. I know (from posts) that I was worried there that putting the Copper into your hand would make people wonder if they could play the Copper. Possibly someone had that very question in a game and that's why I was worried. Venture dodges that question. I really don't remember anything there though. Obv. for IGG I decided it would be clear enough to put the Copper into your hand (though in retrospect I would try to balance a vanilla version of the card, just $ on top, for simplicity).
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Why was Walled Village chosen as the Village to be Ruined? Same for Grand/Ruined Market.
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The village was already being pillaged, give the poor peasants a break!
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The village was already being pillaged, give the poor peasants a break!
Yeah, but there's also Mining Village, and Fishing Village, and Native Village, and Worker's Village, and Farming Village, and Border Village...
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The village was already being pillaged, give the poor peasants a break!
Yeah, but there's also Mining Village, and Fishing Village, and Native Village, and Worker's Village, and Farming Village, and Border Village...
Mining, Fishing, Worker's and Farming Villages all have strong economies that allow them to bounce back from any potential ruining. Border Village is too far away for anybody to go after. Native Village looks decently defended and lacking anything that can't be more easily be gotten elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Walled Village probably has some treasure within its walls. And once it's sacked, they'd have a tough time recovering without any obvious source of wealth.
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The village was already being pillaged, give the poor peasants a break!
That seems like a missed opportunity though. It could have been three cards with a clear beginning-middle-end story arc.
Perhaps the real reason is that Donald wanted to take a sly jab at Carcasonne.
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Border Village is too far away for anybody to go after.
Maybe my knowledge of the history of warfare is a little hazy, but I'm not sure that villages on a nation's border are less likely to be attacked.
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Border Village is too far away for anybody to go after.
Maybe my knowledge of the history of warfare is a little hazy, but I'm not sure that villages on a nation's border are less likely to be attacked.
Hmm. I always pictured Border Village being way out on the border of unoccupied land rather than the border of another nation, probably because it's in the hinterlands. But you make a good point.
But maybe the village is way out on the border and doesn't particularly care which nation wants to claim it; they're just there enjoying the trade.
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Well great. Now we need a Trading Village...
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Border Village is too far away for anybody to go after.
Maybe my knowledge of the history of warfare is a little hazy, but I'm not sure that villages on a nation's border are less likely to be attacked.
Hmm. I always pictured Border Village being way out on the border of unoccupied land rather than the border of another nation, probably because it's in the hinterlands. But you make a good point.
But maybe the village is way out on the border and doesn't particularly care which nation wants to claim it; they're just there enjoying the trade.
As an Australian, the concept of settling in an "unoccupied land" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius) is somewhat political.
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Border Village is too far away for anybody to go after.
Maybe my knowledge of the history of warfare is a little hazy, but I'm not sure that villages on a nation's border are less likely to be attacked.
Hmm. I always pictured Border Village being way out on the border of unoccupied land rather than the border of another nation, probably because it's in the hinterlands. But you make a good point.
But maybe the village is way out on the border and doesn't particularly care which nation wants to claim it; they're just there enjoying the trade.
As an Australian, the concept of settling in an "unoccupied land" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius) is somewhat political.
When I say unoccupied, I mean actually unoccupied, not occupied by indigenous peoples.
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Border Village is too far away for anybody to go after.
Maybe my knowledge of the history of warfare is a little hazy, but I'm not sure that villages on a nation's border are less likely to be attacked.
Hmm. I always pictured Border Village being way out on the border of unoccupied land rather than the border of another nation, probably because it's in the hinterlands. But you make a good point.
But maybe the village is way out on the border and doesn't particularly care which nation wants to claim it; they're just there enjoying the trade.
As an Australian, the concept of settling in an "unoccupied land" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius) is somewhat political.
When I say unoccupied, I mean actually unoccupied, not occupied by indigenous peoples.
The last places without indigenous peoples were populated in the early portion of the first millennium CE. I don't think non-inhabited lands exist in the Dominion universe.
Edit: which, presumably, explains the need to explore florst.
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Border Village is too far away for anybody to go after.
Maybe my knowledge of the history of warfare is a little hazy, but I'm not sure that villages on a nation's border are less likely to be attacked.
Hmm. I always pictured Border Village being way out on the border of unoccupied land rather than the border of another nation, probably because it's in the hinterlands. But you make a good point.
But maybe the village is way out on the border and doesn't particularly care which nation wants to claim it; they're just there enjoying the trade.
As an Australian, the concept of settling in an "unoccupied land" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius) is somewhat political.
When I say unoccupied, I mean actually unoccupied, not occupied by indigenous peoples.
The last places without indigenous peoples were populated in the early portion of the first millennium CE. I don't think non-inhabited lands exist in the Dominion universe.
Edit: which, presumably, explains the need to explore florst.
i.e. Antarctica.
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There are plenty of places where people don't make a habit of spending much time. Not that they haven't had the chance, but that it's just not a great spot to be.
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The last places without indigenous peoples were populated in the early portion of the first millennium CE. I don't think non-inhabited lands exist in the Dominion universe.
Edit: which, presumably, explains the need to explore florst.
I'm just going by the definition of hinterlands:
an area or sphere of influence in the unoccupied interior claimed by the state possessing the coast.
I didn't mean to take this into RSP. I guess I misinterpreted the word? Eh.
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The last places without indigenous peoples were populated in the early portion of the first millennium CE. I don't think non-inhabited lands exist in the Dominion universe.
Edit: which, presumably, explains the need to explore florst.
I'm just going by the definition of hinterlands:
an area or sphere of influence in the unoccupied interior claimed by the state possessing the coast.
I didn't mean to take this into RSP. I guess I misinterpreted the word? Eh.
i.e. Bosnia with respect to Croatia.
EDIT: Joking, by the way. Don't want to start an international incident here.
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I certainly didn't mean to suggest that I was offended.
I was just pointing out that the traditional Eurocentric definition of "unoccupied" has not historically aligned with the literal definition of the word.
Just some food for thought.
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Well great. Now we need a Trading Village...
Ooh! Calling that name for Adventures.
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Why was Walled Village chosen as the Village to be Ruined? Same for Grand/Ruined Market.
I didn't pick; Jay must have wanted those artists or those particular cards to be ruined.
Ruined Market: A marketplace that's been recently ruined by barbarians and looters - not an ancient ruins. It would be cute to have it be recognizable as the ruined version of the previous cards Market or Grand Market. No people.
Ruined Village: A village that's been recently ruined by barbarians and looters - not an ancient ruins. It would be cute to have it be recognizable as the ruined version of an existing village card. No people.
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The last places without indigenous peoples were populated in the early portion of the first millennium CE.
Not quite true. Some locations that were uninhabited until late 1st millennium, or later:
Iceland (8th or 9th century)
New Zealand (13th century)
Bermuda (17th century)
Tristan Da Cunha (19th century)
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Border Village is too far away for anybody to go after.
Maybe my knowledge of the history of warfare is a little hazy, but I'm not sure that villages on a nation's border are less likely to be attacked.
Hmm. I always pictured Border Village being way out on the border of unoccupied land rather than the border of another nation, probably because it's in the hinterlands. But you make a good point.
But maybe the village is way out on the border and doesn't particularly care which nation wants to claim it; they're just there enjoying the trade.
As an Australian, the concept of settling in an "unoccupied land" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius) is somewhat political.
You realise you are talking to Americans mostly....I think they already have their own history with this.....
Makes me glad us Tuvaluans are not territorial..... All those Naaru Islands have some sweet guano we are eyeing up...
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Border Village is too far away for anybody to go after.
Maybe my knowledge of the history of warfare is a little hazy, but I'm not sure that villages on a nation's border are less likely to be attacked.
Hmm. I always pictured Border Village being way out on the border of unoccupied land rather than the border of another nation, probably because it's in the hinterlands. But you make a good point.
But maybe the village is way out on the border and doesn't particularly care which nation wants to claim it; they're just there enjoying the trade.
As an Australian, the concept of settling in an "unoccupied land" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius) is somewhat political.
You realise you are talking to Americans mostly....I think they already have their own history with this.....
Makes me glad us Tuvaluans are not territorial..... All those Naaru Islands have some sweet guano we are eyeing up...
Well, the concept of Manifest Destiny was pretty arrogant, but I don't think it beats arriving at a continent full of people and literally declaring it uninhabited.
Not sure that a "we crapped on our native population more than you" contest has any real winners though.
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Why was Walled Village chosen as the Village to be Ruined? Same for Grand/Ruined Market.
I didn't pick; Jay must have wanted those artists or those particular cards to be ruined.
Ruined Market: A marketplace that's been recently ruined by barbarians and looters - not an ancient ruins. It would be cute to have it be recognizable as the ruined version of the previous cards Market or Grand Market. No people.
Ruined Village: A village that's been recently ruined by barbarians and looters - not an ancient ruins. It would be cute to have it be recognizable as the ruined version of an existing village card. No people.
Are there any other notes to artists that you think were particularly interesting, asking for specific imagery, etc?
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Makes me glad us Tuvaluans are not territorial..... All those Naaru Islands have some sweet guano we are eyeing up...
That's a batshit argument. Canoe believe what you're saying?
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Makes me glad us Tuvaluans are not territorial..... All those Naaru Islands have some sweet guano we are eyeing up...
That's a batshit argument. Canoe believe what you're saying?
Double boom!
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Makes me glad us Tuvaluans are not territorial..... All those Naaru Islands have some sweet guano we are eyeing up...
That's a batshit argument. Canoe believe what you're saying?
bOOM! for the first part, negative BOOM for the second. Tried to push it too far my friend.
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Are there any other notes to artists that you think were particularly interesting, asking for specific imagery, etc?
I don't think those are so interesting either. In general I leave as much as possible up to the artist. The whole point to the notes is just that some early cards had the wrong thing illustrated. The image on Goons was submitted for Pawn; Steward showed a guy with a serving dish. Not everyone was going to know the terms and sometimes they're ambiguous. Not everyone was going to feel like doing any research. So I started typing up notes.
Treasures often say "no people" because some of the Prosperity ones showed people and I didn't like that as much. A few times I've pointed out things not to do like "no New World crops" or "no gore." Sometimes I've noted the frame color or that something is an attack; I stopped doing that eventually but probably should have kept it up. In rare cases there has been something special to communicate, like the Ruins being ruined versions of things, or the Hermit/Madman connection.
There is an opening paragraph that probably they all get, that notes that the game is medieval, and says the expansion theme. It says that buildings can be shown from inside or outside, that people can be non-European. I used to say could be male or female, then I added, we don't get many females and would like more. Even female artists mostly drew men. For Adventures I just specified male or female on all of the cards that were a person. There will be some women in this art.
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There will be some women in this art.
8)
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There will be some women in this art.
8)
Wrong thread...
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Will this sets art also have the tiny meeple silhouettes in the background of some of them the same you told me about in Dark Ages?
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Will this sets art also have the tiny meeple silhouettes in the background of some of them the same you told me about in Dark Ages?
In an effort to spice things up for what is after all the 9th expansion, most of the art this time around will be macramé. We initially tried origami, but it made the cards too hard to shuffle.
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Jacked this from another thread...
If the game had started out as an online game, I would have tried having non-VP piles be unlimited (and done whatever work on the ending condition that I'm not doing for a hypothetical).
You've said you'd prefer to do spinoffs over further expansions, and now the above, so would you ever consider doing an online-only spinoff to try physically impossible features? Do you think "Dominion with online-only features" is far enough from the original to be a called a spinoff?
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You've said you'd prefer to do spinoffs over further expansions, and now the above, so would you ever consider doing an online-only spinoff to try physically impossible features? Do you think "Dominion with online-only features" is far enough from the original to be a called a spinoff?
- I made Dominion on a weekend. We played it that Monday.
- I showed Dominion to RGG in June of 2007. It was published in October of 2008.
- My first contact with Funsockets (later called Goko) was October 2011. It's March 2015. The online version still isn't done.
Which is to say, board games are so much easier to get made than computer games. Man. I think I could do good things for some existing computer games. I have some ideas for new computer games. It never sounds fun to pursue them.
I'd consider doing physically impossible things in the online version. I probably won't ever make an online-only expansion, because an expansion that could also be sold irl would be a better project, but I might do a physically impossible promo. I've given it some thought.
For me it's more a question of keeping whatever spin-off close enough to Dominion to justify calling it a spin-off.
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Maybe you have answered this, but i can't find it anywhere: When did you decide to add a ninth expansion, since guilds was supposed to be the last? And what happened that made making another dominion expansion seem like something you would want to do again? Not that i'm unhappy for another expansion. I just remember reading some statements in the past that indicated you were excited to move on from dominion to designing other games.
This will most likely be answered once Donald X. does the Secret History for Adventures.
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Maybe you have answered this, but i can't find it anywhere: When did you decide to add a ninth expansion, since guilds was supposed to be the last? And what happened that made making another dominion expansion seem like something you would want to do again? Not that i'm unhappy for another expansion. I just remember reading some statements in the past that indicated you were excited to move on from dominion to designing other games.
I started working on Adventures last May. I decided to go through with it after the initial work seemed sufficiently promising.
What made me want to do another expansion was the combination of not having managed to make a spin-off yet (Kingdom Builder and Temporum both started out as Dominion spin-offs), and wanting a project to work on that I could immediately be getting stuff done on and feeling satisfied about.
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- I made Dominion on a weekend. We played it that Monday.
You are my hero. This isn't intended as sarcasm. That is totally awesome.
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Will Adventures only get recommended kingdoms for Base and Intrigue, or will it get them for all the other sets?
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Will Adventures only get recommended kingdoms for Base and Intrigue, or will it get them for all the other sets?
It has 'em all; 20 recommended sets total.
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At what time will you post previews each day?
I assume you'll post them here and on BGG, where will you post first?
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At what time will you post previews each day?
I assume you'll post them here and on BGG, where will you post first?
I'll post them when I get up, which will probably get slightly later as the week progresses. No earlier than 7 AM Pacific time.
I'll post them on BGG first. The image may not show up instantly over here.
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Are you already planning an expansion after Adventures?
If there will be an other expansion, will it have some of the new things from Adventures as well (like events)?
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Are you already planning an expansion after Adventures?
If there will be an other expansion, will it have some of the new things from Adventures as well (like events)?
"I don't see any comments from Jay about this."
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Are you already planning an expansion after Adventures?
If there will be an other expansion, will it have some of the new things from Adventures as well (like events)?
"I don't see any comments from Jay about this."
I know, right? I can understand asking, but the only way to leave announcements up to Jay is to leave them up to Jay.
If there are more expansions, mechanics from Adventures are fair game. Any given expansion's mechanics wouldn't be at all announced until the little blurb went out though.
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Are you already planning an expansion after Adventures?
If there will be an other expansion, will it have some of the new things from Adventures as well (like events)?
You're not going to get real information, so have some fake:
Expansion 10: Modern Times - introduces a board
Expansion 11: Borders - introduces Team play and player abilities
Expansion 12: The catapult - introduces pantomiming, singing and shooting meeples at the supply
Expansion 13: Legacy - A treasure chest with Vp and coin tokens, Potion costs and the good old team cards from "Borders"
Expansion 14: Secrets - Co-created by Klaus Teuber, introduces player elimination, dice and ressources
Expansion 15: Ultimate - Another treasure chest for Dominion's 40th birthday
That's all planned for now.
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Is your favorite card from Adventures one of the previewed cards? If so, which card is it and why is it your favorite?
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And how about, if it isn't, which is your favorite from the ones previewed?
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And how about, if it isn't one of the previewed cards, you tell us which is your favorite anyway?
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And how about, if it is one of the previewed cards, which is your favourite from the ones not previewed?
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Is your favorite card from Adventures one of the previewed cards? If so, which card is it and why is it your favorite?
For Kingdom cards, this may seem like cheating but I think Page and Peasant are my top two. Page turns into a Treasure Hunter that turns into a Warrior and so on; all that stuff is part of Page. You know? I am looking at the cards, using the metric, which of these am I just buying without thinking about whether or not they will be good. Man, Page and Peasant.
Transmogrify is a top card for me. I wasn't even previewing that; I picked all my previews, then thought of having the extra previews; WW and DG got a choice of two cards to preview, but the other three were previewed by playtesters who just picked the cards they wanted. My previews are trying to show off exciting cards and simple cards and the variety of things the set does, you know. Transmogrify triggers at start of turn like Guide and why not show off three different triggers. Guide was a simpler Reserve card, a good one to preview. Anyway Transmogrify, who doesn't like that.
For Events, probably Inheritance is my favorite. I am all about the craziness. Borrow is a pretty sweet one; sorry about the wording being confusing. It made sense to me at the time. And well there's a rulebook. I knew some people would complain about the art but previewed Borrow anyway.
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Was writing the rulebook entries for the individual Adventures cards more of challenge/effort than for Possession?
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Was writing the rulebook entries for the individual Adventures cards more of challenge/effort than for Possession?
None of the rulebook FAQs have been especially challenging. You try to think of everything people will ask and then the set comes out and you see how you did. The Possession FAQ is especially long and well you will have to see the rulebook to know how Adventures does by that metric.
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Was writing the rulebook entries for the individual Adventures cards more of challenge/effort than for Possession?
None of the rulebook FAQs have been especially challenging. You try to think of everything people will ask and then the set comes out and you see how you did. The Possession FAQ is especially long and well you will have to see the rulebook to know how Adventures does by that metric.
Pictured:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rNvTKPs6zik/VSVo6hDtYaI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/v1Z-N6cc3oI/s1600/rules.png)
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Pages 358-932 discuss comma use.
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Was writing the rulebook entries for the individual Adventures cards more of challenge/effort than for Possession?
None of the rulebook FAQs have been especially challenging. You try to think of everything people will ask and then the set comes out and you see how you did. The Possession FAQ is especially long and well you will have to see the rulebook to know how Adventures does by that metric.
Pictured:
What's after the tab? Inheritance?
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Was writing the rulebook entries for the individual Adventures cards more of challenge/effort than for Possession?
None of the rulebook FAQs have been especially challenging. You try to think of everything people will ask and then the set comes out and you see how you did. The Possession FAQ is especially long and well you will have to see the rulebook to know how Adventures does by that metric.
Pictured:
What's after the tab? Inheritance?
In the same way that Possession has a long FAQ that's largely reiterating the point "it's their turn, not yours", I predict that Inheritance has a long FAQ that's mostly "they're still Estates".
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Pages 358-932 discuss comma use.
Be advised, however, that the discussion is comma use in San Antonio, not Oxford.
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Pages 358-932 discuss comma use.
Be advised, however, that the discussion is comma use in San Antonio, not Oxford.
I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.
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Pages 358-932 discuss comma use.
Be advised, however, that the discussion is comma use in San Antonio, not Oxford.
I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.
Now I'm curious how many people on this forum are old enough to get this reference.
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Old enough? I mean it was initially released in 1945, but haven't they been aired on TV ever since?
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If only we lived in a world where people enjoyed media older than themselves. Alas, no-one ever listens to the Beatles anymore.
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They aired reruns of Looney Tunes constantly in the 90s. Not sure about now, but I grew up watching them despite them being 40 years old.
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Pages 358-932 discuss comma use.
Be advised, however, that the discussion is comma use in San Antonio, not Oxford.
I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.
Now I'm curious how many people on this forum are old enough to get this reference.
To where RGG is actually located (a suburb of Albuquerque)? It's not an age thing really.
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If only we lived in a world where people enjoyed media older than themselves. Alas, no-one ever listens to the Beatles anymore.
I still do and i was born 1986. On a hard day's night back in the USSR, shortly before Revolution #9.
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If only we lived in a world where people enjoyed media older than themselves. Alas, no-one ever listens to the Beatles anymore.
I still do and i was born 1986. On a hard day's night back in the USSR, shortly before Revolution #9.
My comment was made firmly tongue-in-cheek.
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I also don't think my phonebook joke will be all that inaccurate given that, in addition to detailing FIFTY-EIGHT THINGS that are all at least a bit more complicated than anything in any other expansion, it has to go over the rules for Duration cards again, as well as Reserve cards and the tokens and Events and calling and exchanging...
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Pictured:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rNvTKPs6zik/VSVo6hDtYaI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/v1Z-N6cc3oI/s1600/rules.png)
So it's just a list of phone numbers that you can call when you don't understand something?
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I also don't think my phonebook joke will be all that inaccurate given that, in addition to detailing FIFTY-EIGHT THINGS that are all at least a bit more complicated than anything in any other expansion, it has to go over the rules for Duration cards again, as well as Reserve cards and the tokens and Events and calling and exchanging...
Plus it's pretty standard for rules to recap "being in play", "when things happen at the same time", "don't shuffle until you need to", etc. It's also possible we'd get a reiteration of the lose track rule. But I imagine the rulebook tries to be as short as it can.
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Was writing the rulebook entries for the individual Adventures cards more of challenge/effort than for Possession?
None of the rulebook FAQs have been especially challenging. You try to think of everything people will ask and then the set comes out and you see how you did. The Possession FAQ is especially long and well you will have to see the rulebook to know how Adventures does by that metric.
Speaking of that card, should we look forward to any more wacky interactions with Possession and Adventures cards that we haven't seen yet? I just realized the potential nastiness of playing your opponent's turn with your Haunted Woods in play. It's not quite the Masq pin but it could lock down the opponent pretty hard.
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Speaking of that card, should we look forward to any more wacky interactions with Possession and Adventures cards that we haven't seen yet? I just realized the potential nastiness of playing your opponent's turn with your Haunted Woods in play. It's not quite the Masq pin but it could lock down the opponent pretty hard.
The set isn't that far off guys.
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If only we lived in a world where people enjoyed media older than themselves. Alas, no-one ever listens to the Beatles anymore.
I know people who think the Beatles and Star Wars are overrated..
What do you think of the greatest sci-fi adventure of all time?
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If only we lived in a world where people enjoyed media older than themselves. Alas, no-one ever listens to the Beatles anymore.
I know people who think the Beatles and Star Wars are overrated..
What do you think of the greatest sci-fi adventure of all time?
I don't see how Doctor Who is related to Star Wars or the Beatles... Am i missing something? Maybe there was an episode where he met the Fab Four that i missed?
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What do you think of the greatest sci-fi adventure of all time?
Brazil is the best movie ever. I'm not sure it qualifies as an adventure but well there's some adventure in it.
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What do you think of the greatest sci-fi adventure of all time?
Brazil is the best movie ever. I'm not sure it qualifies as an adventure but well there's some adventure in it.
I think i can speak for anyone when i say everybody is looking for Adventures.
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What do you think of the greatest sci-fi adventure of all time?
Brazil is the best movie ever. I'm not sure it qualifies as an adventure but well there's some adventure in it.
I think i can speak for anyone when i say everybody is looking for Adventures.
Not the good upstanding citizens of Bagend, sir!
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Who are the Beatles?
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Marvel's first entomology-themed 4 man supervillain team.
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Who are the Beatles?
It turns out that Paul McCartney had a band before Wings.
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Marvel's first entomology-themed 4 man supervillain team.
They were famous for never using commas, an idea that Brent Spiner is said to have co-opted for TNG, so that Commander Data never (with one known exception) used contractions.
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Who are the Beatles?
It turns out that Paul McCartney had a band before Wings.
This was all after he dueted with Kanye though right?
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No, this was before Kanye, but after Tony Bennett.
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Marvel's first entomology-themed 4 man supervillain team.
They were famous for never using commas, an idea that Brent Spiner is said to have co-opted for TNG, so that Commander Data never (with one known exception) used contractions.
What is the exception?
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Marvel's first entomology-themed 4 man supervillain team.
They were famous for never using commas, an idea that Brent Spiner is said to have co-opted for TNG, so that Commander Data never (with one known exception) used contractions.
What is the exception?
Future Imperfect, where Data's use of a contraction tips off Riker that he's not experiencing reality.
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Marvel's first entomology-themed 4 man supervillain team.
They were famous for never using commas, an idea that Brent Spiner is said to have co-opted for TNG, so that Commander Data never (with one known exception) used contractions.
What is the exception?
Future Imperfect, where Data's use of a contraction tips off Riker that he's not experiencing reality.
That clever Riker.
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Marvel's first entomology-themed 4 man supervillain team.
They were famous for never using commas, an idea that Brent Spiner is said to have co-opted for TNG, so that Commander Data never (with one known exception) used contractions.
What is the exception?
Future Imperfect, where Data's use of a contraction tips off Riker that he's not experiencing reality.
There are actually several exceptions. Several cases in the first season before they establish "Data doesn't use contractions" in Datalore. Also in "In Theory", probably the most notable breaking of the rule by a current-timeline, not-fake Data. And in "All Good Things", an alternate future version of the character uses them.
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[homer_simpson_nerds.wav]
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How long did it take to program the Adventures cards for playtesting on Isotropic?
How long do you think it will take Making Fun to program the cards?
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How long did it take to program the Adventures cards for playtesting on Isotropic?
How long do you think it will take Making Fun to program the cards?
I have no idea how long it takes Doug. I mean I've got my latest changes, there's one new card and two tweaked cards or something. One day the changes appear. It would look the same to me if it took him 10 minutes or three hours.
For MF there are two sides to this, the "back end" and "front end." Different people work on these things. The back end, they were going to start on earlier, because that guy would be available earlier. I don't know if that happened as planned but if it did that work could just be done. The front end, they couldn't start on until the general release of the new version. How long does that take, man, I don't know.
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EDIT: Never mind, you covered this.
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Pictured:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rNvTKPs6zik/VSVo6hDtYaI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/v1Z-N6cc3oI/s1600/rules.png)
So it's just a list of phone numbers that you can call when you don't understand something?
"Hello, Miller residence."
"Hello? I'm here to ask you about the interaction between Ironworks and Trader."
"...what?"
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Pictured:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rNvTKPs6zik/VSVo6hDtYaI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/v1Z-N6cc3oI/s1600/rules.png)
So it's just a list of phone numbers that you can call when you don't understand something?
"Hello, Miller residence."
"Hello? I'm here to ask you about the interaction between Ironworks and Trader."
"...what?"
"Is your blue dog walking?"
"...what?"
"Well, you'd better feed it!"
Surrealist prank calls FTW.
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What is the reason for the difference between Conspirator and Peddler in terms of what it counts (number of actions played vs number of actions in play)? Is there an actual balance issue there in regards to Throne Room vs one-shots? Or is it just because Conspirator came first and you later decided that it would be easier to count what's currently in play?
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What is the reason for the difference between Conspirator and Peddler in terms of what it counts (number of actions played vs number of actions in play)? Is there an actual balance issue there in regards to Throne Room vs one-shots? Or is it just because Conspirator came first and you later decided that it would be easier to count what's currently in play?
It's the wisdom of my years. Conspirator requires tracking and I got rid of that for Peddler, hooray.
That's also the impetus behind switching from Bridge to Highway; however in some cases one of the reasons for a wording change like that has been to stop a Throne Room combo. It wasn't a factor for Peddler though.
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What is the reason for the difference between Conspirator and Peddler in terms of what it counts (number of actions played vs number of actions in play)? Is there an actual balance issue there in regards to Throne Room vs one-shots? Or is it just because Conspirator came first and you later decided that it would be easier to count what's currently in play?
It's the wisdom of my years. Conspirator requires tracking and I got rid of that for Peddler, hooray.
Would you change Conspirator if you had your time over again, even though it'd make it really easy to activate with Duration cards etc?
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Would you change Conspirator if you had your time over again, even though it'd make it really easy to activate with Duration cards etc?
Well I would get to test it, but I would start with it Peddler-style, sure.
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Will your Secret History of Adventures go up as soon as the rules go up?
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Will your Secret History of Adventures go up as soon as the rules go up?
No, I like to wait until people can actually get the product, so it will be a few days later.
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Will Adventures only get recommended kingdoms for Base and Intrigue, or will it get them for all the other sets?
It has 'em all; 20 recommended sets total.
I only see 18 sets in the rule book. Is Alchemy becoming the red-headed stepchild of Dominion? Were there no sets for Adventures/Alchemy?
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did anyone else notice the recommended sets include every set except Alchemy?
That's a mistake I didn't catch when proofreading; I have them in my file.
Adventures & Alchemy:
Haste Potion: Plan / Magpie, Messenger, Port, Royal Carriage, Treasure Trove / Apprentice, Scrying Pool, Transmute, University, Vineyard
Cursecatchers: Save, Trade / Amulet, Bridge Troll, Caravan Guard, Peasant, Ratcatcher / Apothecary, Familiar, Golem, Herbalist, Philosopher's Stone
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Why does Adventures have many villages and +Action and only one terminal handsize increaser?
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Why does Adventures have many villages and +Action and only one terminal handsize increaser?
Gear, Ranger, Haunted Woods, Warrior?
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Why does Adventures have many villages and +Action and only one terminal handsize increaser?
Gear, Ranger, Haunted Woods, Warrior?
Neither Gear nor Haunted Woods increase your handsize this turn. (I forgot Warrior, but it's probably not some you build a +Actions/+Cards deck around (which is the substance of my question (that is, why only have the +Actions part?)))
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Gear can increase your handsize; it just has to be a Moat while doing so.
But yeah Haunted Woods doesn't fit.
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Why does Adventures have many villages and +Action and only one terminal handsize increaser?
Gear, Ranger, Haunted Woods, Warrior?
Neither Gear nor Haunted Woods increase your handsize this turn. (I forgot Warrior, but it's probably not some you build a +Actions/+Cards deck around (which is the substance of my question (that is, why only have the +Actions part?)))
You don't have to set aside any cards to Gear. And Haunted Woods not drawing you cards this turn doesn't stop it from being a terminal that draws you cards. Why Haunted Woods and not some more familiar Smithy? To have a new card.
The set is not trying to have less card-drawing than usual, and feels like it has plenty to me. There are only 4 Villages (counting Royal Carriage) in 30 cards, which is not above average; it's a little Village-heavy if you count Lost Arts or Champion.
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There's also Pathfinding for card draw.
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Hireling
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Duration draw (Haunted Woods, Hireling) is not the same as what's general meant by terminal draw. Those cards may be terminal but their draw isn't -- you don't draw things dead with them because it happens on your next turn.
We can quibble over what exactly "terminal draw" means and define it either way, but the fact of the mater is that cards like Smithy and duration draws like Haunted Woods play very differently. One doesn't like cantrips without solid action support, the other has nothing against them. And cantrips are very powerful, so getting along with them is a huge difference and merits thinking of them as a different general type of card.
I think Adventures is fine in terms of how much draw it has and don't see anything remarkable. There's Gear, there's Ranger, and there's a lot of other non-terminal sources of draw. We have enough Moats and Smithies and Journeymen and Catacombs and Hunting Grounds and other variants. We didn't need that many more. Adventures takes things in a different direction, mixing up all cards' attributes with tokens
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XP just wants a "Smithing Party" card.
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did anyone else notice the recommended sets include every set except Alchemy?
That's a mistake I didn't catch when proofreading; I have them in my file.
Adventures & Alchemy:
Haste Potion: Plan / Magpie, Messenger, Port, Royal Carriage, Treasure Trove / Apprentice, Scrying Pool, Transmute, University, Vineyard
Cursecatchers: Save, Trade / Amulet, Bridge Troll, Caravan Guard, Peasant, Ratcatcher / Apothecary, Familiar, Golem, Herbalist, Philosopher's Stone
How about one for Adventures & Promos? May I suggest:
Blackjack: Bonfire, Training / Artificer, Bridge Troll, Lost City, Page, Raze / Black Market, Envoy, Prince, Stash, Walled Village
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How do you feel about people playing with official cards they don't have using blanks?
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How do you feel about people playing with official cards they don't have using blanks?
Friendly.
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Why does Soldier not count itself in the same way that Bank does? Is it simply because +$2 looks nicer on an Action card than +$1?
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Will your Secret History of Adventures go up as soon as the rules go up?
No, I like to wait until people can actually get the product, so it will be a few days later.
Cool. I'm curious to hear more about Distant Lands, particularly what else you tried for cost, VP if not reserved, and VP if reserved in testing. My initial reaction was I'd almost never buy it over Duchy, but if it were cost 4, or say 1 VP if not reserved, it seems more attractive. I'm probably wrong though.
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Why does Soldier not count itself in the same way that Bank does? Is it simply because +$2 looks nicer on an Action card than +$1?
I'm going to guess that it's to save room, because "other" takes less space than "(counting this)".
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Why does Soldier not count itself in the same way that Bank does? Is it simply because +$2 looks nicer on an Action card than +$1?
In general you should do the math for people if you can. There may be a reason not to but you know. In this case there was no reason not to. So, I added that +$1 in there for you. It's not much but it was easy.
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Cool. I'm curious to hear more about Distant Lands, particularly what else you tried for cost, VP if not reserved, and VP if reserved in testing. My initial reaction was I'd almost never buy it over Duchy, but if it were cost 4, or say 1 VP if not reserved, it seems more attractive. I'm probably wrong though.
It was always that size.
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Will your Secret History of Adventures go up as soon as the rules go up?
No, I like to wait until people can actually get the product, so it will be a few days later.
Cool. I'm curious to hear more about Distant Lands, particularly what else you tried for cost, VP if not reserved, and VP if reserved in testing. My initial reaction was I'd almost never buy it over Duchy, but if it were cost 4, or say 1 VP if not reserved, it seems more attractive. I'm probably wrong though.
You should keep in mind that it Islands itself out of your deck. That's another advantage it has over Duchy besides the potentially more VP.
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Why is Caravan Guard played instead of set aside until the start of your turn? I admit i expected something more crazy when you announced a card that can be played on another player's turn.
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Why is Caravan Guard played instead of set aside until the start of your turn? I admit i expected something more crazy when you announced a card that can be played on another player's turn.
How would you word it's effect to be set aside? It seems to me that it will be a lot more complicated to word that way while keeping the effect identical.
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Why is Caravan Guard played instead of set aside until the start of your turn? I admit i expected something more crazy when you announced a card that can be played on another player's turn.
I considered various approaches, taking into account stuff like the weirdness of maybe having a +1 Action token on that pile. This was just the best way I saw to do the concept (of a duration card that triggered faster via a reaction, not specifically a card you played out-of-turn).
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How many official (not playtest versions) sets do you own?
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How many official (not playtest versions) sets do you own?
I get six of each set and give away 4 to playtesters. So, 2 of each set. In English. Except there are couple old expansion copies I haven't given away, due to not having enough playtesters at the time to give them to, and then the playtesters haven't all picked up their copies of Adventures. I never got the standalone coins product, but I did get Base Cards. And I have some random non-product stuff - a canvas bag from HiG, a little wooden treasure chest, a container of mints. With promos again I keep 2 copies of each.
I am technically owed six of each foreign language set. Jay sent me a few different ones early on. They were cool to see but man who has the space. And you can't give them away. FFG, a company not willing to wave its hands on anything contractual, sent me copies of Infiltration in 3 random languages, like Chinese, Portuguese, Korean? What do I ever do with those, man, the game doesn't even have useful pawns or anything for me to cannibalize. Anyway I said, it's okay Jay, I do not need more foreign copies. Dominion is in a bunch of languages at this point, with a bunch of expansions in some of those languages, so I have turned down a gigantic pile of boxes. I did get one copy of the first Japanese retheme.
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a little wooden treasure chest
I have that! I won one in a tournament. I love how useless it is.
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Why is Caravan Guard played instead of set aside until the start of your turn? I admit i expected something more crazy when you announced a card that can be played on another player's turn.
How would you word it's effect to be set aside? It seems to me that it will be a lot more complicated to word that way while keeping the effect identical.
"When another player plays an attack card, you may set this aside. If you do, +1 Card and at the start of your next turn, discard this and +$1."
I'm assuming that having it discarded is no big deal. Still, now that i wrote this, i can see why "play this" won out, even with the stuff in braces.
Why is Caravan Guard played instead of set aside until the start of your turn? I admit i expected something more crazy when you announced a card that can be played on another player's turn.
I considered various approaches, taking into account stuff like the weirdness of maybe having a +1 Action token on that pile. This was just the best way I saw to do the concept (of a duration card that triggered faster via a reaction, not specifically a card you played out-of-turn).
Ahh... So that's the point. Didn't get that before. Very cool :)
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You should just take the foreign language copies and leave them in random places around your city. Maybe throw in a cryptic letter and an unrelated cipher or something.
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...a container of mints.
I'm going to skip making the Mine/Mint joke because I'm too curious about the story behind this.
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...a container of mints.
I'm going to skip making the Mine/Mint joke because I'm too curious about the story behind this.
There isn't much of a story. It's a small container of mints. HiG must have decided it was a good promotion. You press on the middle of the lid to open it, press on the edges to close it. That's kind of neat. I keep mine in the little wooden chest.
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/860208/dominion
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...a container of mints.
I'm going to skip making the Mine/Mint joke because I'm too curious about the story behind this.
There isn't much of a story. It's a small container of mints. HiG must have decided it was a good promotion. You press on the middle of the lid to open it, press on the edges to close it. That's kind of neat. I keep mine in the little wooden chest.
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/860208/dominion
+1 for tying in the joke.
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...a container of mints.
I'm going to skip making the Mine/Mint joke because I'm too curious about the story behind this.
There isn't much of a story. It's a small container of mints. HiG must have decided it was a good promotion. You press on the middle of the lid to open it, press on the edges to close it. That's kind of neat. I keep mine in the little wooden chest.
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/860208/dominion
I wonder if Sterling Babcock ever managed to get one.
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You should just take the foreign language copies and leave them in random places around your city. Maybe throw in a cryptic letter and an unrelated cipher or something.
Because everyone should get a chance to enjoy Dominion, even bomb squad robots.
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You should just take the foreign language copies and leave them in random places around your city. Maybe throw in a cryptic letter and an unrelated cipher or something.
Because everyone should get a chance to enjoy Dominion, even bomb squad robots.
I thought Bomb only trashed itself and one other card, not the entire set.
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If you do make another expansion after Adventures, do you think it's most likely it would be small (150 cards), normal-sized (300 cards), or large (400-500 cards)?
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Now that two expansions have Duration cards, do you think there is a better chance for a Duration Promo?
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Now that two expansions have Duration cards, do you think there is a better chance for a Duration Promo?
What about an Attack Promo?
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What about a Knight promo?
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Or a Ruined Promo?
(http://i60.tinypic.com/9fo26g.png)
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What about a Rats type card promo?
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If you do make another expansion after Adventures, do you think it's most likely it would be small (150 cards), normal-sized (300 cards), or large (400-500 cards)?
I would like to think 300; it would depend on what was going on, if I had too much great stuff for the theme or what. It's very unlikely it would be 150 because people like that size less, so much so that it may be that Cornucopia is forever welded to Guilds now.
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Now that two expansions have Duration cards, do you think there is a better chance for a Duration Promo?
I think a bigger factor is how little rulebook space I devoted to Duration cards this time (I did not write the Seaside rulebook except the funny paragraph and FAQ). It doesn't seem out of the question but it's still a mild negative. You might not know what "duration" means but in fact it just tells you when to discard the card, it's not much.
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Now that two expansions have Duration cards, do you think there is a better chance for a Duration Promo?
What about an Attack Promo?
If you are asking me, there's obv. nothing wrong with an Attack promo. Really there should be one already, to preserve roughly how often Attacks show up for people who get all the promos.
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What about a Knight promo?
This would have had to have happened when Dark Ages was just coming out.
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What about a Rats type card promo?
Having more than 11 cards seems poor, because it's a promo, it's given away. Yes most people only get them by buying them or buying something else but still, that's supporting other entities not us, our benefit is of course the promotion. Even a Victory card promo is just slightly more of a promotional expense for no real gain over a non-victory card.
You can also say, why do we need to promote the game with promos, don't the people who would find out about a promo already know about the game? Promos are less valuable to us now than ever. They seem best for if a period goes by with no product, as with Prince.
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Is there any chance of a micro-expansion of some sort? Like, say, a Traveller set, plus a half-dozen Events, plus one kingdom card, for about 50 cards?
It's bigger than a promo and definitely something people would spend cash on, and doesn't have the promo stigma. Would the playtesting needed for it just put it out of the realm of feasibility?
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Or how about a promo that is like, 5 Events instead of 1 card? It would be half the size with five times the variety.
But now we are getting away from asking Donald actual questions and just basically begging for promos. :P
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Is there any chance of a micro-expansion of some sort? Like, say, a Traveller set, plus a half-dozen Events, plus one kingdom card, for about 50 cards?
It's bigger than a promo and definitely something people would spend cash on, and doesn't have the promo stigma. Would the playtesting needed for it just put it out of the realm of feasibility?
Hans im Gluck wanted something like this way back when, which is what led to Alchemy. My position at the time was, that certain kinds of things want to show up a certain % of the time, and the smaller the set the worse I do there. Maybe you only have the ones without villages, you know.
At this point I would go on to say, and I do, I go on to say, people like 300-card sets more than 150-card sets, so why exactly should we try a 50-card set?
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Or how about a promo that is like, 5 Events instead of 1 card? It would be half the size with five times the variety.
But now we are getting away from asking Donald actual questions and just basically begging for promos. :P
It's also 5 times the work. Why not 5 Events in an expansion, with other stuff too, now you're talking.
I don't like promos. I do them to be friendly to publishers. If a promo is good it should be in an expansion. If it isn't good enough for an expansion then it isn't great to have as a promo either. I don't mind a promo when there isn't going to be an expansion, as with the Gauntlet of Fools promos; it's a way to have a little more stuff. It wasn't so bad to have Prince when there hadn't been any product in a while. But really. I've been over this a bunch and it hasn't changed.
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Donald, can we have new cards, just all the time new cards
Donald, the new expansion is finally here but now those are cards we have, when can we have new cards
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Actual question:
When you were writing Bridge to reduce the cost of cards and Goons to care about the buying of cards, was there any thought that you might someday do a non-card thing, or was it just the most natural way to write them and now it's a neat side effect that Events are excluded?
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When you were writing Bridge to reduce the cost of cards and Goons to care about the buying of cards, was there any thought that you might someday do a non-card thing, or was it just the most natural way to write them and now it's a neat side effect that Events are excluded?
I was not expecting to do Events until I was doing them.
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What might Adventures have looked like if it had been a Dominion spin-off instead of an expansion?
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What might Adventures have looked like if it had been a Dominion spin-off instead of an expansion?
I would have to do the work on that project to know. I would have changed whatever things about Dominion that seemed interesting to change and seen what happened.
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What is your next project, now that Adventures is released (if you can discuss it)?
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What is your next project, now that Adventures is released (if you can discuss it)?
http://boardgamegeek.com/article/16673923#16673923
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What is your next project, now that Adventures is released (if you can discuss it)?
http://boardgamegeek.com/article/16673923#16673923
You'd think that the expansion for Temporum would have come out before the base game.
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What is your next project, now that Adventures is released (if you can discuss it)?
As noted the next thing I did was a Temporum expansion, which I combined with the previous Temporum expansion to make one large expansion.
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If you do make another expansion after Adventures, do you think it's most likely it would be small (150 cards), normal-sized (300 cards), or large (400-500 cards)?
I would like to think 300; it would depend on what was going on, if I had too much great stuff for the theme or what. It's very unlikely it would be 150 because people like that size less, so much so that it may be that Cornucopia is forever welded to Guilds now.
What does this say about the fate of Alchemy? Or does the "Big Box" set solve that issue?
Also, why did the expansion names become plural starting with Hinterlands? Was that just coincidental based on the chosen names?
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What does this say about the fate of Alchemy? Or does the "Big Box" set solve that issue?
Also, why did the expansion names become plural starting with Hinterlands? Was that just coincidental based on the chosen names?
So far Alchemy continues to exist as a separate product; I don't expect it will ever be confined to the Big Box. If it's not selling as well it just won't be printed as often.
I did not intentionally go for plural names. Jay prefers single-word names but accepted Dark Ages.
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What expansions/products sell the best?
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What expansions/products sell the best?
Prior to Adventures I think it's just a straight line down from the start, more copies of Intrigue sold than Seaside and so on, not counting small sets. I can't give you figures but you can look at BGG ownership rates for example. It only makes sense that it would work like that; at some point someone thinks, I have 4 expansions, maybe I need to buy some other games too.
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What expansions/products sell the best?
Prior to Adventures I think it's just a straight line down from the start, more copies of Intrigue sold than Seaside and so on, not counting small sets. I can't give you figures but you can look at BGG ownership rates for example. It only makes sense that it would work like that; at some point someone thinks, I have 4 expansions, maybe I need to buy some other games too.
Do the later expansions at least sell well enough for it to be worth making more?
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Why were the Base set through Prosperity for ages 8+, then Cornucopia through Guilds 13+, and now Adventures 14+?
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Why were the Base set through Prosperity for ages 8+, then Cornucopia through Guilds 13+, and now Adventures 14+?
Mature content. Did you see that hip-to-waist ratio on Hero?!
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Do the later expansions at least sell well enough for it to be worth making more?
They sell better than say a random reasonably successful but not smash hit gamer's game. So yes, if by "worth" you mean "a sensible business decision."
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Why were the Base set through Prosperity for ages 8+, then Cornucopia through Guilds 13+, and now Adventures 14+?
The first change was laws, the second the printer.
There was like some lead paint in toys from China scare a few years back, or something like that. It prompted laws that say "you have to do this testing if you want an age on the box lower than 13." Paying for the testing is extremely prohibitive if you aren't going to sell a zillion copies. So games not aimed at kids don't get the testing and thus the age jumped to 13. This is a USA thing; German games probably still say 8+ or whatever, I don't really know there.
Hasbro, who is a printer, was not sufficiently satisfied with that, and refuses to put an age lower than 14+ on their boxes without the testing. And the cards are now printed by Hasbro.
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Why were the Base set through Prosperity for ages 8+, then Cornucopia through Guilds 13+, and now Adventures 14+?
The first change was laws, the second the printer.
There was like some lead paint in toys from China scare a few years back, or something like that. It prompted laws that say "you have to do this testing if you want an age on the box lower than 13." Paying for the testing is extremely prohibitive if you aren't going to sell a zillion copies. So games not aimed at kids don't get the testing and thus the age jumped to 13. This is a USA thing; German games probably still say 8+ or whatever, I don't really know there.
Hasbro, who is a printer, was not sufficiently satisfied with that, and refuses to put an age lower than 14+ on their boxes without the testing. And the cards are now printed by Hasbro.
So... even though Hasbro is the one printing it... and so they'd be the ones who'd know if lead paint was used in making the game... wow, that just sounds incredibly, frustratingly stupid.
I mean, it's just the age recommendation, so not exactly a big deal, but still.
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What expansions/products sell the best?
Prior to Adventures I think it's just a straight line down from the start, more copies of Intrigue sold than Seaside and so on, not counting small sets. I can't give you figures but you can look at BGG ownership rates for example. It only makes sense that it would work like that; at some point someone thinks, I have 4 expansions, maybe I need to buy some other games too.
Do the later expansions at least sell well enough for it to be worth making more?
Clearly yes, or else more would not have been made.
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There was like some lead paint in toys from China scare a few years back, or something like that. It prompted laws that say "you have to do this testing if you want an age on the box lower than 13." Paying for the testing is extremely prohibitive if you aren't going to sell a zillion copies. So games not aimed at kids don't get the testing and thus the age jumped to 13. This is a USA thing; German games probably still say 8+ or whatever, I don't really know there.
Which then causes nightmares for those of us working in retail game stores, as nobody knows this and then refuses to believe us when we say their 8-year old can play a game, because the box says 13+ so surely there must be mature content or an encyclopedia of rules inside that Coup box.
>:(
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Also, what the hell kind of average middle schooler is still shoving small game parts into their mouths?
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Also, what the hell kind of average middle schooler is still shoving small game parts into their mouths?
One who isn't satisfied with just the smell.
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Also, what the hell kind of average middle schooler is still shoving small game parts into their mouths?
Even adults should avoid exposure to lead paint, I think. I'm not sure what any of this has to do with age.
I hate how California fire safety standards require everything be soaked in toxic flame retardants. Why can't there be new laws to ban those?
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German games probably still say 8+ or whatever, I don't really know there.
Finnish games from base set to Hinterlands were 8+, Dark Ages and Guilds are 10+. I assume it's because they're more complex than the previous expansions and the people at lautapelit.fi felt like it was appropriate to categorize them as "for adults" (which is what 10+ means) rather than "for families" (which is what 8+ means).
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Also, what the hell kind of average middle schooler is still shoving small game parts into their mouths?
It's nothing to do with reality and everything to do with congressmen trying to look good. Here's something we can all get behind: save the children! They might be getting lead poisoning from books!
More reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Product_Safety_Improvement_Act
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And the cards are now printed by Hasbro.
This makes me sad.
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What expansions/products sell the best?
Prior to Adventures I think it's just a straight line down from the start, more copies of Intrigue sold than Seaside and so on, not counting small sets. I can't give you figures but you can look at BGG ownership rates for example. It only makes sense that it would work like that; at some point someone thinks, I have 4 expansions, maybe I need to buy some other games too.
What about recent/realtime sales (rather than cumulative)? Do people still buy more Intrigue than Seaside, or is it weighed more heavily toward the better reviewed sets? I would expect the current best selling ones would always be the base set and whatever the newest expansion is at the time (?).
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What about recent/realtime sales (rather than cumulative)? Do people still buy more Intrigue than Seaside, or is it weighed more heavily toward the better reviewed sets? I would expect the current best selling ones would always be the base set and whatever the newest expansion is at the time (?).
Please address further sales figures inquiries to no-one, I was going to say RGG but really, they don't want to be asked and won't tell you. I can't give you this data, it's not mine to share, let's stop talking about it.
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What about recent/realtime sales (rather than cumulative)? Do people still buy more Intrigue than Seaside, or is it weighed more heavily toward the better reviewed sets? I would expect the current best selling ones would always be the base set and whatever the newest expansion is at the time (?).
let's stop talking about it.
amazon(.de) says (for the German edition):
Dominion: rank 778 in toys
Cornucopia + Alchemy: rank 2.017
Seaside: rank 4.226
Guilds: rank 10.436
Intrigue: rank 28.277
Hinterlands: rank 37.098
Dark Ages: rank 31.582
Prosperity: rank 40.540
Alchemy: rank 43.465
of course amazon might not produce unbiased samples. Especially, as some of these were not avaiable at amazon directly but at resellers, sometimes for more than 100€/expansion.
Honorable mention:
Dark Ages: rank 196.598 in kitchen & household
:e also, German edition seems to be 13+ for all of these the newer editions and 8+ for the old ones.
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Dark Ages: rank 196.598 in kitchen & household
Those Rats come in handy when you can't be bothered to clean up your breadcrumbs.
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:e also, German edition seems to be 13+ for all of these the newer editions and 8+ for the old ones.
The Dutch ones are 8+ for everything until Prosperity, then 10+ for Cornucopia, 8+ again for Hinterlands, 12+ for Dark Ages, and then 10+ again for Guilds and now Adventures. ??? And they say Dutch people are practical..
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What is an appropriate method to provide you information about a board state tracking tool I am attempting to develop to facilitate playing games over Skype? I would like your opinion prior to completing/using it.
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amazon(.de) says (for the German edition):
Note that those expansions aren't all in print in Germany, due to the switchover from HiG to Altenburger.
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What is an appropriate method to provide you information about a board state tracking tool I am attempting to develop to facilitate playing games over Skype? I would like your opinion prior to completing/using it.
Uh this thread is a fine method. And that's it, that's all the information to share.
I'm not too interested. gl hf. You might make some other people mad if you try to sell it. That's really nothing I want to be involved in; make them mad on your own.
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What is an appropriate method to provide you information about a board state tracking tool I am attempting to develop to facilitate playing games over Skype? I would like your opinion prior to completing/using it.
Uh this thread is a fine method. And that's it, that's all the information to share.
I'm not too interested. gl hf. You might make some other people mad if you try to sell it. That's really nothing I want to be involved in; make them mad on your own.
I communicate poorly on the internet. I am just looking to see if you had issues with the idea. No request for any involvement. Also definitely no intent to sell anything, just use it to play Skype games with other forum members.
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I communicate poorly on the internet. I am just looking to see if you had issues with the idea. No request for any involvement. Also definitely no intent to sell anything, just use it to play Skype games with other forum members.
But what any sensible person would say my response to you should be is: that I license the game to RGG; I can't authorize whatever fun innocent thing I don't care about, you have to ask them. RGG would normally say have fun, but wait, they license online Dominion to, I'm not sure who, some entity. And that entity may say what no never.
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Understood, sorry for the bother.
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Now that there is a card with type Treasure - Attack, I'm curious if there's any reason Ill-Gotten Gains didn't get the Attack type.
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Now that there is a card with type Treasure - Attack, I'm curious if there's any reason Ill-Gotten Gains didn't get the Attack type.
The Attack type refers to what the card does when you play it. Note that the on-buy of Noble Brigand can't be blocked either.
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Now that there is a card with type Treasure - Attack, I'm curious if there's any reason Ill-Gotten Gains didn't get the Attack type.
The Attack type refers to what the card does when you play it.
Or, to put it a different way, why should someone get to reveal their Horse Traders just because you get +$1 and gain a Copper?
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Now that there is a card with type Treasure - Attack, I'm curious if there's any reason Ill-Gotten Gains didn't get the Attack type.
The Attack type refers to what the card does when you play it. Note that the on-buy of Noble Brigand can't be blocked either.
More accurately, the Attack type refers to nothing whatsoever. But all things that refer to the Attack type only care about Attack cards being played, not gained. So making Ill-Gotten Gains an Attack wouldn't allow you to reveal Moat etc. to stop the Curse; it would just be needlessly confusing.
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But all things that refer to the Attack type only care about Attack cards being played, not gained.
(well, except Squire)
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Inspired by the Outpost rewording thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13095.0): is there a reason that you haven't used the "discard a random card from hand" mechanic on a Dominion card?
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Inspired by the Outpost rewording thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13095.0): is there a reason that you haven't used the "discard a random card from hand" mechanic on a Dominion card?
I'm not Donald X, but I'm going to suggest the answer is "it would be no fun, and players wouldn't buy it because they wouldn't want to play it and disrupt their own strategies".
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I'm not Donald X. either, but I'm going to suggest the answer is "I met a unicorn who told me to never make a Dominion card that discards a random card from hand".
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Inspired by the Outpost rewording thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13095.0): is there a reason that you haven't used the "discard a random card from hand" mechanic on a Dominion card?
I'm not Donald X, but I'm going to suggest the answer is "it would be no fun, and players wouldn't buy it because they wouldn't want to play it and disrupt their own strategies".
There are already Minion (discards entire hand of both you and opponent), Sea Hag (discards random card from opponent deck), Harvest (discards random cards from your deck), Militia (discards cards of opponent's choice from his hand), Pillage (discards a card of your choice from opponent's hand). Wouldn't any not-fun-ness and disruption already be covered by one of those?
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Inspired by the Outpost rewording thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13095.0): is there a reason that you haven't used the "discard a random card from hand" mechanic on a Dominion card?
I'm not Donald X, but I'm going to suggest the answer is "it would be no fun, and players wouldn't buy it because they wouldn't want to play it and disrupt their own strategies".
There are already Minion (discards entire hand of both you and opponent), Sea Hag (discards random card from opponent deck), Harvest (discards random cards from your deck), Militia (discards cards of opponent's choice from his hand), Pillage (discards a card of your choice from opponent's hand). Wouldn't any not-fun-ness and disruption already be covered by one of those?
None of those cards is about the random card discard, the discarding is just necessary for the concept to work. If those cards are not enough for you, i get the impression that you want a card that is un-fun for the sake of being un-fun. Of course people will disagree on whether random discard is fun or not, but i think it's not a good thing at all.
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Inspired by the Outpost rewording thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13095.0): is there a reason that you haven't used the "discard a random card from hand" mechanic on a Dominion card?
I'm not Donald X, but I'm going to suggest the answer is "it would be no fun, and players wouldn't buy it because they wouldn't want to play it and disrupt their own strategies".
There are already Minion (discards entire hand of both you and opponent), Sea Hag (discards random card from opponent deck), Harvest (discards random cards from your deck), Militia (discards cards of opponent's choice from his hand), Pillage (discards a card of your choice from opponent's hand). Wouldn't any not-fun-ness and disruption already be covered by one of those?
None of those cards is about the random card discard, the discarding is just necessary for the concept to work. If those cards are not enough for you, i get the impression that you want a card that is un-fun for the sake of being un-fun. Of course people will disagree on whether random discard is fun or not, but i think it's not a good thing at all.
It depends on the context. I think Gamble (http://magiccards.info/vma/en/162.html) is a pretty fun Magic card.
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"Discard a card at random" is fundamentally very similar to the Minion attack, but it strikes me as less personally harsh, only throwing away one card rather than all of them and therefore not being as threatening to stuff like Scheme and Alchemist. I don't think it'd be terrible with that in mind, but I don't see it adding much of anything either when we already have Minion and Sea Hag and Relic.
Or, wait, you're referring to your own hand? Yeah I don't see people actually wanting to play that.
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Inspired by the Outpost rewording thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13095.0): is there a reason that you haven't used the "discard a random card from hand" mechanic on a Dominion card?
- I had a random discard attack in Hinterlands for a bit and it was universally hated.
- I am not seeing the beauty of cards that make you rather than your opponents discard randomly. It would be much slower to resolve than picking what to discard. People would like it less.
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When you play IRL, are there any particular idiosyncratic things you do? For example, a lot of people (or at least I and my friends) play Villages in a forking path, so that you have as many Actions as you have uncovered Village corners.
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When you play IRL, are there any particular idiosyncratic things you do? For example, a lot of people (or at least I and my friends) play Villages in a forking path, so that you have as many Actions as you have uncovered Village corners.
Some of my playtesters do that, but I don't, I say the number of remaining actions out loud if it's tricky. I do fork with Thrones.
I don't do anything idiosyncratic, it's all extremely sensible. I push up cards to indicate I got bonuses that you don't always get, like taking +$1 from Pawn. I know someone who more thoroughly indicates Pawn choices, but I will remember the rest, I just need to know the coin. I tap Duration cards from last turn at the start of the turn, to remind me that this turn they go away. I cover up money spent on Storyteller.
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What about a Rats type card promo?
$6
+3 Cards
+2 Actions
gain a Curse
gain a Ruin
...okay, Rats-ish
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Anyways...
Question for Donald X.:
Did you start with a theme and build the game from that or did you start with a mechanic and design Dominion based off of what you felt would be a fitting theme? I've always wondered this when trying to design my own games.
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Did you start with a theme and build the game from that or did you start with a mechanic and design Dominion based off of what you felt would be a fitting theme? I've always wondered this when trying to design my own games.
The Secret History of Dominion (http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/06/24/the-secret-history-of-dominion/#more-4142)
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What about a Rats type card promo?
$6
+3 Cards
+2 Actions
gain a Curse
gain a Ruin
...okay, Rats-ish
Well I meant the actual Type of the card was "Rats". There was a thing going for a while in the Really Bad Card Ideas thread..
Edit: I also guess I should clarify that I wasn't serious.
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What about a Rats type card promo?
$6
+3 Cards
+2 Actions
gain a Curse
gain a Ruin
...okay, Rats-ish
FYI, Donald really doesn't like looking at fan cards for various reasons he's outlined several times (I'll post a link if I can find one) and avoids places where they're posted, so please avoid posting them here.
Edit: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg148774#msg148774
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Have you ever considered releasing an expansion-to-an-expansion, like a Prosperity II, Dark Ages II, or Alchemy II (although I know I've read somewhere that the latter is fairly unlikely)? Something where RGG wouldn't have to include tokens or pieces again but that would allow you to further explore the design space of, say, VP tokens, Ruins, and Potions a bit more?
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Have you ever considered releasing an expansion-to-an-expansion, like a Prosperity II, Dark Ages II, or Alchemy II (although I know I've read somewhere that the latter is fairly unlikely)? Something where RGG wouldn't have to include tokens or pieces again but that would allow you to further explore the design space of, say, VP tokens, Ruins, and Potions a bit more?
He's answered this a lot. Of course they've been considered; Adventures started as Seaside II! (see the Secret History) Alchemy is not going to happen because Alchemy is the least popular expansion, and generally Donald thinks it's better to make something new than redo something old, but revisiting concepts is not out of the question. Also, a set is going to come with the components it requires in case somebody gets one and not the other.
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Oops, sorry for re-asking!
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These questions are getting easier and easier.
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Why is the strong nuclear interaction invariant to parity and charge conjugation?
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Have you ever seriously considered pricing a kingdom card at more than 8$? I mean, aside from Possession.
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Why is the strong nuclear interaction invariant to parity and charge conjugation?
The short answer is, emergent behavior of low-level randomness, constrained by the need for you to exist.
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Have you ever seriously considered pricing a kingdom card at more than 8$? I mean, aside from Possession.
I had an $8 action very early on (a relative of Grand Market). I don't really remember playing with it but I am guessing it was quickly obvious that that's a bad cost.
It's fine to have an expensive trick cost, e.g. Peddler (and that could go over $8). It's bad to have super-expensive cards otherwise, because for many players Province is too compelling, and at the same time I don't want many narrow cards (which a super-expensive card is likely to be). Colony/Platinum provide a way around this, and yet still I just went up to $7 in Prosperity (not counting). Prince didn't set out to cost $8 and well I guess that worked out.
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Did you intentionally give all $8 cards names starting with P? Province, Peddler, Prince, and now Pathfinding.
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Patently preposterous proposition!
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How bothersome do you find forum posters' criticisms of cards, or wordings and such?
(And since I feel like I've made a bunch of nitpicky posts lately, may I just say: I LOVE DOMINION more than any other game ever!)
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Did you intentionally give all $8 cards names starting with P? Province, Peddler, Prince, and now Pathfinding.
No. I didn't notice it myself; then it was pointed out here when Pathfinding was already coming.
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How bothersome do you find forum posters' criticisms of cards, or wordings and such?
(And since I feel like I've made a bunch of nitpicky posts lately, may I just say: I LOVE DOMINION more than any other game ever!)
I don't know it depends? I am interested in having good wordings; such talk by itself isn't bothersome.
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What was the wording on Royal Carriage that created an infinite loop?
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What was the wording on Royal Carriage that created an infinite loop?
Well if it were missing the "if it is still in play" part, then you could simply play Royal Carriage, then call that Royal Carriage to play Royal Carriage again, forever.
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What was the wording on Royal Carriage that created an infinite loop?
Well if it were missing the "if it is still in play" part, then you could simply play Royal Carriage, then call that Royal Carriage to play Royal Carriage again, forever.
Isn't that the least useful infinite loop ever? It's like revealing Trader a second time. It does nothing for you, but annoys your opponents.
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What was the wording on Royal Carriage that created an infinite loop?
Well if it were missing the "if it is still in play" part, then you could simply play Royal Carriage, then call that Royal Carriage to play Royal Carriage again, forever.
Isn't that the least useful infinite loop ever? It's like revealing Trader a second time. It does nothing for you, but annoys your opponents.
I think it would give you infinite +Actions?
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What was the wording on Royal Carriage that created an infinite loop?
Well if it were missing the "if it is still in play" part, then you could simply play Royal Carriage, then call that Royal Carriage to play Royal Carriage again, forever.
Isn't that the least useful infinite loop ever? It's like revealing Trader a second time. It does nothing for you, but annoys your opponents.
I think it would give you infinite +Actions?
Yes. Also, I think it makes sense to avoid pointless infinite loops where possible. Yes it already exists with Moat and Trader. But Borrow got a "once per turn" clause even though it only prevents a pointless infinite loop. Also, allowing pointless infinite loops removes possibility of design space. It's theoretically possible now to create a reaction that does something "when you call a card" or "when you buy an event". Allowing infinite loops like unlimited calling would mean those cards can no longer be created.
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What would you do if you found a cow in your living room?
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What was the wording on Royal Carriage that created an infinite loop?
Well if it were missing the "if it is still in play" part, then you could simply play Royal Carriage, then call that Royal Carriage to play Royal Carriage again, forever.
Isn't that the least useful infinite loop ever? It's like revealing Trader a second time. It does nothing for you, but annoys your opponents.
I think it would give you infinite +Actions?
Yes. Also, I think it makes sense to avoid pointless infinite loops where possible. Yes it already exists with Moat and Trader. But Borrow got a "once per turn" clause even though it only prevents a pointless infinite loop. Also, allowing pointless infinite loops removes possibility of design space. It's theoretically possible now to create a reaction that does something "when you call a card" or "when you buy an event". Allowing infinite loops like unlimited calling would mean those cards can no longer be created.
Correct. You want to avoid pointless loops in case they become non-pointless, and also that loop isn't pointless, and yes Royal Carriage didn't always say "if this isn't in play."
I also tried "calling" putting the card in your discard pile at first.
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What would you do if you found a cow in your living room?
It depends on the breed.
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What would you do if you found a cow in your living room?
It depends on the breed.
African or European, I would imagine?
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What would you do if you found a cow in your living room?
It depends on the breed.
African or European, I would imagine?
It's an f.ds joke, not a Monty Python joke.
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What would you do if you found a cow in your living room?
It depends on the breed.
African or European, I would imagine?
It's an f.ds joke, not a Monty Python joke.
I didn't see the joke at first.
I guess I know where you'd escort this alleged cow anyways, to some sort of hedge place.
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What would you do if you found a cow in your living room?
It depends on the breed.
African or European, I would imagine?
It's an f.ds joke, not a Monty Python joke.
I didn't see the joke at first.
I guess I know where you'd escort this alleged cow anyways, to some sort of hedge place.
There's a hedge place for everything.
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Do you have any running Dominion jokes among your groups (playtesters, friends, gaming group, whatever), and, if so, are they equally as lame as ours?
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What was the wording on Royal Carriage that created an infinite loop?
Well if it were missing the "if it is still in play" part, then you could simply play Royal Carriage, then call that Royal Carriage to play Royal Carriage again, forever.
Isn't that the least useful infinite loop ever? It's like revealing Trader a second time. It does nothing for you, but annoys your opponents.
I think it would give you infinite +Actions?
Yes. Also, I think it makes sense to avoid pointless infinite loops where possible. Yes it already exists with Moat and Trader. But Borrow got a "once per turn" clause even though it only prevents a pointless infinite loop. Also, allowing pointless infinite loops removes possibility of design space. It's theoretically possible now to create a reaction that does something "when you call a card" or "when you buy an event". Allowing infinite loops like unlimited calling would mean those cards can no longer be created.
Correct. You want to avoid pointless loops in case they become non-pointless, and also that loop isn't pointless, and yes Royal Carriage didn't always say "if this isn't in play."
I also tried "calling" putting the card in your discard pile at first.
This is the one I was thinking of, but I got ninja-ed
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Do you have any running Dominion jokes among your groups (playtesters, friends, gaming group, whatever), and, if so, are they equally as lame as ours?
We had some card nicknames way back when. Counting House was Counting Horse. Rubbish Heap (+1 card +1 action trash a card from your hand) was Rubber Sheep. I am not thinking of more recent things.
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I also tried "calling" putting the card in your discard pile at first.
Was the issue with this the possibility of re-drawing/playing it on the same turn? Why doesn't "calling" just set it aside until Clean-up, avoiding the confusion of putting a card into play that you're not playing?
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I also tried "calling" putting the card in your discard pile at first.
Was the issue with this the possibility of re-drawing/playing it on the same turn? Why doesn't "calling" just set it aside until Clean-up, avoiding the confusion of putting a card into play that you're not playing?
The issue is the possibility of replaying certain cards the same turn. I avoid the confusion of set aside cards by putting them into play instead.
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Why doesn't "calling" just set it aside until Clean-up, avoiding the confusion of putting a card into play that you're not playing?
How is that at all confusing, though? It's spelled out really clearly in the rules.
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Why doesn't "calling" just set it aside until Clean-up, avoiding the confusion of putting a card into play that you're not playing?
How is that at all confusing, though? It's spelled out really clearly in the rules.
It's not that it's not spelled out, or that it's a huge deal - it's just that putting a card in play has always meant playing it (and even the term "in play" obviously lends itself to that association). People definitely will sometimes mistakenly count CotR's coin.
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To add to that, it's a creeping rules lawyer thing - Dominion is now a game where you can physically draw a card from your deck into your hand but you didn't "draw" it, put something into play without playing it, and add things to your discard pile without discarding them (that last one was always possible). I normally detest that sort of thing in a game, but in Dominion it's been slow and earned, so I don't mind.
But it's something to be aware of, because the casual player will listen to you explain why you didn't actually play that Reserve you have in play and pronounce the game "stupid" if you're not careful.
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To add to that, it's a creeping rules lawyer thing - Dominion is now a game where you can physically draw a card from your deck into your hand but you didn't "draw" it, put something into play without playing it, and add things to your discard pile without discarding them (that last one was always possible). I normally detest that sort of thing in a game, but in Dominion it's been slow and earned, so I don't mind.
But it's something to be aware of, because the casual player will listen to you explain why you didn't actually play that Reserve you have in play and pronounce the game "stupid" if you're not careful.
Also, be careful that your cards don't try to use ranged weapons in melee, or heaven forbid try a grapple, or the rules lawyers will come of out the goddam walls.
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Why does the art for Pathfinding not fill the entire art box?
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Why does the art for Pathfinding not fill the entire art box?
Yikes. At least the art is dark.
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Why does the art for Pathfinding not fill the entire art box?
Yikes. At least the art is dark.
You don't want to go on that side of the path.
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Why does the art for Pathfinding not fill the entire art box?
I'll treat this as a rhetorical question. And I know what you mean. I feel the same way sometimes.
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When was the last time you taught Dominion to someone who was totally unfamiliar with the game?
Has a friend or family member ever mentioned Dominion to you without realizing you created it?
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When was the last time you taught Dominion to someone who was totally unfamiliar with the game?
Has a friend or family member ever mentioned Dominion to you without realizing you created it?
When I'm playtesting it comes up once in a while; I'm guessing 1-3 times for Adventures. If I'm playing Dominion and not playtesting, odds are I am not playing with anyone who would possibly not know the rules. It will eventually come up with the kids.
No, but a mom (mother of a friend of the kids) who had heard of Dominion talked with me about it for a bit before realizing that I'd made it.
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Why does the art for Pathfinding not fill the entire art box?
Thanks. I would have quite happily lived the rest of my life thinking that was a tree.
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Why doesn't exchanging cause you to gain the new cards? Is it to lower their power level by removing Royal Seal, Traveling Fair, or Watchtower combos? Or did you feel like it would be simpler to just not have it gaining?
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Why doesn't exchanging cause you to gain the new cards? Is it to lower their power level by removing Royal Seal, Traveling Fair, or Watchtower combos? Or did you feel like it would be simpler to just not have it gaining?
For me it feels more like the character is simply improving, not turning into a different character. Gaining would feel like I'm getting something different.
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Why doesn't exchanging cause you to gain the new cards? Is it to lower their power level by removing Royal Seal, Traveling Fair, or Watchtower combos? Or did you feel like it would be simpler to just not have it gaining?
Not to mention Trader.
"When I grow up, I want to be a silver~"
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Why doesn't exchanging cause you to gain the new cards? Is it to lower their power level by removing Royal Seal, Traveling Fair, or Watchtower combos? Or did you feel like it would be simpler to just not have it gaining?
It also makes Possession less nasty.
For me it feels more like the character is simply improving, not turning into a different character. Gaining would feel like I'm getting something different.
True, but the same could be said of Urchin/Mercenary.
If you had the technology at the time, would you use the "exchange" mechanic for Hermit and Urchin?
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Do you think there's any chance you would sell a pack of just blank cards (so people could make a whole kingdom out of their own fan cards, or whatever)?
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Do you think there's any chance you would sell a pack of just blank cards (so people could make a whole kingdom out of their own fan cards, or whatever)?
I'm not sure where they get them, but the BGG store sells blanks.
http://boardgamegeekstore.com/products/dominion-blank-cards
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Why doesn't exchanging cause you to gain the new cards? Is it to lower their power level by removing Royal Seal, Traveling Fair, or Watchtower combos? Or did you feel like it would be simpler to just not have it gaining?
I obv. didn't want to trash the Travellers because it would reduce your ability to go up the path, or require 40 more cards. It made no sense to both trash and return them, it's just extra words to confuse people. Since you weren't trashing them, I automatically preferred not gaining them, it seems simpler. Gaining them but not trashing them just seems weird to me.
Since they are people getting better there's a poetry to not gaining/trashing, hooray. And to fit on the cards it's all just this magic word "exchange" you have to look up anyway.
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If you had the technology at the time, would you use the "exchange" mechanic for Hermit and Urchin?
Well people prefer it when I don't define new terms for them to learn. So, I dunno. Maybe. If they were in Adventures they would be "exchange."
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Do you think there's any chance you would sell a pack of just blank cards (so people could make a whole kingdom out of their own fan cards, or whatever)?
I'm not sure where they get them, but the BGG store sells blanks.
http://boardgamegeekstore.com/products/dominion-blank-cards
Hasbro prints them! So if you have these you can tell what exactly the difference is with that 90 degree rotation.
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Non-Supply cards usually cost $0, but the upgraded Travellers cost $3, $4, etc. Is there any particular reason why you decided to break the pattern here?
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Non-Supply cards usually cost $0, but the upgraded Travellers cost $3, $4, etc. Is there any particular reason why you decided to break the pattern here?
To help reinforce the upgrading concept; you trade in your $3 and get a $4. It automatically puts them in an order on the table. You know. Obv. the cost then makes a difference for various interactions, but that didn't matter to me so much.
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So you've said before that, though you might have done certain cards differently knowing what you know now, such as Throne Room saying "you may", you'd never actually change them, for a number of reasons. However, there are a couple cards that actually have wrong wordings, such as Envoy saying "draw" instead of "put in your hand" - would you ever change those, just to make their wording consistent with their actual effects, since how they play would not be changed?
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So you've said before that, though you might have done certain cards differently knowing what you know now, such as Throne Room saying "you may", you'd never actually change them, for a number of reasons. However, there are a couple cards that actually have wrong wordings, such as Envoy saying "draw" instead of "put in your hand" - would you ever change those, just to make their wording consistent with their actual effects, since how they play would not be changed?
Maybe, it would be up to Jay. He might think people would feel entitled to getting sent a free fixed wording card and would sufficiently want to avoid dealing with those people that he wouldn't want the change.
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So you've said before that, though you might have done certain cards differently knowing what you know now, such as Throne Room saying "you may", you'd never actually change them, for a number of reasons. However, there are a couple cards that actually have wrong wordings, such as Envoy saying "draw" instead of "put in your hand" - would you ever change those, just to make their wording consistent with their actual effects, since how they play would not be changed?
Maybe, it would be up to Jay. He might think people would feel entitled to getting sent a free fixed wording card and would sufficiently want to avoid dealing with those people that he wouldn't want the change.
What about the people that would pay a couple dollars to have a new card?
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So you've said before that, though you might have done certain cards differently knowing what you know now, such as Throne Room saying "you may", you'd never actually change them, for a number of reasons. However, there are a couple cards that actually have wrong wordings, such as Envoy saying "draw" instead of "put in your hand" - would you ever change those, just to make their wording consistent with their actual effects, since how they play would not be changed?
Maybe, it would be up to Jay. He might think people would feel entitled to getting sent a free fixed wording card and would sufficiently want to avoid dealing with those people that he wouldn't want the change.
What about the people that would pay a couple dollars to have a new card?
That feels rhetorical?
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So you've said before that, though you might have done certain cards differently knowing what you know now, such as Throne Room saying "you may", you'd never actually change them, for a number of reasons. However, there are a couple cards that actually have wrong wordings, such as Envoy saying "draw" instead of "put in your hand" - would you ever change those, just to make their wording consistent with their actual effects, since how they play would not be changed?
Maybe, it would be up to Jay. He might think people would feel entitled to getting sent a free fixed wording card and would sufficiently want to avoid dealing with those people that he wouldn't want the change.
What about the people that would pay a couple dollars to have a new card?
That feels rhetorical?
How do you feel about rhetorical questions?
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Haven't we been over this already?
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Haven't we been over this already?
If you don't like the topic, shouldn't you refrain from feeding it by asking rhetorical questions?
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Haven't we been over this already?
If you don't like the topic, shouldn't you refrain from feeding it by asking rhetorical questions?
Well, that wouldn't be any fun, would it?
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Haven't we been over this already?
If you don't like the topic, shouldn't you refrain from feeding it by asking rhetorical questions?
Well, that wouldn't be any fun, would it?
I am afraid you've dropped the ball there, that is a question tag, not a rhetorical question.
But then again, who cares?
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Why has this thread suddenly become an homage to Tom Stoppard?
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Why has this thread suddenly become an homage to Tom Stoppard?
We're more of the memes, forum games and edge cases school. Well, we can do you forum games and memes without the edge cases, and we can do you forum games and edge cases without the memes, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you memes and edge cases without the forum games. Forum games are compulsory. They're all forum games, you see.
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In the wiki article on Raze I read a quote from you in the trivia, "For a while we tried a card in the Apprentice/Salvager family that gave you a mix of +1's of your choice for trashing a card." You said it was "cwazy". Could you explain what the card did, how much it cost and what was so cwazy about it? I would think the idea sounds fine. What were your experiences with such cards?
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You've said before that all mechanics introduced in Adventures would be up for grabs for future expansions - how exactly would you deal with new Reserves requiring the Tavern mat without reprinting the mat?
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In the wiki article on Raze I read a quote from you in the trivia, "For a while we tried a card in the Apprentice/Salvager family that gave you a mix of +1's of your choice for trashing a card." You said it was "cwazy". Could you explain what the card did, how much it cost and what was so cwazy about it? I would think the idea sounds fine. What were your experiences with such cards?
The most crazy part, surprisingly, was the ability to get a ton of +Buys. The power of +Buy is the power to end the game, and nowhere was that more apparent than with this outtake.
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In the wiki article on Raze I read a quote from you in the trivia, "For a while we tried a card in the Apprentice/Salvager family that gave you a mix of +1's of your choice for trashing a card." You said it was "cwazy". Could you explain what the card did, how much it cost and what was so cwazy about it? I would think the idea sounds fine. What were your experiences with such cards?
The initial card was cost $2, trash this or a card from your hand, per $1 the trashed card cost, your choice of +1 Action +1 Buy +1 Card +$1.
It did everything for you - it got rid of junk, drew your deck, gave you the +Actions and +Buys you needed, made $. There would be games where you had a way to get cards to feed it and you would have all these crazy turns, where you sat working out, okay I trash this Gold and take +1 Action +1 Buy +4 Cards. Other cards got in on the act and did their own broken things and got fixed or taken out, and this card kept trying to survive and acted like the other cards were the problem. They were not though.
On the surface it seemed reasonable because you are down a card or action compared to Apprentice. But the flexibility was huge. And as LF notes the +Buys were surprisingly powerful; there kept being combos where you cashed in on that one way or another. Like at one point Quest didn't require discarding, just having the cards. You could gain a giant pile of Gold and then burn through it next turn to draw your deck and make lots of $ and Buys. There was the duration card that gained you a Gold if you bought the named type (applying to everyone else too but to you on two turns); same deck, takes a lot of +Buys one turn, gain infinite Gold and explode.
The card was fun, that was part of why it hung around so long. It's great getting that immense flexibility. It's fun trashing good cards and having it be the move. The decks where you gained lots of Golds and ate them were high skill.
I then tried weakened versions and they were also too strong. I tried a card that just gave you +1 Action and +1 Buy per $1 the trashed card cost; those were the two things not covered by previous cards. And I had another version that was just +Buys but a different size/shape. It turned out that with no broken combos, the +Buys were still a problem. Just +Actions didn't seem compelling but I tried that too, just in case we liked it.
It's possible there's some doable thing along these lines - drop the +Buys, make it expensive, no self-trashing. Trader's "gain a Silver" can try to get in there. There is also the issue though of how it compares to other cards - it doesn't want to just look awful next to Salvager and Apprentice. The flexibility doesn't look great next to always getting an extra Buy or Action.
Anyway we gave the concept endless chances.
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You've said before that all mechanics introduced in Adventures would be up for grabs for future expansions - how exactly would you deal with new Reserves requiring the Tavern mat without reprinting the mat?
If there were new Reserve cards there would need to be a new Tavern mat. Probably a different image so people from the new cards could be sitting there.
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You've said before that all mechanics introduced in Adventures would be up for grabs for future expansions - how exactly would you deal with new Reserves requiring the Tavern mat without reprinting the mat?
If there were new Reserve cards there would need to be a new Tavern mat. Probably a different image so people from the new cards could be sitting there.
And now is when I realize that the people sitting at the Tavern are on the Reserve Cards. (Ratcatcher, Guide, and Wine Merchant; right?)
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You've said before that all mechanics introduced in Adventures would be up for grabs for future expansions - how exactly would you deal with new Reserves requiring the Tavern mat without reprinting the mat?
If there were new Reserve cards there would need to be a new Tavern mat. Probably a different image so people from the new cards could be sitting there.
And now is when I realize that the people sitting at the Tavern are on the Reserve Cards. (Ratcatcher, Guide, and Wine Merchant; right?)
It's no coincidence that all three of those cards are illustrated by the same artist.
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And now is when I realize that the people sitting at the Tavern are on the Reserve Cards. (Ratcatcher, Guide, and Wine Merchant; right?)
There are three people there? I thought it was just the Wine Merchant, on his own, in the dark.
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Rats, Port, and Magpie all have a bit of a similar thing going on, but only Magpie didn't get the larger supply pile. Any reason for that?
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Rats, Port, and Magpie all have a bit of a similar thing going on, but only Magpie didn't get the larger supply pile. Any reason for that?
Rats got the extra cards to make it harder to get out of being overrun. Port got the extra cards I believe so that they can be split evenly in a 3p game. Magpie had no reason to have extra cards, and more Magpies would only make what is already considered to be a very strong $4 even stronger.
Donald: Do you mind us answering questions directed to you?
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Donald: Do you mind us answering questions directed to you?
Yes.
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And now is when I realize that the people sitting at the Tavern are on the Reserve Cards. (Ratcatcher, Guide, and Wine Merchant; right?)
There are three people there? I thought it was just the Wine Merchant, on his own, in the dark.
That hallucinogenic wine, maaaaaaan
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Oh right, that too.
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Rats, Port, and Magpie all have a bit of a similar thing going on, but only Magpie didn't get the larger supply pile. Any reason for that?
Rats got the extra cards to make it harder to get out of being overrun. Port got the extra cards I believe so that they can be split evenly in a 3p game. Magpie had no reason to have extra cards, and more Magpies would only make what is already considered to be a very strong $4 even stronger.
Donald: Do you mind us answering questions directed to you?
Rats got the extra cards for balance reasons. It's not just balance for the person buying Rats; with 10 Rats, the person not buying Rats would sometimes snag a late Rats for a downside-free trasher. Now they have to wait longer for that and so it's less useful.
Port got extra cards to divide evenly in 2-player games. Hooray, it also worked for 3-player games. This was Sir Martin's suggestion.
Magpie didn't have these reasons pushing for more cards. I would not say that more Magpies would make it stronger across the board. However some games there's Training or Vineyard or something, and then it's good that there aren't more of them.
I don't mind when people correctly answer questions for me. On BGG I tip people who nail the answer; they are saving me time.
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I don't mind when people correctly answer questions for me. On BGG I tip people who nail the answer; they are saving me time.
What are we doing on this forum? We could be making coin!
Well, GeekGold.
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In the Adventures Secret History, you mention a reserve card that was cut that would give you a +Buy when called. Why did you decide to take it out?
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In the Adventures Secret History, you mention a reserve card that was cut that would give you a +Buy when called. Why did you decide to take it out?
The card I had was cost $2, +2 Cards, goes on Tavern mat, call for +1 Buy. We would just call it to get the card back, whether or not the +1 Buy mattered. It did not do much for me.
I didn't have to have a Reserve +Buy and didn't like this one and so just dropped it. I probably could have gotten something usable, maybe just a cantrip +Buy later; I didn't need it though.
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ban?
I think he just implied "fun" and "6 player games" can work together.
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Maybe 6-player games could work if you doubled the size of every pile.
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6-player games could work if you had two more players and played single elimination 1v1.
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ignoring the juxtaposition of "fun" and "6 player," this is only a 1/64 chance without Borrow or Baker available.
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ignoring the juxtaposition of "fun" and "6 player," this is only a 1/64 chance without Borrow or Baker available.
Isn't it 1/128? Wow, i'm surprised as to how unlikely that actually is.
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ignoring the juxtaposition of "fun" and "6 player," this is only a 1/64 chance without Borrow or Baker available.
Isn't it 1/128? Wow, i'm surprised as to how unlikely that actually is.
It's 1/2^6 which is 1/64
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Ok well it can happen before the first shuffle every time; even without weird things like Lost City and Noble Brigand.
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ignoring the juxtaposition of "fun" and "6 player," this is only a 1/64 chance without Borrow or Baker available.
Isn't it 1/128? Wow, i'm surprised as to how unlikely that actually is.
It's 1/2^6 which is 1/64
Wait...
1st player: 1/2
2nd: 1/4
3rd: 1/8
4th: 1/16
5th: 1/32
6th: 1/64
I can't explain how i got to 128...
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ignoring the juxtaposition of "fun" and "6 player," this is only a 1/64 chance without Borrow or Baker available.
Isn't it 1/128? Wow, i'm surprised as to how unlikely that actually is.
It's 1/2^6 which is 1/64
Wait...
1st player: 1/2
2nd: 1/4
3rd: 1/8
4th: 1/16
5th: 1/32
6th: 1/64
I can't explain how i got to 128...
7 players?
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ignoring the juxtaposition of "fun" and "6 player," this is only a 1/64 chance without Borrow or Baker available.
Isn't it 1/128? Wow, i'm surprised as to how unlikely that actually is.
It's 1/2^6 which is 1/64
Wait...
1st player: 1/2
2nd: 1/4
3rd: 1/8
4th: 1/16
5th: 1/32
6th: 1/64
I can't explain how i got to 128...
7 players?
I... I used my fingers to count... And... Somehow i assumed my right hand had only four fingers, so i had to count two on the other one... :o
Really, that was me having one of those super stupid moments, where your logic is fundamentally flawed but you don't realize it.
I'm not actually lacking any fingers, by the way.
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I once tried to apply the Right-hand rule with my left hand during an exam because I was holding my pen with the other hand. Needless to say, I felt quite silly when I realized why my electrons were flying the wrong way.
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I once tried to apply the Right-hand rule with my left hand during an exam because I was holding my pen with the other hand. Needless to say, I felt quite silly when I realized why my electrons were flying the wrong way.
I can't count the number of times I've done this. It's worse to do it when you're the instructor, though.
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I once tried to apply the Right-hand rule with my left hand during an exam because I was holding my pen with the other hand. Needless to say, I felt quite silly when I realized why my electrons were flying the wrong way.
I can't count the number of times I've done this.
Not even if you used both hands?
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I once tried to apply the Right-hand rule with my left hand during an exam because I was holding my pen with the other hand. Needless to say, I felt quite silly when I realized why my electrons were flying the wrong way.
I can't count the number of times I've done this. It's worse to do it when you're the instructor, though.
You have to remember to use the stage-right-hand rule.
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ignoring the juxtaposition of "fun" and "6 player," this is only a 1/64 chance without Borrow or Baker available.
Isn't it 1/128? Wow, i'm surprised as to how unlikely that actually is.
It's 1/2^6 which is 1/64
Isn't it something like (5/12)^6 because you might hit 5/2?
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ignoring the juxtaposition of "fun" and "6 player," this is only a 1/64 chance without Borrow or Baker available.
Isn't it 1/128? Wow, i'm surprised as to how unlikely that actually is.
It's 1/2^6 which is 1/64
Isn't it something like (5/12)^6 because you might hit 5/2?
You have 4 possible openings, two of which can buy Port on turn one. What's more, 5/2 and 2/5 are equally likely, with only order mattering, and the same applies to 3/4 and 4/3. Therefore you can simplify down to 50% for an opening that can afford $4 or more.
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What is your least favorite card?
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ignoring the juxtaposition of "fun" and "6 player," this is only a 1/64 chance without Borrow or Baker available.
Isn't it 1/128? Wow, i'm surprised as to how unlikely that actually is.
It's 1/2^6 which is 1/64
Isn't it something like (5/12)^6 because you might hit 5/2?
You have 4 possible openings, two of which can buy Port on turn one. What's more, 5/2 and 2/5 are equally likely, with only order mattering, and the same applies to 3/4 and 4/3. Therefore you can simplify down to 50% for an opening that can afford $4 or more.
But why wouldn't you spend all of your money, especially in the opening?
That was embarrassing.
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ignoring the juxtaposition of "fun" and "6 player," this is only a 1/64 chance without Borrow or Baker available.
Isn't it 1/128? Wow, i'm surprised as to how unlikely that actually is.
It's 1/2^6 which is 1/64
Isn't it something like (5/12)^6 because you might hit 5/2?
You have 4 possible openings, two of which can buy Port on turn one. What's more, 5/2 and 2/5 are equally likely, with only order mattering, and the same applies to 3/4 and 4/3. Therefore you can simplify down to 50% for an opening that can afford $4 or more.
But why wouldn't you spend all of your money, especially in the opening?
I mean, if the Port pile's going to empty on turn 1, you don't want to miss your chance to get a couple of them!
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Port got 12 to get an even split in 2-player games.
Conveniently, it also splits in 3p games. And 6p, I guess. Gotta keep those 6-player games in mind. Can't have them getting unbalanced.
Port has a fun interaction with 6 player games. The pile can be easily emptied on turn 1.
Ignoring the juxtaposition of "fun" and "6 player," this is only a 1/64 chance without Borrow or Baker available.
Isn't it 1/128? Wow, i'm surprised as to how unlikely that actually is.
It's 1/2^6 which is 1/64
Isn't it something like (5/12)^6 because you might hit 5/2?
You have 4 possible openings, two of which can buy Port on turn one. What's more, 5/2 and 2/5 are equally likely, with only order mattering, and the same applies to 3/4 and 4/3. Therefore you can simplify down to 50% for an opening that can afford $4 or more.
But why wouldn't you spend all of your money, especially in the opening?
That was embarrassing.
Not that it's generally a good idea to buy Port with $5 on turn 1, but it's never a good rule to automatically spend the most you can each turn; it can easily be the right decision to buy a card that costs less than what you can afford.
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Hey, if it's my only chance to get one (two) because they are running out, I'd totally open port.
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What is your least favorite card?
The card I spent the most time hating was Pirate Ship. There were always people convinced it was crazy broken powerful. Having to endlessly prove them wrong, with the threat of them saying "aha I was right all along, wow you really blew it" if the card was ever any good just sucked all the joy out of those games. I am over it though, people worked out just how good Pirate Ship is.
I veto Oracle the most. It just ruins playtesting by endlessly flipping over whatever new card you wanted to test.
The card I am most embarrassed by is Rebuild. Scrying Pool by contrast is a card I blew it on (the grafted-on attack part makes it less cool, way more wordy, and contributes to Alchemy games being slow) but which I still enjoy playing with.
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This is admittedly a silly question, but when naming Adventures, did you consider or worry in the slightest about confusion with the Adventures challenges of Dominion Online Formerly Known as Goko?
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What is your favorite card name? Or the card name you're most proud of? Are there any card names you'd change if you could?
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Storyteller introduces the mechanic of using your coins on something else than a card (which i'm calling "special pay" for this post). It seems to me that "overpay" from Guilds behaves a lot like as a combination of this "special pay" mechanic with the "on-buy" mechanic. Like:
"When you buy this, you may pay any amount of $ [...]"
So i'm wondering: Is that the same? And would you have solved overpay differently if you had known Storyteller would come?
Edit: The reason why i'm asking is that this variant would have meant one less mechanic. But maybe having two mechanics interact is just as complex. And i guess one might argue it would mislead people into thinking they could pay less than the card's cost...?
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This is admittedly a silly question, but when naming Adventures, did you consider or worry in the slightest about confusion with the Adventures challenges of Dominion Online Formerly Known as Goko?
When it came up, I said, they will just change that to Campaigns, which is what I've always called them anyway. And at some point I said, Jeff, change those to Campaigns. And in fact they will be called Campaigns.
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What is your least favorite card?
The card I spent the most time hating was Pirate Ship. There were always people convinced it was crazy broken powerful. Having to endlessly prove them wrong, with the threat of them saying "aha I was right all along, wow you really blew it" if the card was ever any good just sucked all the joy out of those games. I am over it though, people worked out just how good Pirate Ship is.
I veto Oracle the most. It just ruins playtesting by endlessly flipping over whatever new card you wanted to test.
The card I am most embarrassed by is Rebuild. Scrying Pool by contrast is a card I blew it on (the grafted-on attack part makes it less cool, way more wordy, and contributes to Alchemy games being slow) but which I still enjoy playing with.
Sorry if this has been asked before: have you ever considered issuing an official fix for those cards (Rebuild in particular) or just outright banning them from "official Dominion"?
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What is your favorite card name? Or the card name you're most proud of? Are there any card names you'd change if you could?
Well without pouring work into this, the one that immediately comes to mind as a favorite is Band of Misfits. I wouldn't say I'm proud of the card names; neither am I ashamed. I'd probably change several names in the main set and Intrigue; I started worrying way more about names as of Seaside.
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And at some point I said, Jeff, change those to Campaigns. And in fact they will be called Campaigns.
Such power. Does it ever get to your head?
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"When you buy this, you may pay any amount of $ [...]"
So i'm wondering: Is that the same? And would you have solved overpay differently if you had known Storyteller would come?
That's the same mechanically (except the $0 and $P cases depend on the exact phrasing). I like how I did overpay though. It seems less confusing than Storyteller.
In the murky past, Prosperity had cards that let you pay $ (including something related to Storyteller). The cards died for various reasons. After that I went with "discard a treasure" instead as a simpler thing. It didn't seem confusing to pay extra for cards in Guilds and there it is; people ask "can I overpay $0" but of course you don't constantly want to do that. Then I finally went for the full-on confusing thing with Storyteller.
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Sorry if this has been asked before: have you ever considered issuing an official fix for those cards (Rebuild in particular) or just outright banning them from "official Dominion"?
It seems possible that someday wordings could be tweaked on older cards to make them clearer, Pirate Ship being a stand-out example (the interaction with coin tokens from Guilds). We haven't talked about doing it though. We have not considered actual functional changes to older cards; we would just replace them with new cards that were similar and better-to-have-exist. We haven't considered actually replacing cards except in the main set; that may happen someday if I ever do the work.
Banning cards makes no sense. It's not Magic. If your group doesn't like Rebuild, don't play with it. If you are running a tournament, you can leave out Rebuild if you want. When I am called on to make lists of cards for tournaments, I leave out several cards, mainly ones that slow down play, like Spy.
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On a related note, what do you think of the Magic structure, where various cards/sets are banned from certain formats? (I don't mean for Dominion, but for Magic in its own right.)
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This is admittedly a silly question, but when naming Adventures, did you consider or worry in the slightest about confusion with the Adventures challenges of Dominion Online Formerly Known as Goko?
When it came up, I said, they will just change that to Campaigns, which is what I've always called them anyway. And at some point I said, Jeff, change those to Campaigns. And in fact they will be called Campaigns.
But what if you make an expansion called "Dominion: Campaigns"?
See what I did there?
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And at some point I said, Jeff, change those to Campaigns. And in fact they will be called Campaigns.
Such power. Does it ever get to your head?
Watch it bub. I am this close to having theory change your name to Memescouter.
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On a related note, what do you think of the Magic structure, where various cards/sets are banned from certain formats? (I don't mean for Dominion, but for Magic in its own right.)
For individual cards in tournament formats, they obv. need to ban the minimum number to have tournaments not suck, and they try to, and the minimum number is not always zero. As they say, they have to take risks to have exciting cards, and that means sometimes they'll blow it.
For sets rotating, there are different perspectives.
- For Wizards of the Coast, it makes a lot of sense to rotate what sets are legal; it propels the cash cow.
- For tournaments, it's good because otherwise you solve the formats.
- For home play, you can just ignore it all and should, and make an endless series of themed cubes.
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But what if you make an expansion called "Dominion: Campaigns"?
See what I did there?
It doesn't seem likely; it sounds attack-themed, and I don't think fans want an attack-themed set. I am prepared though to endless harass Making Fun as to what they call the campaigns.
Distant Lands was called Campaign for a while. I don't think that would have made me not want to call the campaigns campaigns though.
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Have you ever considered an Attack-Victory card?
(And by that i don't mean Dame Josephine)
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Will you do an Outtakes article for Adventures?
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Have you ever considered an Attack-Victory card?
(And by that i don't mean Dame Josephine)
Pirate Ship started out as an Attack-Victory card worth VP based on how many treasures it had stolen.
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Will you do an Outtakes article for Adventures?
I haven't been planning on it. It's fun to look at the pictures, but it wouldn't have much if any new information.
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Will you do an Outtakes article for Adventures?
I haven't been planning on it. It's fun to look at the pictures, but it wouldn't have much if any new information.
I saved a selection of my outtake images for Adventures. Let me know if you want me to cobble them together for this; I don't mind doing that work.
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Would it be okay to release the images from isotropic to put up on the wiki gallery, like with Prince and Guilds?
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Would it be okay to release the images from isotropic to put up on the wiki gallery, like with Prince and Guilds?
I don't mind the images being on the wiki (although many are probably copyrighted things that you would in some sense need permission to use). I'm not going to okay you bothering Doug about it though.
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Would it be okay to release the images from isotropic to put up on the wiki gallery, like with Prince and Guilds?
I don't mind the images being on the wiki (although many are probably copyrighted things that you would in some sense need permission to use). I'm not going to okay you bothering Doug about it though.
Oh, I would probably bother one of the playtesters. Jsh, LF, AdamH, etc.
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A question about Raze was raised here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13358):
Say set A is the set containing only the Raze (this), and set B is the set containing all cards in your hand.
Does Raze ask you to select exactly one card from the union of A and B? Or does it ask you to select one of the sets A or B, then select exactly one card from the set you chose?
In other words, does Raze just have you make a single choice, or does it first have you make a choice between two groups of cards, then potentially have you choose a card from that group?
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A question about Raze was raised here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13358):
Say set A is the set containing only the Raze (this), and set B is the set containing all cards in your hand.
Does Raze ask you to select exactly one card from the union of A and B? Or does it ask you to select one of the sets A or B, then select exactly one card from the set you chose?
In other words, does Raze just have you make a single choice, or does it first have you make a choice between two groups of cards, then potentially have you choose a card from that group?
It says 'trash this card OR a card from your hand.' They are mutually exclusive. For example, if Raze was the only card in my hand, and I played it, I don't think you're forced to trash Raze, because the two sets are exclusive choices. You can choose to trash a 'phantom' card, much like you gaining a curse from Torturer if there is no curse to give. Obviously, you get no benefit, and would want to do this if say, you played Black Market, played your treasures, and played Raze with no cards left so when you bought something, you wouldn't top deck anything to Haunted Woods. Pretty rare scenario.
At least, that's what it logically seems to me
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A question about Raze was raised here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13358):
Say set A is the set containing only the Raze (this), and set B is the set containing all cards in your hand.
Does Raze ask you to select exactly one card from the union of A and B? Or does it ask you to select one of the sets A or B, then select exactly one card from the set you chose?
In other words, does Raze just have you make a single choice, or does it first have you make a choice between two groups of cards, then potentially have you choose a card from that group?
Raze is the same as "Choose one: Trash this; or trash a card from your hand." As always you can pick an option you then won't be able to do.
I see the rules forum guys.
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A question about Raze was raised here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13358):
Say set A is the set containing only the Raze (this), and set B is the set containing all cards in your hand.
Does Raze ask you to select exactly one card from the union of A and B? Or does it ask you to select one of the sets A or B, then select exactly one card from the set you chose?
In other words, does Raze just have you make a single choice, or does it first have you make a choice between two groups of cards, then potentially have you choose a card from that group?
It says 'trash this card OR a card from your hand.' They are mutually exclusive. For example, if Raze was the only card in my hand, and I played it, I don't think you're forced to trash Raze, because the two sets are exclusive choices. You can choose to trash a 'phantom' card, much like you gaining a curse from Torturer if there is no curse to give. Obviously, you get no benefit, and would want to do this if say, you played Black Market, played your treasures, and played Raze with no cards left so when you bought something, you wouldn't top deck anything to Haunted Woods. Pretty rare scenario.
At least, that's what it logically seems to me
That's if you read it as "(trash this card) or (trash a card from your hand)", but you could also read it as "trash (this card or a card from your hand)".
Can I get some free upvotes for using quotation marks "correctly"?
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Clearly you need a comma there to delimit:
Trash, this or a card from your hand.
(I mean to do the one that actually isn't what Raze does.)
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I'm really happy that I spawned a half-page discussion on six-player games in the Ask Donald X. thread.
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Are you happy that I spawned a half-page discussion on six-player games in your Q&A thread?
Fixed that for you.
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Have you noticed f.ds people incorporating some of your speech mannerisms to their own posts? Does that bother you / amuse you / leave you completely indifferent?
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Have you noticed f.ds people incorporating some of your speech mannerisms to their own posts? Does that bother you / amuse you / leave you completely indifferent?
...but not as indifferent as more indifferent people...
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Have you noticed f.ds people incorporating some of your speech mannerisms to their own posts? Does that bother you / amuse you / leave you completely indifferent?
I made a thread about this a long time ago: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1175
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Have you noticed f.ds people incorporating some of your speech mannerisms to their own posts? Does that bother you / amuse you / leave you completely indifferent?
I don't really notice; what I say just feels normal to me. "Man" is singled out in the linked thread and well I didn't come up with that you know. Or saying "you know" at the end of a sentence. The semicolons might be me. I picked up some surfer slang at some point; really what language doesn't benefit from casual honorifics. I probably lean on 2nd person more than most people; I also like choose-your-own-adventures and the Gene Wolfe story The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories. I might type more conversationally than most people. I edit. Anyway no.
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They say that people who sit at a table with Bill Gates start mimicking his odd swinging motions he does while sitting. Donald X is the Bill Gates of the board game community.
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Have you noticed f.ds people incorporating some of your speech mannerisms to their own posts? Does that bother you / amuse you / leave you completely indifferent?
I am soooooo guilty of this, especially recently. I just feel it makes talking about cards (or things in general) easier if i don't have to stay completely with what written language allows.
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They say that people who sit at a table with Bill Gates start mimicking his odd swinging motions he does while sitting. Donald X is the Bill Gates of the board game community.
Then who is Steve Jobs?
Probably someone who was great at Dominion but quit.
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Have you noticed f.ds people incorporating some of your speech mannerisms to their own posts? Does that bother you / amuse you / leave you completely indifferent?
I don't really notice; what I say just feels normal to me. "Man" is singled out in the linked thread and well I didn't come up with that you know. Or saying "you know" at the end of a sentence. The semicolons might be me. I picked up some surfer slang at some point; really what language doesn't benefit from casual honorifics. I probably lean on 2nd person more than most people; I also like choose-your-own-adventures and the Gene Wolfe story The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories. I might type more conversationally than most people. I edit. Anyway no.
I had hoped it would please you, to hear this.
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Have you noticed f.ds people incorporating some of your speech mannerisms to their own posts? Does that bother you / amuse you / leave you completely indifferent?
I don't really notice; what I say just feels normal to me. "Man" is singled out in the linked thread and well I didn't come up with that you know. Or saying "you know" at the end of a sentence. The semicolons might be me. I picked up some surfer slang at some point; really what language doesn't benefit from casual honorifics. I probably lean on 2nd person more than most people; I also like choose-your-own-adventures and the Gene Wolfe story The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories. I might type more conversationally than most people. I edit. Anyway no.
I had hoped it would please you, to hear this.
I thought it would please him, but you know, threads have to be read, Jay wants more games, and from time to time a man's got to live; so yeah, where should all the time spent on noticing come from? A time bag i stored in Donald's basement? I mean, sure, a time bag would be nice, but man, he wouldn't have to do boardgames if he had one of those, and either way it's nice that he does, so no more questions about speech patterns or time bags. Seriously, why would anyone want to talk about time bags?
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I thought it would please him but you know threads have to be read, Jay wants more games and well a man's got to live; so yeah where should all the time spent on noticing come from. A time bag i stored in Donald's basement? I mean huh sure a time bag would be nice but man he wouldn't have to do boardgames if he had one of those and either way it's nice that he does so no more questions about speech patterns or time bags seriously why would anyone want to talk about time bags.
FTFY.
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They say that people who sit at a table with Bill Gates start mimicking his odd swinging motions he does while sitting. Donald X is the Bill Gates of the board game community.
Obv.
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How do you pronounce "obv." in your head? I say "obb-vee".
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How do you pronounce "obv." in your head? I say "obb-vee".
I pronounce it "obviously".
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How do you pronounce "obv." in your head? I say "obb-vee".
I pronounce it like "obviously" but without the "iously".
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Have you noticed f.ds people incorporating some of your speech mannerisms to their own posts? Does that bother you / amuse you / leave you completely indifferent?
I don't really notice; what I say just feels normal to me. "Man" is singled out in the linked thread and well I didn't come up with that you know. Or saying "you know" at the end of a sentence. The semicolons might be me. I picked up some surfer slang at some point; really what language doesn't benefit from casual honorifics. I probably lean on 2nd person more than most people; I also like choose-your-own-adventures and the Gene Wolfe story The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories. I might type more conversationally than most people. I edit. Anyway no.
I had hoped it would please you, to hear this.
Well it's nice to be a mover and shaker, a dreamer of dreams. From my perspective though, someone else was saying "man" and I picked it up from them. You're all copying whoever that was. I did get to pick a package; when I started saying "dude" I didn't also pick up "righteous."
In the past I have had more unusual language. There was a period where I thought it was funny to switch the order of words in certain cases - "youngness is the night's" rather than "the night is young." I said "yorpness" in place of conversational nothings - "Hi, how are you?" "Yorpness." That somehow caught on with one other guy. There was no question that he was copying someone else, I was having an effect there. In place of "how are you" these days I say "how's every little thing." I feel like it suggests that I actually care, due to not being the usual idiom; the same way that Sarah Silverman saying "what the cock is that shit" is more vulgar than "what the fuck is that shit." I got "how's every little thing" from Bugs Bunny.
Instead of "fine" or whatever I used to make up surreal answers to "how are you," then reuse the best ones. "I feel like one of a set of identical triplets, after the other two commit suicide." "You know that sudden destructive change in perspective that sometimes occurs when you're looking at a drawing of a vase, and it transforms itself into the silhouettes of two hideous heads? I feel like that." Some of them are long, a little story. After one of those the punch line is, "and how are you?"
The wiki says I'm known for my unique language and well, it's great that sometimes in life you can distinguish yourself effortlessly. I mean what am I saying, sometimes I labor over posts, but stuff like "I mean what am I saying" just comes out on the first try. I do like to think of myself as a writer; I've written 3.8 screenplays, some songs, and a short story for each song title on Bee Thousand. And hey all those blurbs.
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How do you pronounce "obv." in your head? I say "obb-vee".
I pronounce it like "obviously" but without the "iously".
That is what I do.
"Obv." can't be that exotic; man, which internet is this.
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I thought it would please him but you know threads have to be read, Jay wants more games and well a man's got to live; so yeah where should all the time spent on noticing come from. A time bag i stored in Donald's basement? I mean huh sure a time bag would be nice but man he wouldn't have to do boardgames if he had one of those and either way it's nice that he does so no more questions about speech patterns or time bags seriously why would anyone want to talk about time bags.
FTFY.
It's "uh" not "huh." See how little effect I'm actually having.
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I'm going to guess "Kicker of Elves" has the best story, but I may be reaching. Can you confirm this?
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Banning cards makes no sense. It's not Magic. If your group doesn't like Rebuild, don't play with it. If you are running a tournament, you can leave out Rebuild if you want. When I am called on to make lists of cards for tournaments, I leave out several cards, mainly ones that slow down play, like Spy.
What if "your group" is the rated online community, or some other group where "if your group doesn't like X, don't play with it" isn't feasible? I have to imagine that pretty much anyone who asks you about banning cards must play most of their games in a group like that. If they didn't, then "don't play with cards you dislike" is just the obvious answer (not to mention you've said it many times on these forums).
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In the past I have had more unusual language. There was a period where I thought it was funny to switch the order of words in certain cases - "youngness is the night's" rather than "the night is young." I said "yorpness" in place of conversational nothings - "Hi, how are you?" "Yorpness." That somehow caught on with one other guy. There was no question that he was copying someone else, I was having an effect there. In place of "how are you" these days I say "how's every little thing." I feel like it suggests that I actually care, due to not being the usual idiom; the same way that Sarah Silverman saying "what the cock is that shit" is more vulgar than "what the fuck is that shit." I got "how's every little thing" from Bugs Bunny.
Do you actually care?
Also, does "yorpness" have an etymology or was it just a random sound that seemed to fit?
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I'm going to guess "Kicker of Elves" has the best story, but I may be reaching. Can you confirm this?
It does not. I like You're Not an Airplane best, then Smothered in Hugs. Kicker of Elves is one of the worst ones, with Yours to Keep and A Big Fan of the Bigpen. If I were considering submitting it somewhere I would write new ones for those three.
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Banning cards makes no sense. It's not Magic. If your group doesn't like Rebuild, don't play with it. If you are running a tournament, you can leave out Rebuild if you want. When I am called on to make lists of cards for tournaments, I leave out several cards, mainly ones that slow down play, like Spy.
What if "your group" is the rated online community, or some other group where "if your group doesn't like X, don't play with it" isn't feasible? I have to imagine that pretty much anyone who asks you about banning cards must play most of their games in a group like that. If they didn't, then "don't play with cards you dislike" is just the obvious answer (not to mention you've said it many times on these forums).
Well the online ratings have to be what the people who like online ratings want out of them. I personally would allow a small list of banned cards. It has to be small so there's no ability to tailor supposedly random kingdoms with it. But I mean, if you don't like Rebuild and your opponent doesn't like Rebuild then you shouldn't have to play with it online just to get into the ratings. That's gotta make the most sense for MF too; you can just not buy Dark Ages and for sure we don't want to encourage that.
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In the past I have had more unusual language. There was a period where I thought it was funny to switch the order of words in certain cases - "youngness is the night's" rather than "the night is young." I said "yorpness" in place of conversational nothings - "Hi, how are you?" "Yorpness." That somehow caught on with one other guy. There was no question that he was copying someone else, I was having an effect there. In place of "how are you" these days I say "how's every little thing." I feel like it suggests that I actually care, due to not being the usual idiom; the same way that Sarah Silverman saying "what the cock is that shit" is more vulgar than "what the fuck is that shit." I got "how's every little thing" from Bugs Bunny.
Do you actually care?
Also, does "yorpness" have an etymology or was it just a random sound that seemed to fit?
If I ask then I care! If I don't care, I don't think of saying "how are you" or whatever.
Yorpness is just some random nonsense. Here it is in use: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/431527/real-dominion-designer-and-secret-unlocking-myster
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This thread is now for calculating your Donald X. number. My Donald X. number is 0. Your Donald X. number is 1 plus the smallest Donald X. number among people you've played games with. Only games played irl count - I don't want people trying to set up online games with me or my friends in order to get low numbers.
How is this less well known than the Erdős and Bacon numbers?
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Banning cards makes no sense. It's not Magic. If your group doesn't like Rebuild, don't play with it. If you are running a tournament, you can leave out Rebuild if you want. When I am called on to make lists of cards for tournaments, I leave out several cards, mainly ones that slow down play, like Spy.
What if "your group" is the rated online community, or some other group where "if your group doesn't like X, don't play with it" isn't feasible? I have to imagine that pretty much anyone who asks you about banning cards must play most of their games in a group like that. If they didn't, then "don't play with cards you dislike" is just the obvious answer (not to mention you've said it many times on these forums).
Well the online ratings have to be what the people who like online ratings want out of them. I personally would allow a small list of banned cards. It has to be small so there's no ability to tailor supposedly random kingdoms with it. But I mean, if you don't like Rebuild and your opponent doesn't like Rebuild then you shouldn't have to play with it online just to get into the ratings. That's gotta make the most sense for MF too; you can just not buy Dark Ages and for sure we don't want to encourage that.
I'd allow the ban list too but that topic always seems to get contentious around here... since you mentioned Magic, I guess the obvious followup question is how you think the small amount of player control from a personal ban list compares with the curated ban list that WotC uses for Magic?
Do you think a curated approach could work for an online spinoff of Dominion? Like if MF said they want to charge players $X per month, and in return provide periodic updates with new cards and sometimes changes to old ones? I guess that's maybe closer to Hearthstone than Magic, but anyway would you allow something like that to happen? Be willing to work on it?
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Banning cards makes no sense. It's not Magic. If your group doesn't like Rebuild, don't play with it. If you are running a tournament, you can leave out Rebuild if you want. When I am called on to make lists of cards for tournaments, I leave out several cards, mainly ones that slow down play, like Spy.
What if "your group" is the rated online community, or some other group where "if your group doesn't like X, don't play with it" isn't feasible? I have to imagine that pretty much anyone who asks you about banning cards must play most of their games in a group like that. If they didn't, then "don't play with cards you dislike" is just the obvious answer (not to mention you've said it many times on these forums).
Well the online ratings have to be what the people who like online ratings want out of them. I personally would allow a small list of banned cards. It has to be small so there's no ability to tailor supposedly random kingdoms with it. But I mean, if you don't like Rebuild and your opponent doesn't like Rebuild then you shouldn't have to play with it online just to get into the ratings. That's gotta make the most sense for MF too; you can just not buy Dark Ages and for sure we don't want to encourage that.
I'd allow the ban list too but that topic always seems to get contentious around here... since you mentioned Magic, I guess the obvious followup question is how you think the small amount of player control from a personal ban list compares with the curated ban list that WotC uses for Magic?
Do you think a curated approach could work for an online spinoff of Dominion? Like if MF said they want to charge players $X per month, and in return provide periodic updates with new cards and sometimes changes to old ones? I guess that's maybe closer to Hearthstone than Magic, but anyway would you allow something like that to happen? Be willing to work on it?
I'd rather the game not change at all, that way the boardgame is consistent with the online implementation, but maybe I'm the only one who feels this way.
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I'd rather the game not change at all, that way the boardgame is consistent with the online implementation, but maybe I'm the only one who feels this way.
You're certainly not the only one. In fact Donald has said he'd rather not have the online and paper games diverge, which is why I phrased the question as "online spinoff of Dominion" instead of "online implementation." For what it's worth I already consider the online game a spinoff. For one thing online games are almost always two players, but IRL for me is more often four. That changes the game a ton, and there's other aspects of online play that make it feel like a different game to me.
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I'd rather the game not change at all, that way the boardgame is consistent with the online implementation, but maybe I'm the only one who feels this way.
You're certainly not the only one. In fact Donald has said he'd rather not have the online and paper games diverge, which is why I phrased the question as "online spinoff of Dominion" instead of "online implementation." For what it's worth I already consider the online game a spinoff. For one thing online games are almost always two players, but IRL for me is more often four. That changes the game a ton, and there's other aspects of online play that make it feel like a different game to me.
I wouldn't mind a game of Dominion as a spinoff online, where all the rules were the same with the original cards, but with unique online cards as well. Cards with tons of preparation for example (Philosopher's Stone, anyone?) are perfect for this, as they don't slow the game much at all. I know Donald has considered this, for sure.
Something I do not like much is the 'modding' of existing cards.
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I'd allow the ban list too but that topic always seems to get contentious around here... since you mentioned Magic, I guess the obvious followup question is how you think the small amount of player control from a personal ban list compares with the curated ban list that WotC uses for Magic?
It makes no sense to me to compare the two.
In Magic you build a deck from cards you bought; banned cards make it bad to buy packs and so WotC heavily avoids it. But a tournament format may just be "play Affinity" if you aren't willing to ban cards; that also makes people not buy packs. So WotC bans cards.
Dominion meanwhile you buy non-random cards for, play at home, and it's different every game. If some games are "play Mountebank" you still don't know the whole story, and may even be wrong, and the next game won't have Mountebank in it. IRL you can just decide "I don't like Possession and never include it" and I personally would carry that over to the online version. It has zero issues except manipulating ratings and I think that can be made small enough to not matter.
I guess we can connect them by noting that for Magic online, it's common that people looking for a casual game will say something like "no ld no counters no jace." Meaning in this case, they do not wish to play against a land destruction deck, a deck with counterspells, or one particular card, Jace, the Mind Sculptor. The system doesn't just support that as a format, so they specify what they want.
Do you think a curated approach could work for an online spinoff of Dominion? Like if MF said they want to charge players $X per month, and in return provide periodic updates with new cards and sometimes changes to old ones? I guess that's maybe closer to Hearthstone than Magic, but anyway would you allow something like that to happen? Be willing to work on it?
We can look at potential projects from different angles. It might be fun to work on an online-only spin-off for Dominion. OTOH I could just work on some different online game. OTOH I could work on a physical game and then not have all the problems online games come with, the endless huge awful problems. Hmmm that's sounding good.
Or, let's try the money angle. If online Dominion ever makes money, at that point I can consider whether I think a spin-off might.
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Do you make any money off of online Dominion?
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Do you make any money off of online Dominion?
It makes me money, in the sense that I get paid a % of the take. It doesn't make me money, in the sense that what it has earned me hasn't been especially noticeable. Of course the work they're putting into it is all based on the idea that it will do much better.
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OTOH I could work on a physical game and then not have all the problems online games come with, the endless huge awful problems.
You seem to have had some bad experiences with software companies. May I ask what huge awful problems you've run into working on online games that don't come up with physical ones?
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I don't know all of Donald's issues but I think one of them had to do with that guy from Dragon ball.
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I don't know all of Donald's issues but I think one of them had to do with that guy from Dragon ball.
Yeah, "Dragon Ball Z" is a blatant ripoff of the single-letter branding of "Donald X".
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OTOH I could work on a physical game and then not have all the problems online games come with, the endless huge awful problems.
You seem to have had some bad experiences with software companies. May I ask what huge awful problems you've run into working on online games that don't come up with physical ones?
Well I have mostly not gotten into the business so I haven't had the problems. My own experience is limited to online Dominion taking years to get going; I had lunch with some of the funsockets guys in 2011. But I know Richard Garfield has spent years failing to get computer games to happen, pouring energy into projects that don't end up happening.
A board game is unlikely to make any money, but is also low risk. You have to love board games to design or publish them. And if you do you can make whatever new game and see what happens.
A computer game is crazy high risk, millions of dollars. So they tend to want to make Mario Kart 8. The exception is flash games, where it can still be one guy trying to make something cool and different.
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A computer game is crazy high risk, millions of dollars. So they tend to want to make Mario Kart 8. The exception is flash games, where it can still be one guy trying to make something cool and different.
It's funny, i felt it was the other way around. For a boardgame, you need physical materials, copies that get shipped, possibly a publisher, and somebody to put them into shelves. You can create a nice little video game with nothing more than a laptop and some free time. Of course not the classic boxed games, or big online things like Goko, but there's so many ways to produce games and earn money with them.
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There definitely have been some fantastic games made by one, two, or a handful of people. Cave Story (http://www.cavestory.org/) is always the example that comes to mind. If Iconoclasts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZE7kGax7Ds) ever gets finished, it'll be one of my favorite games, period. The playable demo is already pretty far up there on my list.
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There definitely have been some fantastic games made by one, two, or a handful of people. Cave Story (http://www.cavestory.org/) is always the example that comes to mind. If Iconoclasts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZE7kGax7Ds) ever gets finished, it'll be one of my favorite games, period. The playable demo is already pretty far up there on my list.
I just learned that I can't even read the words "Cave Story" without getting the damned Plantation Theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHtWKbR_P-c) stuck in my head. Thanks.
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"A laptop and some free time." Lol
I don't have experience making board games, but I've made plenty of computer games on my own. Not many good ones, mind, but I know enough to say this much.
Unless we're talking abut flash games or Meet 'n Date stuff, making a board game independently seems simpler than making a video game independently to me; it requires different skills, but making a game, at least a competent one, is a bigger time investment than you are letting on.
Just a small list of things you don't have to do when making a board game on your own, but do have to do when making a computer game on your own:
- learn an entirely foreign language (whatever programming language/languages)
- learn how to program graphics to work and look nice, which is basically a beast in and of itself (you may have to draw things, I'll concede that point)
- hire a musician or learn to make music and sound effects
- write a narrative (instruction manuals/blurbs take some talent, but aren't nearly as long as a story-driven game)
- spend months or even years finding bugs caused by your scripts not understanding what you wanted them to do
- get Steam or whatever distribution channel to take your game
- promote a game with an absolute sea of competition to the most angry, obnoxious fanbase in the universe
I have only made small projects. (my longest game is about 10 hours long) Multiple ones took me years to finish because of work and school and weren't near the quality of the most popular indie titles. The folks who finish those are really talented/possibly loaded and major exceptions to the rule in the indie game community; for every Cave Story there are ten thousand games that you will never hear of that failed.
I am guessing that to make a board game you (warning: I am making assumptions here):
1. Come up with an idea for a game
2. Probably spend a while stewing things over
3. Mock up the game for probably no cost whatsoever, probably in an afternoon or two
4. Test the game with some friends or people at a FLGS. Maybe pay some of them, who knows
5. Make changes based on testing
6. Continue to make mockups and test/balance the game until you're satisfied (and with no code bugs to fix!)
7. Get the physical products you need and create the game. Obviously this is probably the most complicated and costly step, but it still takes less time than programming a game from the ground up. Odds are you actually can't even do this alone unless it's a card game or something real simple since you'll want to make multiple copies and have some printer create those for you
8. Promote the game somehow
I should stress points 3-6 here: one of the worst parts of making computer games is that you can't even know for sure how well something works until you've already done a whole bunch of work on it. Sometimes a thing that took you ages to finish ends up being terrible and you have to scrap it or make changes. One of the coolest things about making a tabletop game is that if you have an idea you can just print out some stuff on paper and try it, then throw the paper away if it sucked. Any computer game developer probably envies that.
Obviously I've never published a board game and I am probably missing a few steps, but it sure seems a lot less complicated to me. I am not saying making a board game on your own is easy and doesn't have its challenges (of course it does), but there's just so much less you have to learn to do on your own if you're flying solo. Making a video game requires a silly number of skills, which is one reason mainstream games have so many people working on them. For the record, I don't mean to sound like I'm whining. I find the idea of making board games really thrilling; you can put a personal touch on them and see the fruits of your creativity right away, which is fantastic. If I had any good ideas I'd go for it.
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I just learned that I can't even read the words "Cave Story" without getting the damned Plantation Theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHtWKbR_P-c) stuck in my head. Thanks.
Man, I love that tune.
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Making minimalistic computer games is certainly a lot easier than making comparable board games. Trying to make a game that looks, works and feels somewhat like a typical professional video game is a lot more difficult than trying to make a game that looks, works and feels somewhat like a typical professional board game.
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Making minimalistic computer games is certainly a lot easier than making comparable board games. Trying to make a game that looks, works and feels somewhat like a typical professional video game is a lot more difficult than trying to make a game that looks, works and feels somewhat like a typical professional board game.
Of course. But you can make a board game as good as dominion on your own in a reasonable amount of time. You can't make a video game as good as super smash bros in the same amount of time
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Making minimalistic computer games is certainly a lot easier than making comparable board games. Trying to make a game that looks, works and feels somewhat like a typical professional video game is a lot more difficult than trying to make a game that looks, works and feels somewhat like a typical professional board game.
Of course. But you can make a game as good as dominion on your own in a reasonable amount of time. You can't make a game as good as super smash bros in the same amount of time
You could make a video game as good as Dominion on your own in a reasonable amount of time.
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But as soon as more than one person is involved, things slow WAY down.
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Making minimalistic computer games is certainly a lot easier than making comparable board games. Trying to make a game that looks, works and feels somewhat like a typical professional video game is a lot more difficult than trying to make a game that looks, works and feels somewhat like a typical professional board game.
Of course. But you can make a game as good as dominion on your own in a reasonable amount of time. You can't make a game as good as super smash bros in the same amount of time
You could make a video game as good as Dominion on your own in a reasonable amount of time.
As long as you're fine with the graphics engine equivalent of one of those Little Tikes toddler cars. Goko at least was a Barbie battery-powered car.
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You could make a video game as good as Dominion on your own in a reasonable amount of time.
That depends on the value of "you," and I think that's the crux of the discussion. Donald X can make a board/card game as good as Dominion in a reasonable amount of time. I think somewhere in this thread he said that Dominion went from idea to first playtest in a matter of days. Presumably that was on handwritten or inexpensively printed cards without the art, professional layout, etc that's in the manufactured versions of Dominion.
Likewise, I've seen programmers crank out a playable computer game in a weekend. Did it look ready for sale? No way, but there was gameplay that I could test. Donald's first set of Dominion cards probably didn't have professional artwork or layout either. I guess the point is that you can make a great board game or a great computer game in comparable time, if you are great at making the kind of thing you are making.
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You could make a video game as good as Dominion on your own in a reasonable amount of time.
That depends on the value of "you
I was mostly referring to DougZ.
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Making minimalistic computer games is certainly a lot easier than making comparable board games. Trying to make a game that looks, works and feels somewhat like a typical professional video game is a lot more difficult than trying to make a game that looks, works and feels somewhat like a typical professional board game.
Of course. But you can make a game as good as dominion on your own in a reasonable amount of time. You can't make a game as good as super smash bros in the same amount of time
You could make a video game as good as Dominion on your own in a reasonable amount of time.
As long as you're fine with the graphics engine equivalent of one of those Little Tikes toddler cars. Goko at least was a Barbie battery-powered car.
I see a lot of talk here about graphics, and I want to point out that the Little Tikes car graphics level is visible in games including Minecraft, 10000000, Knights of Pen and Paper, SpaceChem. Now, only one of those created a billionaire, but they all sold tens of thousands of copies. Plenty of Flash and Unity games at places like Kongregate have similar graphics and millions of plays.
You might also have heard of a game site called Isotropic; it had a small but dedicated following despite having almost no graphics at all--and in fact included a mode without graphics intentionally.
Gameplay is key; graphics are flash.
Good, balanced gameplay takes a long time to figure out. Donald and his testing team cogitated for several years* before Dominion was published; Hearthstone spent something like two years in testing, but had a much larger team.
*So that I don't completely derail the thread: Donald, what was the time span between coming up with the seed of Dominion's idea and actual publication? (Once I've posted this, I'll look upthread to see if it's already been answered.)
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*So that I don't completely derail the thread: Donald, what was the time span between coming up with the seed of Dominion's idea and actual publication? (Once I've posted this, I'll look upthread to see if it's already been answered.)
I had the idea in the summer of 2005. I jotted down some notes and then forgot about it (it was a solution to a problem in another game, and I did work on that game some). The last weekend in October 2006, I wanted a new game for that Monday's game night. The game I was working on just needed so much work to get to where we could try it, but the pure deckbuilding game idea was easy, I just needed like 10 cards. I picked out rules and cards in a matter of hours, and the rest of the time was spent googling art and cutting and sleeving. I showed the game to Jay at Origins in 2007, and it came out at Essen in 2008.
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I should stress points 3-6 here: one of the worst parts of making computer games is that you can't even know for sure how well something works until you've already done a whole bunch of work on it. Sometimes a thing that took you ages to finish ends up being terrible and you have to scrap it or make changes. One of the coolest things about making a tabletop game is that if you have an idea you can just print out some stuff on paper and try it, then throw the paper away if it sucked. Any computer game developer probably envies that.
In fact you can try stuff without bothering with printing it out. "This game, let's use Throne Room to represent a card that plays another action from your hand and adds 2 to numbers in its text." Bam, you are trying it.
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Of course. But you can make a board game as good as dominion on your own in a reasonable amount of time. You can't make a video game as good as super smash bros in the same amount of time
Depends on what is a good game. Must a good game be big and shiny? You kind of imply that, and i don't think it's true.
Also the latest Super Smash Bros is ridiculously big and not comparable to a single edition of Dominion. The genre that SSB is implies subsequent titles include a lot of the content from earlier titles, so it compares more to Adventures+Base Dominion+Promos than Base (which i think you mean when you write "Dominion").
Also i'm curious how the card art would look had Donald done it himself. Maybe Harem would be more popular.
I try to think of a question for Donald to justify posting here, but i feel not bothering him is still less annoying than asking something stupid he probably answered a thousand times...
You mentioned that you wrote 3.8 screenplays before. Is there something that you would be willing, legally capable and comfortable to share with us?
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Here's a question Donald.
http://paul.sparklingrobots.com/blog/donald-x-vaccarino-absurd-culmination-cult-new
Have you seen this? Apparently, making every game unique and different with the same rules with each play through makes you an evil cultist.
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I'm not sure I really get his point. I haven't played Kingbuilder, but reading
When I replay a game, I don't want a new game. I don't want a whole new problem to solve. I want strategic fine-tuning. I want to be able to make semi-consistent valuations of actions and resources. I want to feel that there's a very good chance that something I learn this game can directly teach me something for next game.
through the filter of someone that plays Dominion... isn't this precisely what Dominion does? I mean, yes, a new board could be an "entirely new game", but a lot of the fundamentals are the same, especially if two boards lend themselves to a similar strategy (like engine or slog). I don't think it's ever the case that one Dominion board has nothing to teach you about the next one. If so, you're probably not playing correctly.
Edit: Also, you're allowed to control the replayability parameters.. you can select certain cards to keep, only take from certain steps, and you can keep playing the same board and fine-tune a strategy.
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I don't think there will be many people around here that agree with the article at all. He basically makes the argument that it isn't possible to apply knowledge gained in one play of the game to the next. This forum is a counter to that argument.
I'd say Kingdom Builder is a simpler game in general, but having gotten it recently and played 10-20 games, and there are definitely elements of "strategic fine tuning" that I have learned along the way.
He says that Donald's games are the worst of both worlds, but I could easily argue the opposite. The replayability extends the life of the game for those who are always looking for something new, and the variety expands the depth of strategy that you have to learn, for players who like the "strategic fine tuning".
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http://paul.sparklingrobots.com/blog/donald-x-vaccarino-absurd-culmination-cult-new
>Of course, this begs the question
If you know and admit that your argument begs the question, why even make it?
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It looks like that guy simply has different tastes, and is making the mistake of thinking his tastes are better.
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It looks like that guy simply has different tastes, and is making the mistake of thinking his tastes are better.
Well the thing is, I'm not quite sure why a game like Dominion isn't in line with his tastes as he describes them.
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(http://cdn.meme.am/instances/61966626.jpg)
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I do see why playing Dominion with a different kingdom might make you feel like you are playing a vastly different game, especially when you're new to it. Often one or two cards (especially strong ones) absolutely change how the board plays.
I do not see why he acts as if "let's play that kingdom from yesterday again" was inherently impossible.
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I think I can provide some context here. I know Paul Schulzetenberg. I did not know he had a blog. He lived in my area until recently and was the founder of the gaming group I attend on a weely-ish basis. If he played all three of those games in one night, I can tell you with 100% certainty that I was there. There's a very good chance that it was at my house. (EDIT: Just checked my email archive; yep, I hosted that evening.)
Paul Schulzetenberg is the Cult of the New. Dude has shelves of games and he's constantly buying, selling, and trading them. It is my perception that the Cult of the New is as much about buying games as it is about playing them. Donald X's games never seem to catch on with Cultists of the New, and well this blog post is more of the same as far as that goes. It's interesting/insulting that he sees Donald's games as the "absurdist endpoint" of the Cult of the New; in my opinion they're the antithesis of it. They're games that are meant to be replayed over and over, rather than played 1 to 3 times and then sold or traded away.
Anyway, Paul's a pretty reasonable guy in my experience. His claim that what you learn in one play of e.g. Dominion doesn't carry over to the next is obviously ridiculous and I wonder whether he really believes it himself. Glancing over some of the other posts on his blog, I'm guessing he's writing to entertain, so probably there's some hyperbole. And maybe he was just disappointed that we played a bunch of Donald X. games that night when he wanted to play something else (we do not play exclusively Donald X games every time I host this group, in case you were wondering). He's visiting the area and there's a good chance I'll see him this week. I guess I won't be inviting him to play Dominion.
EDIT: By the way, Seprix, how did you come across this?
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Paul Schulzetenberg is the Cult of the New.
I hope he doesn't sell ruins...
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EDIT: By the way, Seprix, how did you come across this?
I was in your group, and I stalk your friends
I was interested in Donald's alleged plays. So I did a google search of 'Donald Vaccarino Play'. Well, I found it on the top page. Who wouldn't click on an article calling Donald Vaccarino a cultist? Because Cults are cool. And hey, maybe I could trash Donald for +3 Cards or something. So I clicked it. The fact that you know this guy is pure coincidence, though I find it odd that I live where you live where he also lived. Kind of creepy.
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Some people don't like replaying games much, and that's all there is to it. One of my best pals thinks I'm nuts because I like replaying games, and he won't even touch games he loved that he's finished, even ones with a ton of replayability.
I don't understand these people but I've come to accept they exist and there aren't all evil. I don't care much for the purpose/conclusion of that article, though. He's taking a really pretentious tone by suggesting that people who like DXV's games are missing some perceived universal truth in his head. In my mind, having to buy new things all the time instead of using what you already own means you're a slave to consumer culture, but I will readily accept that's just in my mind.
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Some people don't like replaying games much, and that's all there is to it. One of my best pals thinks I'm nuts because I like replaying games, and he won't even touch games he loved that he's finished, even ones with a ton of replayability.
I don't understand these people but I've come to accept they exist and there aren't all evil. I don't care much for the purpose/conclusion of that article, though. He's taking a really pretentious tone by suggesting that people who like DXV's games are missing some perceived universal truth in his head. In my mind, having to buy new things all the time instead of using what you already own means you're a slave to consumer culture, but I will readily accept that's just in my mind.
You can tell from the article that Paul is really into playing new games. When getting a new game, he would read the instructions and then explain the rules to us (sometimes he'd forget stuff). It's weird to me that his tone seems to indicate that he does not consider himself part of the cult of the new.
The real reason is, for all that we gamers trumpet replayability, we crave the novelty of a new game more than we do replaying our favorites. Breaking the shrink on a new game is exciting, and taking a game through its traces for the first time even more so. There's never more possibility in a game than when you first buy it. You can explain that away as Western consumer instinct at work, but it's also more fundamental than that. A new game represents potential in a way that an old game, even an old favorite, never will.
Obviously "we gamers" is not as universal as he indicates, but what Paul loves best about gaming is learning and playing completely new games.
I'm the opposite. Learning a new game is a chore, and the game itself better be worth the time it takes to explain it. I remember a night several months ago where we split into two groups. I can't remember what my group was playing (I think Kingdom Builder), but after we were finished with our first game, the other group was still going over the rules. If memory serves, it took Ben 45 minutes to explain the rules for a game they'd probably play once. To me that's comical. That's a big part of why I love Donald's games; they take 5 or 10 minutes to explain, and then I get endless hours of value from them.
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(http://cdn.meme.am/instances/61966626.jpg)
I'm just here for the +1.
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I'm the guy in my gaming circles that everyone else expects to read the rules and explain them. While I typically don't mind, it does become a real chore at times. Perhaps this Paul just likes being that guy. Good for him. I would say generally that most people don't want to be that guy and don't enjoy grinding through the rules of a new game. I find the replayability of Dominion and Kingdom Builder very refreshing.
If he can't learn anything to carry over from one game to the next of either Dominion or Kingdom Builder, then he isn't really trying very hard (to learn something to carryover to the next game). It sounds to me like he is too busy looking forward to the next new game.
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http://paul.sparklingrobots.com/blog/donald-x-vaccarino-absurd-culmination-cult-new
>Of course, this begs the question
If you know and admit that your argument begs the question, why even make it?
That's a gutsy move in the home of our resident Descriptivist.
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http://paul.sparklingrobots.com/blog/donald-x-vaccarino-absurd-culmination-cult-new
>Of course, this begs the question
If you know and admit that your argument begs the question, why even make it?
That's a gutsy move in the home of our resident Descriptivist.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3761
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Hmm, I've only played Kingdom Builder about twice. It took a long time to explain the first time. Should I play it more? (I don't own it though, so...)
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Also i'm curious how the card art would look had Donald done it himself. Maybe Harem would be more popular.
You mentioned that you wrote 3.8 screenplays before. Is there something that you would be willing, legally capable and comfortable to share with us?
My Harem had no art. You can see it in the outtakes article. I did have an earlier card called Harem that had art; it did not have nudity.
I'm not prevented from posting bits from these screenplays. The main issue for me is that I have been taught in the past that when you gather a group of people by some particular criteria - say, liking Dominion - they won't just fit some other particular criteria for you - say, liking my screenplays.
One of the screenplays was an Airplane!-style comedy. The Hinterlands blurb comes straight from that. "It's a big city out there, and we're little people..."
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Here's a question Donald.
http://paul.sparklingrobots.com/blog/donald-x-vaccarino-absurd-culmination-cult-new
Have you seen this? Apparently, making every game unique and different with the same rules with each play through makes you an evil cultist.
I've seen it; I probably saw it in oh May of 2013.
There are always going to be people eager to pat themselves on the back for not liking awesome things, and so much for that? Not much of a question there really Seprix.
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There are always going to be people eager to pat themselves on the back for not liking awesome things
That is a great way of putting it. Always have to be more hip than the rest!
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Here's a question Donald.
http://paul.sparklingrobots.com/blog/donald-x-vaccarino-absurd-culmination-cult-new
Have you seen this? Apparently, making every game unique and different with the same rules with each play through makes you an evil cultist.
I've seen it; I probably saw it in oh May of 2013.
There are always going to be people eager to pat themselves on the back for not liking awesome things, and so much for that? Not much of a question there really Seprix.
So we pat ourselves on the back for liking what people pat themselves on the back for what they don't like, who in turn pat their own backs because we pat our own backs to it in the first place?
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Also i'm curious how the card art would look had Donald done it himself. Maybe Harem would be more popular.
You mentioned that you wrote 3.8 screenplays before. Is there something that you would be willing, legally capable and comfortable to share with us?
My Harem had no art. You can see it in the outtakes article. I did have an earlier card called Harem that had art; it did not have nudity.
I'm not prevented from posting bits from these screenplays. The main issue for me is that I have been taught in the past that when you gather a group of people by some particular criteria - say, liking Dominion - they won't just fit some other particular criteria for you - say, liking my screenplays.
One of the screenplays was an Airplane!-style comedy. The Hinterlands blurb comes straight from that. "It's a big city out there, and we're little people..."
You had me at "Airplane!-style comedy".
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Hmm, I've only played Kingdom Builder about twice. It took a long time to explain the first time. Should I play it more? (I don't own it though, so...)
I have played a lot of 2p games, one with 3 and one with 5, and like it quite a bit. It feels less strategic than Dominion, but maybe not less than the Dominion Base Set. I'd give it a pretty strong recommendation.
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I've heard good things about Kingdom Builder, but all I truly know about is that it has an almost comically terse back-of-the-box blurb. It's one step above "this is a board game."
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I played Kingdom Builder quite a few times a couple years ago. This article reminded me how much I loved it, so I'm gonna pick it up for myself now. I, uh, guess my visit gave him ad revenue?
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I played Kingdom Builder quite a few times a couple years ago. This article reminded me how much I loved it, so I'm gonna pick it up for myself now. I, uh, guess my visit gave him ad revenue?
I don't see any ads on that page.
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I played Kingdom Builder quite a few times a couple years ago. This article reminded me how much I loved it, so I'm gonna pick it up for myself now. I, uh, guess my visit gave him ad revenue?
I don't see any ads on that page.
In that case his blog is doing less than nothing for him.
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I played Kingdom Builder quite a few times a couple years ago. This article reminded me how much I loved it, so I'm gonna pick it up for myself now. I, uh, guess my visit gave him ad revenue?
I don't see any ads on that page.
In that case his blog is doing less than nothing for him.
Well he's a web developer, so probably it was good practice to create it. And he seems to enjoy writing reviews of things. I have to assume he feels he's getting his money's worth.
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Would you ever playtest a new expansion through MF's Dominion Online? Or would you stick to isotropic?
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Would you ever playtest a new expansion through MF's Dominion Online? Or would you stick to isotropic?
It's tough to playtest a new expansion online when you have to wait until it's already been published for several months before it's available to play online...
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Would you ever playtest a new expansion through MF's Dominion Online? Or would you stick to isotropic?
It's tough to playtest a new expansion online when you have to wait until it's already been published for several months before it's available to play online...
Hey, Guilds released online at the same time it released physically.
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Would you ever playtest a new expansion through MF's Dominion Online? Or would you stick to isotropic?
I would test on either platform, provided MF / Doug were willing to do the programming.
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Many people fear that on some not-too-distant day their job will be threatened by robots and/or computers.
With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic Dominion-card generation, how worried are you?
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Many people fear that on some not-too-distant day their job will be threatened by robots and/or computers.
With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic Dominion-card generation, how worried are you?
Considering the recent developments in Dominion game simulators, I don't think he'll be too worried.
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Why do Treasures say "When you play this" before listing their on play effects?
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How do you feel about the open beta release?
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How do you feel about the open beta release?
I don't think this is a good question. Lots of people asked similar things back when Goko was first coming out, and there's not a good way for Donald to answer it. Though not directly, these people are his business partners. It would be bad business and unprofessional to criticize them.
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If it were me, I would be sad that things weren't going better, but happy that they weren't going worse.
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If it were me, I would be sad that things weren't going better, but happy that they weren't going worse.
Sad when compared to happier times anyway, but happy when compared to times not as good.
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If it were me, I would be sad that things weren't going better, but happy that they weren't going worse.
Sad when compared to happier times anyway, but happy when compared to times not as bad.
I think you're talking about better times in both parts of this sentence. Is there something you want to tell us?
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If it were me, I would be sad that things weren't going better, but happy that they weren't going worse.
Sad when compared to happier times anyway, but happy when compared to times not as bad.
I think you're talking about better times in both parts of this sentence. Is there something you want to tell us?
Ah yes
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Many people fear that on some not-too-distant day their job will be threatened by robots and/or computers.
With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic Dominion-card generation, how worried are you?
I went through this in the 80s and 90s. I talked a bit about card generation in the thread on the Magic cards thing.
At one point it seemed like you could have a program that wrote programs. So much for programmers! The problem is that so much of your program is the part you have to pick out yourself, the logic that you want. The best you can do is have big libraries of commonly used things, which we have and so much for that.
For card generation, the first issue is, that anything you want it to come up with, you have to come up with. The acceptable complexity is so low that it's not like it can build some amazing new thing out of small parts. As soon as you start assembling parts, you've got too many. So, again, you think of all the basic stuff, and then it combines it, and well you could just do that yourself, the hard part was figuring out all the basic stuff.
And the second issue is poetry. Go to that Magic card generator I linked. Card after card is just meaningless babble. It's meaningless babble that makes sense in Magic, that tells you just what some creature ability is or whatever, but it's still just babble. What you really need is a poetry generator. And well that's not to say that the problem is impossible. Probably there are strides to be made there. It's an interesting problem, but I am always too busy figuring out basic stuff and writing poems to look at it.
Finally we could note that, in terms of actual income, my job is collecting royalties on Dominion. I can do that just fine no matter what computer advances are made. If anything they might make it slightly easier.
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Why do Treasures say "When you play this" before listing their on play effects?
It's kind of a bummer that they do - it adds all that text to those cards, and they already use a bunch of space on the giant coin.
They say it because it seemed important for clarity when special treasures first appeared. The first one was Philosopher's Stone (due to Alchemy sneaking ahead of Prosperity) and it had to be clear, when does the number of cards in your deck matter. It matters right when you play the treasure; you count the cards then and only then.
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How do you feel about the open beta release?
I don't think this is a good question. Lots of people asked similar things back when Goko was first coming out, and there's not a good way for Donald to answer it. Though not directly, these people are his business partners. It would be bad business and unprofessional to criticize them.
Well yes and no. Sometimes people want me to say bad things about a publisher for them, and well man, who would I rather be friends with, some guy on BGG or the publisher, think think.
I am not actually any kind of a partner with MF. I license the game to RGG, they have whatever deal with, man, whoever they have a deal with, I don't know if that deal is even direct with MF. Still it behooves me to behave in a way a disinterested third party would think was reasonable.
At the same time I would just as soon everyone knew I was going to be honest. It's an advantage sometimes, it pays off when you-the-company want someone honest. If it hurts you other times well you can decide for yourself if that leaves interacting with me worth it or not.
FFG's contract forbids you from speaking ill of either your game with them or them, for the duration. I didn't talk much about Infiltration because I didn't want to feel like I was being dishonest via omission. They were sad about that but well. If you want me to promote my game with you you have to let me be honest. Now that the contract has expired, I haven't posted some tell-all or anything; I know they still don't want me bad-mouthing them. And well. Everyone always thinks they know best, that they know better than you, whether you're the game designer or whoever; it's no surprise that FFG thought they knew better than me. I knew going into the deal that they would change the game and there would be nothing that I could do. And they made changes I didn't like but to their credit included game variants that get a ways back towards the original. I would still work with them again, depending on the project. And I mean, they may have that clause in their contract, but they seem pretty honest. They don't make a Dominion rip-off, look at that.
So anyway, this company that I'm only indirectly doing business with, they might as well know that I will be honest. I have been pretty supportive so far I think? I mean we are talking about a game that I expected to be looking good in 2011 or 2012.
One thing you can consider is that it's all risk to them; Dominion has to be successful enough to rake in cash, or they have just thrown away money on it. The take so far does not remotely cover the man-hours. So I mean 1) if some of their available man-hours are going to other projects instead, that's why, they need to stay afloat while they pursue this, and 2) they sure are going to try to get a hit out of it. If they fail to fix things and it sucks then they made a really poor investment. So you can take a completely pragmatic, everyone is selfish take on this, and what you come up with is, they are going to try to make online Dominion fantastic. The worst I can say is, they will be trying to make it fantastic for normal people rather than hardcore players.
Anyway on to sudgy's question. For sure I personally would have just turned off the store and kept the beta small-scale until it was in better shape. There are really basic things not working or not working well, and there's no point adding people until you are outpacing the ability of your testers to find things to fix. Not having revenue from it meanwhile sounds bad but I don't think we're talking about much revenue. And you don't want bad PR from a more public unfinished program.
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I don't think anyone's doubting that they want to make money with an online implementation of Dominion and that they want it to be successful. I think the problem is that the developers so far have seemed to have an idea in their head of what Dominion should look like online, and when actual competitive players of Dominion say "no, that's not what we want", they, at best, meet us begrudgingly halfway with a flabby compromise, and, at worst, ignore us completely. MF has made statements to try to assert they want Dominion Online to be the best it can be for all players, but so far it's mainly just words.
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I don't think anyone's doubting that they want to make money with an online implementation of Dominion and that they want it to be successful. I think the problem is that the developers so far have seemed to have an idea in their head of what Dominion should look like online, and when actual competitive players of Dominion say "no, that's not what we want", they, at best, meet us begrudgingly halfway with a flabby compromise, and, at worst, ignore us completely. MF has made statements to try to assert they want Dominion Online to be the best it can be for all players, but so far it's mainly just words.
Meh, take it outside bub. It's not the Tell Donald X. thread.
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Speaking of poetry, what aspects of Dominion do you find to be particularly poetic? It doesn't have to only cards; rules can be poetic too.
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Speaking of poetry, what aspects of Dominion do you find to be particularly poetic? It doesn't have to only cards; rules can be poetic too.
Well most of the rules are on cards. The main rules are minimalist. Which has a poetry to it too, but well, it's minimalism.
The way I normally use the term with respect to games, I'm talking about cards that have some symmetry or other connection going on in the text, rather than just being arrangements of the simple things you can do. The connection can be to outside the card (i.e. flavor) or can be subtle.
I am looking through the visual spoilers and well most Dominion cards are just trying to be good versions of the simpler things you can do. They have whatever idea, or combination, and there's nothing else to them. These would fall under the category of, the computer program could generate them, but you have to give it all those basic things and so it's not actually getting you anywhere.
There are cards here and there that have satisfying symmetries and connections though. For example Followers has you draw 2 and them discard 2, you gain Estate and they gain Curse. Jack of All Trades is an example of something much more subtle; you might never realize that the four things defend against the different kinds of attacks.
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Jack of All Trades is an example of something much more subtle; you might never realize that the four things defend against the different kinds of attacks.
Uh, I thought it was common wisdom.
I like how Mercenary is complementary to Steward.
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Jack of All Trades is an example of something much more subtle; you might never realize that the four things defend against the different kinds of attacks.
Uh, I thought it was common wisdom.
Well I blabbed about it right away, in the secret history. I have had the experience though of people not seeing the connection between the abilities, asking me what the deal is.
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Jack of All Trades is an example of something much more subtle; you might never realize that the four things defend against the different kinds of attacks.
Uh, I thought it was common wisdom.
Well I blabbed about it right away, in the secret history. I have had the experience though of people not seeing the connection between the abilities, asking me what the deal is.
I am sure people would ask you about that, but I interpreted your "you" in "you might never realize" and my "common" in "common wisdom" in the context of this board. Incidentally, I possibly didn't realize up to now that "gain a silver" counters Thief/Noble Brigand/Pirate Ship and in a way Knights/Rogue attacks.
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I am sure people would ask you about that, but I interpreted your "you" in "you might never realize" and my "common" in "common wisdom" in the context of this board. Incidentally, I possibly didn't realize up to now that "gain a silver" counters Thief/Noble Brigand/Pirate Ship and in a way Knights/Rogue attacks.
Yes I wasn't talking about this board, you guys know all about Jack.
I dug up someone not seeing the connection in a Hinterlands review: "But other cards like Jack of All Trades just feel weird. He gives you silver, refills your hand, lets you look at the top card of your deck and lets you trash a non-treasure card. How are any of those connected?" http://castlesandcooks.com/2012/02/09/arena-review-dominion-hinterlands-impressions/
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I am sure people would ask you about that, but I interpreted your "you" in "you might never realize" and my "common" in "common wisdom" in the context of this board. Incidentally, I possibly didn't realize up to now that "gain a silver" counters Thief/Noble Brigand/Pirate Ship and in a way Knights/Rogue attacks.
Yes I wasn't talking about this board, you guys know all about Jack.
I dug up someone not seeing the connection in a Hinterlands review: "But other cards like Jack of All Trades just feel weird. He gives you silver, refills your hand, lets you look at the top card of your deck and lets you trash a non-treasure card. How are any of those connected?" http://castlesandcooks.com/2012/02/09/arena-review-dominion-hinterlands-impressions/
Again, I find myself almost indignant about some misguided perceptions of other people about certain aspects of Dominion gameplay. "Currency becomes meaningless"?? But then I have to remind myself I'm very biased toward Dominion and can't expect everyone to see the meaning of things in the game right away. I wonder about the author's way of economic thinking, though.
Another odd choice is that by being an expansion, Hinterlands can’t be played right out of the box as the core cards aren’t included which means you have to spend around $60 at minimum to play this game.
Would he rather spend $60 on each expansion because it also contains another set of basic cards rather than expand the base set he already has? I don't get it.
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I am sure people would ask you about that, but I interpreted your "you" in "you might never realize" and my "common" in "common wisdom" in the context of this board. Incidentally, I possibly didn't realize up to now that "gain a silver" counters Thief/Noble Brigand/Pirate Ship and in a way Knights/Rogue attacks.
Yes I wasn't talking about this board, you guys know all about Jack.
I dug up someone not seeing the connection in a Hinterlands review: "But other cards like Jack of All Trades just feel weird. He gives you silver, refills your hand, lets you look at the top card of your deck and lets you trash a non-treasure card. How are any of those connected?" http://castlesandcooks.com/2012/02/09/arena-review-dominion-hinterlands-impressions/
Really, it's like it does a little bit of everything. At the very least it could have a name that somehow fits that.
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I am sure people would ask you about that, but I interpreted your "you" in "you might never realize" and my "common" in "common wisdom" in the context of this board. Incidentally, I possibly didn't realize up to now that "gain a silver" counters Thief/Noble Brigand/Pirate Ship and in a way Knights/Rogue attacks.
Yes I wasn't talking about this board, you guys know all about Jack.
I dug up someone not seeing the connection in a Hinterlands review: "But other cards like Jack of All Trades just feel weird. He gives you silver, refills your hand, lets you look at the top card of your deck and lets you trash a non-treasure card. How are any of those connected?" http://castlesandcooks.com/2012/02/09/arena-review-dominion-hinterlands-impressions/
Really, it's like it does a little bit of everything. At the very least it could have a name that somehow fits that.
Like "Multitasker" or "Polymath" perhaps.
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I am sure people would ask you about that, but I interpreted your "you" in "you might never realize" and my "common" in "common wisdom" in the context of this board. Incidentally, I possibly didn't realize up to now that "gain a silver" counters Thief/Noble Brigand/Pirate Ship and in a way Knights/Rogue attacks.
Yes I wasn't talking about this board, you guys know all about Jack.
I dug up someone not seeing the connection in a Hinterlands review: "But other cards like Jack of All Trades just feel weird. He gives you silver, refills your hand, lets you look at the top card of your deck and lets you trash a non-treasure card. How are any of those connected?" http://castlesandcooks.com/2012/02/09/arena-review-dominion-hinterlands-impressions/
Really, it's like it does a little bit of everything. At the very least it could have a name that somehow fits that.
Yeah, that's not just a case of not understanding how the different effects relate to each other, that's obliviousness to the meaning of a pretty common idiom.
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It's okay, they can't all be the best criticism of an expansion ever.
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I am sure people would ask you about that, but I interpreted your "you" in "you might never realize" and my "common" in "common wisdom" in the context of this board. Incidentally, I possibly didn't realize up to now that "gain a silver" counters Thief/Noble Brigand/Pirate Ship and in a way Knights/Rogue attacks.
Yes I wasn't talking about this board, you guys know all about Jack.
(http://i.imgur.com/xnk3Lyb.jpg)
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I am sure people would ask you about that, but I interpreted your "you" in "you might never realize" and my "common" in "common wisdom" in the context of this board. Incidentally, I possibly didn't realize up to now that "gain a silver" counters Thief/Noble Brigand/Pirate Ship and in a way Knights/Rogue attacks.
Yes I wasn't talking about this board, you guys know all about Jack.
[image]
Good, I was hoping for a YDKJ reference. They don't make party games like they used to.
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Adventures seems like a big step-up in interaction complexity. Donald, are you worried that increases in complexity will fundamentally change the game in ways that could be negative? Rules that interact weirdly that you didn't see at first? Cards that become broken? More steep learning curve for new players?
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Adventures seems like a big step-up in interaction complexity. Donald, are you worried that increases in complexity will fundamentally change the game in ways that could be negative? Rules that interact weirdly that you didn't see at first? Cards that become broken? More steep learning curve for new players?
I have many times explained that the necessary increase in complexity if you want to do more things is a good reason not to do more things, to make spin-offs rather than expansions. The complexity is 100% bad. I made another expansion anyway! I hope you like it.
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So it looks like there's a new edition of Nefarious (https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/184821/item/3950722#item3950722) coming out soon from a different publisher. Are there any differences from the previous version?
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So it looks like there's a new edition of Nefarious (https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/184821/item/3950722#item3950722) coming out soon from a different publisher. Are there any differences from the previous version?
This is the English version of the Russian version, published uh a few years ago.
- It has new art. We couldn't manage to contact Ascora Games to get the old art.
- They are "agents" rather than "minions."
- It costs $0 for for a guy on Research, down from $1. It wanted to be in-between and while I originally went with $1, I changed my mind.
- I tweaked a couple inventions to have a little more -card and a little less -agent. The -agent ones can scare people away from investing; the -card ones reduce the impact of bad draws.
- I tweaked/replaced a couple twists. One combo made the game unplayable so of course I fixed that. But then I thought I could do better on a couple more.
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So it looks like there's a new edition of Nefarious (https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/184821/item/3950722#item3950722) coming out soon from a different publisher. Are there any differences from the previous version?
This is the English version of the Russian version, published uh a few years ago.
- It has new art. We couldn't manage to contact Ascora Games to get the old art.
- They are "agents" rather than "minions."
- It costs $0 for for a guy on Research, down from $1. It wanted to be in-between and while I originally went with $1, I changed my mind.
- I tweaked a couple inventions to have a little more -card and a little less -agent. The -agent ones can scare people away from investing; the -card ones reduce the impact of bad draws.
- I tweaked/replaced a couple twists. One combo made the game unplayable so of course I fixed that. But then I thought I could do better on a couple more.
Which combo? I know we had a few games that came close to unplayable...
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Which combo? I know we had a few games that came close to unplayable...
The thing that means you can't play an invention without removing a guy, and the thing that says you can't have more guys than you have inventions. I think that's the only one; otherwise you can make the game harsh, but can make progress in those games.
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Do you have any thoughts on the controversy around the Kingdom Builder episode of Tabletop (http://wilwheaton.net/2015/06/tabletop-kingdom-builder-and-screwing-up-the-rules/)?
I haven't watched the episode yet, but from what I have read Wil wins the game as a result of an incorrect rules interpretation.
Do you feel that this sort of thing might be harmful to your product?
Or is any publicity good publicity?
In the comments, someone suggested inviting games developers to come on the show to help avoid this sort of thing (although why they thought it reasonable to dictate who should pay the associated costs is beyond me).
Would you be interested in being involved with shows that feature your products, either on-screen or off-screen?
Does it generally annoy you when people get the rules wrong when posting playthroughs and reviews online?
From what I have seen, it's pretty common for people to get at least a few details wrong.
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Do you have any thoughts on the controversy around the Kingdom Builder episode of Tabletop (http://wilwheaton.net/2015/06/tabletop-kingdom-builder-and-screwing-up-the-rules/)?
I haven't watched the episode yet, but from what I have read [needless-spoiler]Wil wins the game as a result of an incorrect rules interpretation.[/needless-spoiler]
Do you feel that this sort of thing might be harmful to your product?
Or is any publicity good publicity?
In the comments, someone suggested inviting games developers to come on the show to help avoid this sort of thing (although why they thought it reasonable to dictate who should pay the associated costs is beyond me).
Would you be interested in being involved with shows that feature your products, either on-screen or off-screen?
Does it generally annoy you when people get the rules wrong when posting playthroughs and reviews online?
From what I have seen, it's pretty common for people to get at least a few details wrong.
Wil didn't win, and without analyzing their game too closely, the rules mistake they made (using extra Actions on the same turn they obtained them) didn't seem to help any one player specifically.
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Do you have any thoughts on the controversy around the Kingdom Builder episode of Tabletop (http://wilwheaton.net/2015/06/tabletop-kingdom-builder-and-screwing-up-the-rules/)?
I haven't watched the episode yet, but from what I have read [needless-spoiler]Wil wins the game as a result of an incorrect rules interpretation.[/needless-spoiler]
Do you feel that this sort of thing might be harmful to your product?
Or is any publicity good publicity?
In the comments, someone suggested inviting games developers to come on the show to help avoid this sort of thing (although why they thought it reasonable to dictate who should pay the associated costs is beyond me).
Would you be interested in being involved with shows that feature your products, either on-screen or off-screen?
Does it generally annoy you when people get the rules wrong when posting playthroughs and reviews online?
From what I have seen, it's pretty common for people to get at least a few details wrong.
Wil didn't win, and without analyzing their game too closely, the rules mistake they made (using extra Actions on the same turn they obtained them) didn't seem to help any one player specifically.
Yeah that blog post really surprises me. He says they "completely butchered the rules"; that didn't happen at all. Unless there's something else I'm not aware of, they had one small detail incorrect; something that could be easily missed your first time playing. And they had a thing pop up in the video explaining the correct rule. So there shouldn't be concern over viewers learning it incorrectly.
Man most of these games aren't ever good to learn from reading the rules alone. You want to learn by playing with someone who has played and have them teach you. Then if necessary you read the rules after you play. It's very difficult to get everything right the first time. I'm disappointed that Wil would get so angry about this, and feel bad for the producer who I would assume was fired based on the post.
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Do you have any thoughts on the controversy around the Kingdom Builder episode of Tabletop (http://wilwheaton.net/2015/06/tabletop-kingdom-builder-and-screwing-up-the-rules/)?
I haven't watched the episode yet, but from what I have read Wil wins the game as a result of an incorrect rules interpretation.
Do you feel that this sort of thing might be harmful to your product?
Or is any publicity good publicity?
The old quote "there's no such thing as bad publicity" was specifically about the entertainment industry, and since that might seem to include board games, no, not those, just things with celebrities. The idea of course is that if your movie star is arrested, or awarded a nobel prize, whatever, either thing will get people into seats.
In other fields there is in fact such a thing as bad publicity.
In this case (without having seen it yet) probably this is purely good publicity. Regular viewers will know they mess up rules sometimes. You get an idea as to whether or not the game looks like good times despite that.
Would you be interested in being involved with shows that feature your products, either on-screen or off-screen?
It depends on a lot (especially where I'm expected to get to), but sure, I might have said yes if they'd asked. I'd be good too. I'd know the rules, crack wise, beat them up at my game.
Does it generally annoy you when people get the rules wrong when posting playthroughs and reviews online?
From what I have seen, it's pretty common for people to get at least a few details wrong.
I dunno it depends. Like recently there was an Adventures video where they made some mistakes and it didn't bother me at all. Again it doesn't seem likely to hurt the ability of the review to produce sales, and people opening the box get their own chance to read the rules.
Now, for a review on BGG, if they blow it and use abilities the turn they get them in KB, well someone will set them straight but it will certainly lower the value of the review. You're not watching the game in action, just hearing some opinions warped by wrong rules. So that's more annoying. And you can't necessarily tell. But when you can, people are immediately on it.
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Do you have any thoughts on the controversy around the Kingdom Builder episode of Tabletop (http://wilwheaton.net/2015/06/tabletop-kingdom-builder-and-screwing-up-the-rules/)?
I haven't watched the episode yet, but from what I have read [needless-spoiler]Wil wins the game as a result of an incorrect rules interpretation.[/needless-spoiler]
Do you feel that this sort of thing might be harmful to your product?
Or is any publicity good publicity?
In the comments, someone suggested inviting games developers to come on the show to help avoid this sort of thing (although why they thought it reasonable to dictate who should pay the associated costs is beyond me).
Would you be interested in being involved with shows that feature your products, either on-screen or off-screen?
Does it generally annoy you when people get the rules wrong when posting playthroughs and reviews online?
From what I have seen, it's pretty common for people to get at least a few details wrong.
Wil didn't win, and without analyzing their game too closely, the rules mistake they made (using extra Actions on the same turn they obtained them) didn't seem to help any one player specifically.
Yeah that blog post really surprises me. He says they "completely butchered the rules"; that didn't happen at all. Unless there's something else I'm not aware of, they had one small detail incorrect; something that could be easily missed your first time playing. And they had a thing pop up in the video explaining the correct rule. So there shouldn't be concern over viewers learning it incorrectly.
Man most of these games aren't ever good to learn from reading the rules alone. You want to learn by playing with someone who has played and have them teach you. Then if necessary you read the rules after you play. It's very difficult to get everything right the first time. I'm disappointed that Wil would get so angry about this, and feel bad for the producer who I would assume was fired based on the post.
Ah, I think what I read said that he ended the game early due to the misapplication of the rule, which I suppose helped whoever was ahead at the time.
I should probably have watched the episode before I commented on it.
The thing that is really weird to me, and to a lot of people who have even a passing interest in Tabletop/Geek & Sundry, is that the unnamed producer in charge of the rules is easily identified as Boyan Radakovich.
Boyan isn't just some lowly intern paid to look after the rules, he is a games designer, an expert in what makes a good game and is the producer responsible for doing all the legwork to find suitable games to play on the show.
More importantly, he and Wil have previously described themselves as friends.
It seems odd to me that Wil would just throw him under the bus like that.
Looks like it seems odd to Boyan too. (https://twitter.com/thegamesmith/status/611749282056568832)
Now, for a review on BGG, if they blow it and use abilities the turn they get them in KB, well someone will set them straight but it will certainly lower the value of the review. You're not watching the game in action, just hearing some opinions warped by wrong rules. So that's more annoying. And you can't necessarily tell. But when you can, people are immediately on it.
That's one of the big benefits of an active community like this or BGG.
If someone says something wrong, there is always someone who knows better that can set them straight.
Of course, as you know, the downside is that many things that are "wrong" are subjective and people can argue for hours about really petty crap.
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Ah, I think what I read said that he ended the game early due to the misapplication of the rule, which I suppose helped whoever was ahead at the time.
I don't think that happened. When Wil explained the game, he said (wrongly) that the game ended once any player had used up all his/her settlements. But when that actually happened (Wil was 3rd player and used up his settlements), they still finished out the turn order (the 4th player got his turn), which is correct according to the rules.
The guy who won (Yuri), won because he prioritized Citizens and Merchants, which dovetailed well together in this game. It was not a particularly close game.
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Would you agree that Kingdom Builder "can claim Weiqi (Go) as its spiritual ancestor"?
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I find it completely ironic that Wil Wheaton singlehandedly coined Wheaton's Law: Don't be a dick. Way to go, what a hypocrite.
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Ah, I think what I read said that he ended the game early due to the misapplication of the rule, which I suppose helped whoever was ahead at the time.
I don't think that happened. When Wil explained the game, he said (wrongly) that the game ended once any player had used up all his/her settlements. But when that actually happened (Wil was 3rd player and used up his settlements), they still finished out the turn order (the 4th player got his turn), which is correct according to the rules.
The guy who won (Yuri), won because he prioritized Citizens and Merchants, which dovetailed well together in this game. It was not a particularly close game.
The fact that the errors were minor makes it even more bizarre that he would throw his producer under the bus.
Although I guess part of what he is saying is that it has been an ongoing problem all season.
I get the feeling Wil is something of a perfectionist, so I suppose it's a case of the straw that broke the camel's back.
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Would you agree that Kingdom Builder "can claim Weiqi (Go) as its spiritual ancestor"?
Not so much. Go is a classic game of "putting pieces on a board," but it's not the only one. It's fair to say that some classic game of putting pieces on a board put the idea into my head, but after that it was just a basic tool hanging around, unattached in my mind to any specific game. And then, what you actually do with your pieces isn't too similar between Go and Kingdom Builder.
Kingdom Builder started out as a Dominion spin-off. I took out the deckbuilding and replaced it with "draw a card and put 3 pieces on that terrain, adjacent to you if possible." That in turn came from an earlier bidding game, Baron Lite. You bid on a terrain card with a number, e.g. 3 of Deserts, if you won you put three pieces on Desert, adjacent to yourself if possible. That rule came from trying to think of how to avoid politics in multiplayer games with pieces on a board. Baron Lite came from The Baron Game, which had no rules in common with it (and which remains a secret in case I one day pursue something like it).
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Would you agree that Kingdom Builder "can claim Weiqi (Go) as its spiritual ancestor"?
Funny you say that as many beginners of Go have heard that it is a good thing to build strong group and conclude it must be good to place new stones adjacent to their existing ones, which is an exercise in inefficiency.
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With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic FAQ-answering generation, how worried are you about your position being overthrown by a robot?
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With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic FAQ-answering generation, how worried are you about your position being overthrown by a robot?
SheCantSayNo beat you to the punch a page or two ago, bro.
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dotdotdot
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dotdotdot
With the recent developments of the recent developments, how worried are you about SCSN's not so recent developments being the reason he has to work in the bitter black coal mines as the canary, except the company couldn't afford a canary so they got a magpie instead?
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With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic FAQ-answering generation, how worried are you about your position being overthrown by a robot?
Man, I need to get one of those players that don't enjoy it; so, it only makes sense to switch to spin-offs; you can get up so floating many bells and whistles, as they say, uh, but still; and for that matter, this is why we can't know even if we look in the secret history; bacon; but you can only maximize one of the, like, tears in the rain.
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And thus was born the new game Donald X: Bot or NoBot?
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If there is a Donald robot, I would vouch for it's name to be DonAlt.
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you can get up so floating many bells
(http://i.imgur.com/eSy4TWs.png)
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bacon;
This says it all.
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With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic FAQ-answering generation, how worried are you about your position being overthrown by a robot?
SheCantSayNo beat you to the punch a page or two ago, bro.
Which makes it an FAQ and was answered accordingly.
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With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic FAQ-answering generation, how worried are you about your position being overthrown by a robot?
SheCantSayNo beat you to the punch a page or two ago, bro.
Which makes it an FAQ and was answered accordingly.
*a FAQ
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With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic FAQ-answering generation, how worried are you about your position being overthrown by a robot?
SheCantSayNo beat you to the punch a page or two ago, bro.
Which makes it an FAQ and was answered accordingly.
*a FAQ
Which is correct: "an UFO" or "a UFO"?
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I thought "an FAQ" is correct when you want it to be pronounced /ɛfɛɪkju:/, "a FAQ" when you want it to be pronounced "frequently asked questions" or /fæk/ because that's how it would work in Finnish. Is this wrong?
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... because that's how it would work in Finnish.
I think that line of reasoning would lose you a lot of arguments.
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I thought you always used "an" if the next word starts with something spoken as a vocal. So, a UFO, an FAQ, an hommage to the best card.
Of course, if you say ufo and faq as if they were words instead of acronyms (we germans tend to do that with Ufo, at least), it's going to look weird to you. I can say a UFO and an FAQ both look weird to me, but they should be correct from my knowledge of your language.
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... because that's how it would work in Finnish.
I think that line of reasoning would lose you a lot of arguments.
Maybe, but at least it would finnish the arguments.
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I say yu-eff-oh, but I pronounce FAQ as one syllable.
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With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic FAQ-answering generation, how worried are you about your position being overthrown by a robot?
SheCantSayNo beat you to the punch a page or two ago, bro.
Which makes it an FAQ and was answered accordingly.
*a FAQ
Not if you say it "eff ay cue".
Edit: And, I'm way behind.
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With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic FAQ-answering generation, how worried are you about your position being overthrown by a robot?
SheCantSayNo beat you to the punch a page or two ago, bro.
Which makes it an FAQ and was answered accordingly.
*a FAQ
Not if you say it "eff ay cue".
Edit: And, I'm way behind.
Well, you make it a frequently answered question now.
And glad to read that my English teacher was not that useless.
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With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic FAQ-answering generation, how worried are you about your position being overthrown by a robot?
SheCantSayNo beat you to the punch a page or two ago, bro.
Which makes it an FAQ and was answered accordingly.
*a FAQ
Oh so you say it with one syllable? I understand.
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With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic FAQ-answering generation, how worried are you about your position being overthrown by a robot?
SheCantSayNo beat you to the punch a page or two ago, bro.
Which makes it an FAQ and was answered accordingly.
*a FAQ
*Aflac
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With the recent developments in the area of algorithmic FAQ-answering generation, how worried are you about your position being overthrown by a robot?
SheCantSayNo beat you to the punch a page or two ago, bro.
Which makes it an FAQ and was answered accordingly.
*a FAQ
*Aflac
FAQ you.
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FAQ you.
You beat me to the punch! FAQ it!
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Funnily enough, if you write "a FAQ" I'll read it as "a fack", but if you write "an FAQ" I'll automatically read it as "an eff ay cue" instead.
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It would be fairly straightforward to convert Treasure cards to actions, by giving them +1 Action and having them produce the appropriate amount of coin.
You could also have such a card have a sub-category, so that its type would be "Action-Treasure."
Did you test versions of Dominion without Treasures? After all, Kingdom Treasures didn't come up until Prosperity, when the Treasure's strategic space had already been created (barring Harem, which is essentially a Silver with an end-game bonus), while Kingdom Victory cards existed from the start.
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It would be fairly straightforward to convert Treasure cards to actions, by giving them +1 Action and having them produce the appropriate amount of coin.
You could also have such a card have a sub-category, so that its type would be "Action-Treasure."
Did you test versions of Dominion without Treasures? After all, Kingdom Treasures didn't come up until Prosperity, when the Treasure's strategic space had already been created, while Kingdom Victory cards existed from the start.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1225.0
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Sure, I understand that some Treasures would be better or worse as Actions, but I was wondering why the Treasure (as a separate, Buy-phase only card) came to be. Having cards that are (normally) playable only in the Buy phase creates a strategic space, and the existence of this space is a major difference between Dominion and many of its clones.
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Sure, I understand that some Treasures would be better or worse as Actions, but I was wondering why the Treasure (as a separate, Buy-phase only card) came to be. Having cards that are (normally) playable only in the Buy phase creates a strategic space, and the existence of this space is a major difference between Dominion and many of its clones.
Sure, didn't mean for my link to be pointing out that treasureless Dominion would be different; rather your post just reminded me of that discussion and I linked to it since it's related.
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Did you test versions of Dominion without Treasures? After all, Kingdom Treasures didn't come up until Prosperity, when the Treasure's strategic space had already been created (barring Harem, which is essentially a Silver with an end-game bonus), while Kingdom Victory cards existed from the start.
I did not test Dominion without treasures.
Treasures with abilities didn't appear until 2006. Which is to say, they were obvious and I had them immediately. Okay as a rough measure of how long it took me to try them: Harem is on page 3, Cache on page 5, out of the earliest 9-card pages of cards.
I felt that every set wanted a special victory card. I did not feel that every set needed a special treasure, and Prosperity had them as a theme. So I saved them for Prosperity, to be more exciting when they debuted. Then Philosopher's Stone snuck out ahead due to Alchemy getting pushed up. It was a concern for me at the time, was I ruining Prosperity too much by having that treasure in Alchemy. In the end, no, it did not ruin Prosperity.
Dominion has treasures because it was part of the premise. I kept them because they worked. I didn't try not having them, because I was happy having them. In general I do not focus on trying different things for a part of a game that's working great. I focus on the parts that aren't working, or on making more stuff.
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I was just wondering: What do you think, how many humans on earth have already played dominion? I really have no idea whether it's closer to 100000 or 100000000 ...
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I was just wondering: What do you think, how many humans on earth have already played dominion? I really have no idea whether it's closer to 100000 or 100000000 ...
I remember when it was exactly 4 and exactly 12, but at this point I have no idea. I know how many copies have sold but there's a lot more to the story. A lot of the numbers I just won't have; how many copies of the app with my name in the title went out?
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I was just wondering: What do you think, how many humans on earth have already played dominion? I really have no idea whether it's closer to 100000 or 100000000 ...
I remember when it was exactly 4 and exactly 12, but at this point I have no idea. I know how many copies have sold but there's a lot more to the story. A lot of the numbers I just won't have; how many copies of the app with my name in the title went out?
Surely you could extrapolate from that data.
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I was just wondering: What do you think, how many humans on earth have already played dominion? I really have no idea whether it's closer to 100000 or 100000000 ...
I remember when it was exactly 4 and exactly 12, but at this point I have no idea. I know how many copies have sold but there's a lot more to the story. A lot of the numbers I just won't have; how many copies of the app with my name in the title went out?
Surely you could extrapolate from that data.
(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/extrapolating.png)
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Or find some more (rich) dads.
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(At least 50% chance this has been said here already, fingers crossed...)
I just want to express my happiness here that the metagame has shifted towards "Engine every chance you get". Back when I played my first game, I naturally saw the Village-Smithy engine as the heart and soul of the game. I was slightly disappointed when I read that "BM Double Terminal is going to be strong more often than you think" (though the thrill of knowing a "better strategy" than most plebs more than compensated at the time). When I returned to Dominion and found that Engines are Cool Again, it was pretty great.
I guess my question is: how do you feel about this paradigm shift? Does this make you say, "yes! This is what I always wanted it to be!" Or do you feel like the game has now lost some variety?
(I know this is all old news, insert a slowpoke meme here. I haven't been part of the dominion scene for a while.)
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I guess my question is: how do you feel about this paradigm shift? Does this make you say, "yes! This is what I always wanted it to be!" Or do you feel like the game has now lost some variety?
I think it's important that the people who want simple options have those options. I personally enjoy combos the most; my favorite sets are Dark Ages and Adventures.
My experience hasn't been the same as the public's. I had a pile of expansions in 2007. So uh. I haven't felt a shift like that really.
In terms of people talking about the game online, well it was cool when there was that contest for the First Game set and the winner's strategy used 9 of the cards. It certainly beats the early "silver test" stuff.
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(At least 50% chance this has been said here already, fingers crossed...)
I just want to express my happiness here that the metagame has shifted towards "Engine every chance you get". Back when I played my first game, I naturally saw the Village-Smithy engine as the heart and soul of the game. I was slightly disappointed when I read that "BM Double Terminal is going to be strong more often than you think" (though the thrill of knowing a "better strategy" than most plebs more than compensated at the time). When I returned to Dominion and found that Engines are Cool Again, it was pretty great.
Sometimes the sentiment goes even this far (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12757.msg513920#msg513920), dare I say bordering on putting style over substance. The downtimeside of comboes is that not everyone enjoys watching me playing with myself.
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(At least 50% chance this has been said here already, fingers crossed...)
I just want to express my happiness here that the metagame has shifted towards "Engine every chance you get". Back when I played my first game, I naturally saw the Village-Smithy engine as the heart and soul of the game. I was slightly disappointed when I read that "BM Double Terminal is going to be strong more often than you think" (though the thrill of knowing a "better strategy" than most plebs more than compensated at the time). When I returned to Dominion and found that Engines are Cool Again, it was pretty great.
Sometimes the sentiment goes even this far (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12757.msg513920#msg513920), dare I say bordering on putting style over substance. The downtimeside of comboes is that not everyone enjoys watching me playing with myself.
Fixed the broken url.
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In terms of people talking about the game online, well it was cool when there was that contest for the First Game set and the winner's strategy used 9 of the cards. It certainly beats the early "silver test" stuff.
Do you know, that's actually what brought me back to dominion? Last month, I was in need of a distraction and on a whim I looked up the Building the First Game Engine article. I saw michaeljb's solution was tacked on as a new paragraph that I didn't remember. I tried it out a couple of times, and went, holy cow I never thought I'd have so much fun on the First Game set. And now I'm hooked all over again.
Sometimes the sentiment goes even this far (http://"http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12757.msg513920#msg513920"), dare I say bordering on putting style over substance.
I will never apologize for putting style over substance in Dominion. :P
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What do you think of the new Blur album 'The Magic Whip'? If you've listened to it, can you give a short review of the songs, along with your rating of the album?
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What do you think of the new Blur album 'The Magic Whip'? If you've listened to it, can you give a short review of the songs, along with your rating of the album?
Well it's easily their 2nd best album, after Parklife. Considering Albarn's other projects, tentatively 3rd best after Plastic Beach, which I haven't heard in a while.
Musically it is not trying to do anything too annoying or outside of my ken. Most songs have that subdued sad quality that Albarn has been stuck with for a while now. Like, you will be staring at the lyrics for Ice Cream Man, trying to figure out what terrifying thing is secretly going on, given how the lines are delivered.
Highlights are Ong Ong (a bouncier number), There Are Too Many of Us, Ice Cream Man, Lonesome Street, My Terracotta Heart.
I expect it will make my top 10 for the year but then I don't expect stiff competition. FFS is album of the year so far, but to be fair lots of stuff comes out in the fall..
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I think it would be awesome if Donald X never listened to any of this music but was just really, really good at searching online and collecting opinions.
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I think it would be awesome if Donald X never listened to any of this music but was just really, really good at searching online and collecting opinions.
This is why it's very important that students email their questions in advance.
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I think it would be awesome if Donald X never listened to any of this music but was just really, really good at searching online and collecting opinions.
Now we just need a computer program to do that.
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Would you ever make another (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) card, or was that just a gimmick for Poor House?
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Would you ever make another (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) card, or was that just a gimmick for Poor House?
Edge case: Shelters cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png).
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Would you ever make another (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) card, or was that just a gimmick for Poor House?
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/2/2e/Save.jpg)
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I meant Kingdom card and you all knew that.
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Save (the event) costs (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png).
Save (the card) costs $0.1125.
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(http://i.imgur.com/gImgPRo.jpg)
I found this Official Donald X. Card! it has to be real, it's probably for the New Expansion coming out in 2080!
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Would you ever make another (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) card, or was that just a gimmick for Poor House?
...
Events are not cards. -10 points for Seprixerin.
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it's probably for the New Expansion coming out in 2080!
Dominion: Time Capsule?
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Would you ever make another (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) card, or was that just a gimmick for Poor House?
I don't just rule out stuff like that. There would need to be a reason to do it but it's not like there couldn't be one.
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For Dominion Online, has Making Fun finally got the Campaigns to where you wanted them to be?
I've been wanting to play them once they're "complete", but there's always been some thing that still needed to be done (descriptions of the special rules, etc.). Are they essentially finalized now?
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For Dominion Online, has Making Fun finally got the Campaigns to where you wanted them to be?
I've been wanting to play them once they're "complete", but there's always been some thing that still needed to be done (descriptions of the special rules, etc.). Are they essentially finalized now?
Unless there are mistakes, they put in everything they were supposed to. I haven't played through everything or compared the lists of 10 to my lists.
They differ from being done in that maybe we will decide to change something based on people finally playing them. I think I will ask them to tweak the Hinterlands rule due to it having poor interactions with Nobles and Ill-Gotten Gains. There may be a level or two that's just too hard. I leaned towards attacks on "boss" levels and then leaned towards multiple opponents on those levels and that's not a great combination, you get these very slow games. So maybe a few of those want to just swap with adjacent levels, have the attacks or multiple opponents on the boss level but not both. And I think the first few levels of each campaign are vs. Serf bot, but I'd only do that for the main set.
They differ from being whatever I would have specifically picked out for everything , in that I left a bunch of sets-of-10 that they'd picked out ahead of me for the first few sets, and for a couple campaigns I hadn't picked out any extra stuff to do and they picked out a few varying starting hands. You know originally they had some campaigns they'd made. They introduced cards incredibly slowly - level after level for an expansion had 9 main set cards. I went through and sped that up and added what levels I had to, then picked out sets for later expansions. I'm never going back and making up my own sets of 10 for everything though; it's not necessary and a lot of work.
Anyway they aren't final but play them now; you could put off Hinterlands but the rest are in good shape. If a level seems too hard, or bad in whatever other way, report it.
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Hinterlands was hard but I successfully won all the levels without using any of the extra turn things (name slips my mind). As I recall 2 or 3 of the levels were really hard.
Ill-Gotten Gains was difficult with the added rule because you couldn't add the copper to your hand. I would have liked to have seen the Nobles and Great Halls be able to be top-decked, but that wasn't that big of a deal.
The Campaigns are more interesting to play than the previous version's Adventures.
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What's the Hinterlands rule?
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Non-victory cards gained are top-decked as if with Royal Seal.
So, with Ill-Gotten Gains, if you choose to get the Copper, it goes to the top of the deck rather than into your hand.
Cards like Island, Great Hall, Nobles, don't top deck as it currently stands.
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Non-victory cards gained are top-decked as if with Royal Seal.
So, with Ill-Gotten Gains, if you choose to get the Copper, it goes to the top of the deck rather than into your hand.
Cards like Island, Great Hall, Nobles, don't top deck as it currently stands.
Yes, I am thinking I will ask them to change it to "When you gain an Action or Treasure costing $1 or more, put it on your deck." The intention wasn't to change Ill-Gotten Gains or to include Nobles in a level and have it not go on top.
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Nomad Camp must hate that rule...
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What's the Hinterlands rule?
Don't talk about Hinterlands.
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What's the Hinterlands rule?
Don't talk about Hinterlands.
Well, that's the first rule about Hinterlands.
I fully expect respect points for explaining Seprix's joke, thereby making it even funnier. I also expect additional respect points for explaining it so subtly.
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I fully expect respect points for explaining Seprix's joke, thereby making it even funnier. I also expect additional respect points for explaining it so subtly.
Denied.
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Did your middle name have anything to do with the creation of the Powerpuff Girls?
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I fully expect respect points for explaining Seprix's joke, thereby making it even funnier. I also expect additional respect points for explaining it so subtly.
Denied.
Denial is one of the first symptoms.
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I thought it was a river in Egypt?
Ba-dum-tsh
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I thought it was a river in Egypt?
Ba-dum-tsh
Tut tut, wrap up the puns.
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I fully expect respect points for explaining Seprix's joke, thereby making it even funnier. I also expect additional respect points for explaining it so subtly.
Denied.
Denial is one of the first symptoms.
Padme isn't dead... Padme isn't dead...
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Dear Donald: Did your middle name have anything to do with the creation of the Powerpuff Girls?
"The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes-
A sentiment open to doubt.
You are the Snark, and your gifs are the bathing-machines. There are threads for gifs and such, and then there's every damn thread on the board. Adding a question that's really nothing doesn't make it any more delightful.
Game Theory - I've Tried Subtlety
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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how many words is a GIF worth?
Then again, the counterplay is that you don't wish to read a novel.
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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how many words is a GIF worth?
Length of GIF * Framerate * 1000
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I just noticed something. You've often said that MTG is your favorite game. Does this apply to more than 2 player MTG? Because you've also said on more than one occasion that you dislike politics in games as they just lead to arguments over whom you should attack. One of the reasons I don't like multiplayer Magic as much as 2 player is the same thing; you have to make that decision whom to attack, and often there's no good way to make the decision. Just wondering if you think this is a downside / flaw in MTG, or if you feel it's different there.
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I just noticed something. You've often said that MTG is your favorite game. Does this apply to more than 2 player MTG? Because you've also said on more than one occasion that you dislike politics in games as they just lead to arguments over whom you should attack. One of the reasons I don't like multiplayer Magic as much as 2 player is the same thing; you have to make that decision whom to attack, and often there's no good way to make the decision. Just wondering if you think this is a downside / flaw in MTG, or if you feel it's different there.
I've often said that Magic was my favorite game. That's right.
Mostly I played two player, and for many years those were all drafts. When I played multiplayer, except at the very beginning, it was always with a variant, to fix the political problems (which never vanish but can be muted).
With 3 players, play until one player is dead; the player to their right wins. With 4 you can do the same or play with teams. With 5, play until two players sitting next to each other are dead, with dead players continuing to play; the player opposite the two dead players wins (frequently a tie). With 6, man what are you doing, just do a draft and pair up already.
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What is the flag in Summon's expansion icon supposed to be representing?
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What is the flag in Summon's expansion icon supposed to be representing?
There was no special thing to commemorate with this promo, so we decided to pick a symbol that we could reuse if there were ever more promos. Something that said this was something special in some vague generic way. So: a flag.
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What is the flag in Summon's expansion icon supposed to be representing?
There was no special thing to commemorate with this promo, so we decided to pick a symbol that we could reuse if there were ever more promos. Something that said this was something special in some vague generic way. So: a flag.
(http://memecrunch.com/meme/L6IH/do-you-have-a-flag/image.jpg)
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I've often said that Magic was my favorite game.
What is your favorite game then?
And, if it's different, what's your favorite game that you didn't make?
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I've often said that Magic was my favorite game.
What is your favorite game then?
And, if it's different, what's your favorite game that you didn't make?
Dominion / Magic.
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I've often said that Magic was my favorite game.
What is your favorite game then?
And, if it's different, what's your favorite game that you didn't make?
Dominion / Magic.
I play a Silver and tap my elf to buy an Aether Web.
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I've often said that Magic was my favorite game.
What is your favorite game then?
And, if it's different, what's your favorite game that you didn't make?
Dominion / Magic.
I play a Silver and tap my elf to buy an Aether Web.
(http://magiclampoon.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/village.gif)
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I've often said that Magic was my favorite game.
What is your favorite game then?
And, if it's different, what's your favorite game that you didn't make?
Dominion / Magic.
I play a Silver and tap my elf to buy an Aether Web.
(http://magiclampoon.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/village.gif)
(http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=25562&type=card)
Oh man, the synergy!
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That can be a potential idea for a duration attack
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That can be a potential idea for a duration attack
A potentially awful, fun-killing idea.
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That can be a potential idea for a duration attack
A potentially awful, fun-killing idea.
as someone who has always confused the two of you with each other, this conflict is bothering me
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That can be a potential idea for a duration attack
A potentially awful, fun-killing idea.
as someone who has always confused the two of you with each other, this conflict is bothering me
Whoa, really? What do Beyond Awesome and I have in common, apart from both being members of f.DS?
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That can be a potential idea for a duration attack
A potentially awful, fun-killing idea.
as someone who has always confused the two of you with each other, this conflict is bothering me
Whoa, really? What do Beyond Awesome and I have in common, apart from both being members of f.DS?
You're both beyond awesome!
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You both have usernames that are a combination of 2 real words; but that's all I can think of. Often though I'll get users mixed up because of that sort of thing; not because any common posting traits.
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Apologies if this isn't the place for it, but it has been discussed in this thread before: is there any more news on an expansion for Temporum? Is it probable/likely/unlikely? If it's moving forward, do you have a rough timeframe for release?
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If you were making new cards, are there any circumstances you would envision using, for cost reducing abilities, the original Bridge wording?
If you had a time machine, would bridge be worded like highway instead?
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If you had a time machine, would bridge be worded like highway instead?
In the existing time machine post (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3353.0), Donald has said he "would consider" wording Bridge like Highway.
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If you had a time machine, would bridge be worded like highway instead?
In the existing time machine post (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3353.0), Donald has said he "would consider" wording Bridge like Highway.
Maybe a new Temporum expansion will allow you to consider an alternate timeline where Donald made that choice originally.
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Apologies if this isn't the place for it, but it has been discussed in this thread before: is there any more news on an expansion for Temporum? Is it probable/likely/unlikely? If it's moving forward, do you have a rough timeframe for release?
Alayna has started working on the art. I don't know how long it will take her. And then I don't know when Jay will put it out although it probably won't be delayed for anything special. So, probably next year, not before the spring.
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If you had a time machine, would bridge be worded like highway instead?
In the existing time machine post (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3353.0), Donald has said he "would consider" wording Bridge like Highway.
Any chance we can get an update to this that includes Dark Ages + Guilds + (maybe) Adventures?
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If you were making new cards, are there any circumstances you would envision using, for cost reducing abilities, the original Bridge wording?
If you had a time machine, would bridge be worded like highway instead?
Yes; no (except). My position has varied over the years.
I lean towards "while this is in play" for cards with abilities that last some time period, but in any specific case it may seem better to do it as "this turn" or some such; you can see me being inconsistent there in Adventures. I probably don't so much care how the Throne Room case works out; I just want the clearest phrasing. Throne Room can sway things if it causes rules questions that aren't counterbalanced by something else pushing the other way, or if Throning the card is sufficiently scary.
For Bridge itself, the main thing is, that "this turn" is simpler than "while in play." When you have say Procession floating around, it no longer is, but when you buy Intrigue and that's all you've got, the "this turn" wording is making things easier.
I do think I would change Bridge to drop the extra words. "This turn, cards cost $1 less, but not less than $0." I am sold on putting "(including you)" on some cards but don't normally like parentheticals or redundancy in the card texts.
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Any chance we can get an update to this that includes Dark Ages + Guilds + (maybe) Adventures?
I will quickly glance through the visual spoilers for Dark Ages and Guilds.
Dark Ages:
- It's no secret that I'd rather Rebuild wasn't so strong/boring.
- People have complained about Necropolis not color-wise matching the other Shelters. Easy to fix too. I hadn't specified.
- I might change Dame Josephine to something better.
- I'd rethink the *$0 cost on Madman and Mercenary. There are virtues of having cost tell you something about power level, and just breaking that for Peddler.
- Some of you have complained about Cultist and Urchin/Mercenary but I'd have to do more research to know if I'd change those. I don't think I'd change Fortress (/Bishop).
Guilds:
- I regret changing Soothsayer from "Gain a Gold. Each other player gains a Curse and draws a card." Making the card conditional is extra complexity that gets you very little.
- I considered simplifying Butcher but didn't. It seems to have worked out but if I were working on the set I'd look at that again.
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Alayna has started working on the art. I don't know how long it will take her. And then I don't know when Jay will put it out although it probably won't be delayed for anything special. So, probably next year, not before the spring.
Awesome, thanks! I am looking forward to it.
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I guess it's pretty unlikely that we'll get an expansion for Greed?
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I guess it's pretty unlikely that we'll get an expansion for Greed?
Don't get greedy!
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I guess it's pretty unlikely that we'll get an expansion for Greed?
It is unlikely! It always was though; it's not ideal for expanding. Making the deck bigger means you're more likely to get games with no cars etc. You could add non-deck elements but that shifts the game away from its premise. You could swap out specific cards but that's no-fun setup.
Instead you can just make new drafting games, with different basic stuff going on and different themes. That would have sounded good in the murky past. Now it seems like, other people are making those games. I mean, it still sounds good, but not good enough to compete with other projects.
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If you were to allow yourself to publish one card (a promo, say) that for all sorts of reasons you would never, ever actually publish, what card would that be?
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If you were to allow yourself to publish one card (a promo, say) that for all sorts of reasons you would never, ever actually publish, what card would that be?
Hypothetical Messed Up Highway For Having Bad Rules Conversations About How Confusing Phrasings That Would Never Exist Should Be Interpreted, obviously.
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Enrage Game Creator - 6
+1 Action
+1 Card
___________
While this is in play, if you would gain a curse, you may gain a silver instead. If you would discard this, you may instead set aside a card costing at least 3 from your discard pile. If so, gain an Inn, putting it directly into your discard pile, and toggle the state of the point counter.
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Enrage Game Creator - 6
+1 Action
+1 Card
___________
While this is in play, if you would gain a curse, you may gain a silver instead. If you would discard this, you may instead set aside a card costing at least 3 from your discard pile. If so, gain an Inn, putting it directly into your discard pile, and toggle the state of the point counter.
Need to make it a reaction as well. "When another plays an Action or Treasure, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, each player reveals the top two cards of their deck and you chose one: discards both or put back in either order (your choice)."
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If you were to allow yourself to publish one card (a promo, say) that for all sorts of reasons you would never, ever actually publish, what card would that be?
I can't really answer the question as given. I mean, it's not that I'm holding myself back. If there's a card I don't want published, I don't want it published. I allow myself, right now, and then, I pass, I don't want things published that I don't want published.
Sometimes a card is fun in playtesting but can't go out. It messes up the game in a fun way but it always does it and it's no good to always have that experience with the card. This is maybe the closest to what you're looking for. Man what was a good one of those. The ones I am thinking of are still just way too bad for me to get any joy thinking about them being published. Like War Axe was fun in its day; a Silver with a when-gain trashing attack. You have a sub-game of buying them out and then some players may be utterly out of the game but still trapped in it. It's not an experience I am looking to have more of or share, but I did enjoy those games.
Sometimes a card is too powerful in a way that doesn't let me just weaken it. Adventures had the TFB mix of +1's; we had a lot of fun with that crazy thing. You can't just always make the cards weak enough because of the coarseness of the costs and not wanting microtext.
Sometimes a great simple classic idea just doesn't happen to work in Dominion, like "each other player discards a card."
Sometimes a card looks cool on paper but fails to be fun. For example the card that increases numbers in another card's text, that sounds like a great promo until you try it.
Sometimes I like a card more than my playtesters, and end up abandoning it for that reason. Treasure Hunter is a good example, I mean that one did come out, but it was around for years, failing to make it into expansions, before it finally made it as one level on the Page path. If I'm forced to pick an outtake to be published, man, I take one of these. Maybe one of the Remodel your top card cards.
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Do you think you'll ever call another card that gives +2 Actions a "_________ Village"?
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Do you think you'll ever call another card that gives +2 Actions a "_________ Village"?
I am going to recast your question as one I prefer answering: what do I think of having "Village" in the name of a +2 Actions card. I think it's good, it helps you learn the cards and connects it to those other Villages. It's not mandatory though as has been demonstrated.
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Will we ever see a Villager, Mayor or Village Idiot?
Also, what's your own favourite expansion-specific mechanic? Which didn't get as good as you'd have liked (e.g. for time reasons)?
And do you occasionally have ideas for cards using old mechanics that you couldn't revisit anymore?
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Village Idiot?
Village Idiot, Action, (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)
+1 card
+2 actions
Gain Village Idiot. I you do, you can't buy any cards this turn.
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Will we ever see a Villager, Mayor or Village Idiot?
Village Idiot was +2 Actions, each other player discards a card. It was in the large version of Alchemy and you can see it in the outtakes article. Mayor sounds too modern to me; the others are fine.
Also, what's your own favourite expansion-specific mechanic?
It seems difficult to be accurate or fair here. My knee-jerk answer is Events.
Within the broad realm of games with rules on cards, "choose one" is a star mechanic.
Which didn't get as good as you'd have liked (e.g. for time reasons)?
Well Alchemy was the only set where time constraints were a thing. And it's not as good as I'd like but the Potion mechanic itself probably wouldn't have changed if I'd had more time (except, if I'd had tons of time then I would have done something else and saved Potions for last as originally intended).
There are cards that aren't good enough that have set mechanics. But it's not the mechanic's fault. Okay the one thing I can see is, it would be better not to have both when-gain and when-buy. Simpler. But some cards had to have when-buy to exist, and everything else is more fun as when-gain.
And do you occasionally have ideas for cards using old mechanics that you couldn't revisit anymore?
I don't think there's any such mechanic; if I wanted to do more Reserve cards we'd include the Tavern mats and I could do it, if I wanted more Potion-costing cards we'd include Potions, and so on.
You could say, in some sense I can't revisit Potions because it would be stupid too, since so many people don't like Potions. I don't ever think of Potion-costing cards though because that's not really a thing.
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Village Idiot?
Village Idiot, Action, (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)
+1 card
+2 actions
Gain Village Idiot. I you do, you can't buy any cards this turn.
Village Idiot (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Madman#In_other_languages)
$0* Action
+2 actions
Return this to the Village Idiot pile. If you do, +1 Card per card in your hand.
(This is not in the Supply.)
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This must have been asked before, but I can't find it.
Have you ever considered making online only promos / expansions?
Without physical limitations, it seems there's much more you can do.
I already consider Philosopher's Stone sort of an online only card.
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Have you ever considered making online only promos / expansions?
Without physical limitations, it seems there's much more you can do.
I have not considered an online-only expansion; it's a lot of work that could instead go towards a physical expansion that could also appear online. It would just never seem preferable to rule out a physical expansion.
I have considered an online-only promo, to the extent that Peasant/Page came from that considering. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13082.0
MF has not been interested in an online-only promo so far, but if and when I will consider it again.
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Have you checked out the Forum Games (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=26.0) and the Dominion League (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=60.0)?
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Have you checked out the Forum Games (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=26.0) and the Dominion League (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=60.0)?
Oh man, forum games, those sound amazing.
I have been in both forums, though they are not regular hang-outs. I have a thread in Forum Games, and posts in the League forum.
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Have you checked out the Forum Games (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=26.0) and the Dominion League (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=60.0)?
Even if I liked Mafia, I don't think I'd want to play against Donald in Mafia. I just imagine you being scary good.
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Have you checked out the Forum Games (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=26.0) and the Dominion League (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=60.0)?
Even if I liked Mafia, I don't think I'd want to play against Donald in Mafia. I just imagine you being scary good.
Come on, play. What else are you going to to do, online Dominion?
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Have you checked out the Forum Games (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=26.0) and the Dominion League (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=60.0)?
Even if I liked Mafia, I don't think I'd want to play against Donald in Mafia. I just imagine you being scary good.
Come on, play. What else are you going to to do, online Dominion?
I would rather play Monopoly than any social deduction game that takes more than ten minutes. Resistance, or Coup, or something like that, incredibly short social deduction game, I can deal with that. But Monopoly >> Mafia/Werewolf
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Have you checked out the Forum Games (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=26.0) and the Dominion League (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=60.0)?
Even if I liked Mafia, I don't think I'd want to play against Donald in Mafia. I just imagine you being scary good.
Come on, play. What else are you going to to do, online Dominion?
I would rather play Monopoly than any social deduction game that takes more than ten minutes. Resistance, or Coup, or something like that, incredibly short social deduction game, I can deal with that. But Monopoly >> Mafia/Werewolf
Could you express your preference with a slider?
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Have you checked out the Forum Games (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=26.0) and the Dominion League (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=60.0)?
Even if I liked Mafia, I don't think I'd want to play against Donald in Mafia. I just imagine you being scary good.
Come on, play. What else are you going to to do, online Dominion?
I would rather play Monopoly than any social deduction game that takes more than ten minutes. Resistance, or Coup, or something like that, incredibly short social deduction game, I can deal with that. But Monopoly >> Mafia/Werewolf
Resistance taking less than 10 minutes? That a joke? I rarely play a game that lasts less than 30 minutes, most probably average about 45 to 60.
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Have you checked out the Forum Games (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=26.0) and the Dominion League (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=60.0)?
Even if I liked Mafia, I don't think I'd want to play against Donald in Mafia. I just imagine you being scary good.
Come on, play. What else are you going to to do, online Dominion?
I would rather play Monopoly than any social deduction game that takes more than ten minutes. Resistance, or Coup, or something like that, incredibly short social deduction game, I can deal with that. But Monopoly >> Mafia/Werewolf
Resistance taking less than 10 minutes? That a joke? I rarely play a game that lasts less than 30 minutes, most probably average about 45 to 60.
I looked it up, it's Coup, not Resistance.
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Have you checked out the Forum Games (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=26.0) and the Dominion League (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=60.0)?
Even if I liked Mafia, I don't think I'd want to play against Donald in Mafia. I just imagine you being scary good.
Come on, play. What else are you going to to do, online Dominion?
I would rather play Monopoly than any social deduction game that takes more than ten minutes. Resistance, or Coup, or something like that, incredibly short social deduction game, I can deal with that. But Monopoly >> Mafia/Werewolf
Resistance taking less than 10 minutes? That a joke? I rarely play a game that lasts less than 30 minutes, most probably average about 45 to 60.
I looked it up, it's Coup, not Resistance.
Ah, by "Resistance, or Coup", you meant "the game I'm thinking of is either called Resistance or Coup". We read it as you listing 2 different short games you like.
Have you played One Night? I never got into Mafia/Werewolf, but One Night is awesome. It's Werewolf that takes less than 10 minutes to play.
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If there are more expansions, will Events be something that are possibly added regularly, or do you feel you did most of the "classic" ideas?
Also, would there possibly more "player interaction" Events, or is there a reason there was only the one in Adventures?
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Also, would there possibly more "player interaction" Events, or is there a reason there was only the one in Adventures?
One thing I see with "attack Events" is that they aren't "attacks", and thus can't be blocked by Moat and such. This might make people dislike them.
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Also, would there possibly more "player interaction" Events, or is there a reason there was only the one in Adventures?
One thing I see with "attack Events" is that they aren't "attacks", and thus can't be blocked by Moat and such. This might make people dislike them.
Is there anything inherently wrong with the type event|attack?
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"When another player plays an Attack card, ..."
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If there are more expansions, will Events be something that are possibly added regularly, or do you feel you did most of the "classic" ideas?
It would depend a lot on how many good new ones I could come up with. It's not off the table.
Also, would there possibly more "player interaction" Events, or is there a reason there was only the one in Adventures?
I have nothing against player interaction in Events.
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Also, would there possibly more "player interaction" Events, or is there a reason there was only the one in Adventures?
One thing I see with "attack Events" is that they aren't "attacks", and thus can't be blocked by Moat and such. This might make people dislike them.
I haven't heard a backlash from Raid yet. If you wanted you could do stuff like "Each other player may discard a Reaction card. If he doesn't..."
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Also, would there possibly more "player interaction" Events, or is there a reason there was only the one in Adventures?
One thing I see with "attack Events" is that they aren't "attacks", and thus can't be blocked by Moat and such. This might make people dislike them.
I haven't heard a backlash from Raid yet. If you wanted you could do stuff like "Each other player may discard a Reaction card. If he doesn't..."
If anything, there's just some grumbling that Raid is a bit on the weak side.
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Is there anything inherently wrong with the type event|attack?
Technically no, but it would be super confusing since the Attack type wouldn't do anything.
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Is there anything inherently wrong with the type event|attack?
Technically no, but it would be super confusing since the Attack type wouldn't do anything.
Well, the one thing I can think of is that you couldn't really fit "Event–Attack" in that little area that currently says "Event".
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Event-Reaction
Event-Duration
Event-Treasure-Shelter-Knight-Ruins-Curse-Action-Duration-Attack-Reaction-Victory-Prize-Looter-Reserve-Traveller
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Event-Reaction
Event-Duration
Event-Treasure-Shelter-Knight-Ruins-Curse-Action-Duration-Attack-Reaction-Victory-Prize-Looter-Reserve-Traveller
You make the type Event*, and then say in the text, "This Event is also a Treasure, a Shelter, a Knight, a Ruins, a Curse, an Action, a Duration, [continued on next card]"
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Why is Cornucopia packaged with Guilds in the US, but with Alchemy in Germany?
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Why is Cornucopia packaged with Guilds in the US, but with Alchemy in Germany?
And why is Alchemy not packaged with Guilds anywhere to complete the triangle?
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Why is Cornucopia packaged with Guilds in the US, but with Alchemy in Germany?
Because in the US, the Big Box has Base, Alchemy, and Prosperity (for some bizarre reason), so it's more likely that any given person already has Alchemy.
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Why is Cornucopia packaged with Guilds in the US, but with Alchemy in Germany?
And Japan.
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Why is Cornucopia packaged with Guilds in the US, but with Alchemy in Germany?
Because in the US, the Big Box has Base, Alchemy, and Prosperity (for some bizarre reason), so it's more likely that any given person already has Alchemy.
The Big Box is in fact part of it.
I have no idea why they did what they did in Germany. It was nothing to do with me. They also have some weird fan-chosen mix of cards, right? I don't even know what cards are in that.
Jay mentioned combining two small sets in the US and I pointed out that Alchemy is in the Big Box. So it's Cornucopia and Guilds.
The Big Box's sets were based on what made sense to Jay and/or HiG at a particular moment in time (I think HiG may have done different Big Boxes). I don't know what the logic was. I know the product existed because a store, either Barnes & Noble or someone else like that, wanted a big box. And after Jay decided to do it, other entities wanted it too, so there it is.
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Why is Cornucopia packaged with Guilds in the US, but with Alchemy in Germany?
Because in the US, the Big Box has Base, Alchemy, and Prosperity (for some bizarre reason), so it's more likely that any given person already has Alchemy.
The Big Box is in fact part of it.
I have no idea why they did what they did in Germany. It was nothing to do with me. They also have some weird fan-chosen mix of cards, right? I don't even know what cards are in that.
Jay mentioned combining two small sets in the US and I pointed out that Alchemy is in the Big Box. So it's Cornucopia and Guilds.
The Big Box's sets were based on what made sense to Jay and/or HiG at a particular moment in time (I think HiG may have done different Big Boxes). I don't know what the logic was. I know the product existed because a store, either Barnes & Noble or someone else like that, wanted a big box. And after Jay decided to do it, other entities wanted it too, so there it is.
HiG in fact produced a german Big Box. It includes base, Cornucopia, and all Promos available at that time, with Stash having the standard back side.
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Library's secret history says that it and Festival used to be part of a 3-card package back when they were in a different expansion, but the third card didn't make it (into the base set, I guess). What was that third card like? Have we ever seen it (or a variant) show up in a later set?
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Library's secret history says that it and Festival used to be part of a 3-card package back when they were in a different expansion, but the third card didn't make it (into the base set, I guess). What was that third card like? Have we ever seen it (or a variant) show up in a later set?
Village Idiot: Action, $3
+2 Actions
Each other player discards a card.
Village Idiot was in the main set briefly. The set they came from was Alchemy. The main set also got Gardens from it (swapping with Vineyard).
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When you created a new expansion, have you ever considered to create a "Set-of-all-Trades", where no new mechanic is introduced, and where you just have a few cards of every mechanic so far (e.g. a few potion cards, a few coin token cards, a few duration cards and so on)? What you think are the advantages/disadvantages of such a set?
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When you created a new expansion, have you ever considered to create a "Set-of-all-Trades", where no new mechanic is introduced, and where you just have a few cards of every mechanic so far (e.g. a few potion cards, a few coin token cards, a few duration cards and so on)? What you think are the advantages/disadvantages of such a set?
That one's answered most recently (I think) here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg454950#msg454950).
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When you created a new expansion, have you ever considered to create a "Set-of-all-Trades", where no new mechanic is introduced, and where you just have a few cards of every mechanic so far (e.g. a few potion cards, a few coin token cards, a few duration cards and so on)? What you think are the advantages/disadvantages of such a set?
Set-of-all-Trades is just a Jack of all Trades of every suit, right?
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When you created a new expansion, have you ever considered to create a "Set-of-all-Trades", where no new mechanic is introduced, and where you just have a few cards of every mechanic so far (e.g. a few potion cards, a few coin token cards, a few duration cards and so on)? What you think are the advantages/disadvantages of such a set?
Set-of-all-Trades is just a Jack of all Trades of every suit, right?
East coast rules also allow King/Queen/Jack of all Trades in a single suit.
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Donald, serious question.... Did ya miss me?
And seriously, this threads still going after 100 pages, surely the amount of useful information to posting ratio has to be abysmically low by now? (More so now I'm here of course!)
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And seriously, this threads still going after 100 pages, surely the amount of useful information to posting ratio has to be abysmically low by now? (More so now I'm here of course!)
How do you know if it's going to be going still after 100 pages when we're only on page 52?
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And seriously, this threads still going after 100 pages, surely the amount of useful information to posting ratio has to be abysmically low by now? (More so now I'm here of course!)
How do you know if it's going to be going still after 100 pages when we're only on page 52?
Why would you even question Ozle's ability to know this?
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I like reading everything on one page.
Donald, how many pages do you see?
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I like reading everything on one page.
Donald, how many pages do you see?
I thought it was 10, and 5 of each of the upgrades.
Ok, ok, old joke, but hey! Recycling jokes is an old habit of mint.
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Ok, ok, old joke, but hey! Recycling jokes is an old habit of mint.
I love recycling jokes as well! This is one of my favorites:
I got in a lot of trouble when they found my wife's body in my bin. Apparently I should have put it in the green one.
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Ok, ok, old joke, but hey! Recycling jokes is an old habit of mint.
I love recycling jokes as well! This is one of my favorites:
I got in a lot of trouble when they found my wife's body in my bin. Apparently I should have put it in the green one.
that joke is trash
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Donald, serious question.... Did ya miss me?
And seriously, this threads still going after 100 pages, surely the amount of useful information to posting ratio has to be abysmically low by now? (More so now I'm here of course!)
Well I did talk about you some, when protesting the potential existence of serious-only threads. Oh man you missed a good thread about otters.
There are still actual new questions, and I mean it's a thread, these are forums, you know, all that. We're doing the thing, we're posting; it's its own reward.
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I like reading everything on one page.
Donald, how many pages do you see?
I like using the default setting unless it makes pages really short. Then me and other people are... on the same page.
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This thread now has over 100 pages, so i hope i will not be regarded as an unpolite jerk for not reading through all of it to check. Either way, i hope this question wasn't asked before and apologize if it has:
Did you write the Dominion rulebook yourself, Donald? I assume that you had a say in it, as obviously you know the rules better than anyone, but i wonder whether things like the overall structure are done by specific explanation-pros. I'm not really talking about visual design, allthough for special remark boxes and explaining images the topics will intersect.
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Did you write the Dominion rulebook yourself, Donald? I assume that you had a say in it, as obviously you know the rules better than anyone, but i wonder whether things like the overall structure are done by specific explanation-pros. I'm not really talking about visual design, allthough for special remark boxes and explaining images the topics will intersect.
I write the rulebooks now, but Valerie wrote the rulebooks at the start. I don't think she had any rulebook-writing experience, but she got that job. I would have been happy to do it but did not get to. I have big plans to write that rulebook someday though.
The main set rulebook was modified after the game won the SdJ, in order to better match the German rulebook.
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As with previous poster, apolgies if this has been addressed before. I don't think it has, because I don't know the answer.
Is there any reason why the mechanic of paying money mid-turn has been used so sparingly? (only on Black Market and Storyteller)
I'm asking for a friend. He is into designing custom cards, and insists there is "considerable design space there". I'm less optimistic, but can't articulate why to him, other than that I personally don't care for it.
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Is there any reason why the mechanic of paying money mid-turn has been used so sparingly? (only on Black Market and Storyteller)
I'm asking for a friend. He is into designing custom cards, and insists there is "considerable design space there". I'm less optimistic, but can't articulate why to him, other than that I personally don't care for it.
Originally Prosperity tried out paying $ as a sub-theme, although the specific cards didn't work out. Other sets avoided it to let Prosperity have it, although later I had Black Market and an Alchemy (large version) card that let you buy a card to hand (revived and then fixed as Artificer).
Also, originally there was no Buy phase, and buying meant being able to play Treasures. This is why Black Market has a messed-up phrasing that assumes you can play Treasures.
Black Market confuses some people, though again part of that is just a bad phrasing. Also you need extra text to allow Treasures to be played. After Black Market I decided I would just do "discard a card" or "discard a Treasure" in place of "pay $1," depending on how generous I was feeling.
"Pay $ to draw" started out in Prosperity; the card as I had it seemed crazy and I didn't try to fix it up. Stables does it, in a version that only lets you pay once. Then in Adventures I tried "discard Silvers for +2 Cards per," which seemed promising for a bit, and then somehow convinced myself to go for playing treasures and spending $ again.
So, it was initially a thing, but for the most part I personally find "discard some cards/Treasures" to be simpler and close enough.
Paying $ has tracking issues, but often you can turn the spent $ sideways. And there's doing it in the Buy phase.
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Thanks for the reply Donald! I don't know whether most game designers are as involved in the ongoing support forbtheir games as you are, but I kind of assume not, and the fact that you are is just fantastic.
I can see that on-play costs for actions is something you've certainly explored, and I agree that discarding cards is the most elegant form, but do you think there's scope for other forms of it? An action that gains a curse wjen played? Or requires you to take your -1 card or -1$ token? Use of the negative $ production phenomenon currently only seen on Poor House?
Still asking for a friend. My attitude towards custom Dominion sets is like my attitude towards peculiar homemade pornography. Whatever you do in your own home is your own business, but don't go around posting it in the internet because people are only going to start looking at you funny and wondering what's wrong with you.
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I can see that on-play costs for actions is something you've certainly explored, and I agree that discarding cards is the most elegant form, but do you think there's scope for other forms of it? An action that gains a curse wjen played? Or requires you to take your -1 card or -1$ token? Use of the negative $ production phenomenon currently only seen on Poor House?
Giving yourself a Curse, or a card with built-in -VP, are things everyone thinks of that I tried long ago, that had no fans when actually tried. Giving yourself the -1 Card or -$1 token is so doable that I did it, on Borrow and Ball. And Poor House is Poor House; in general you can probably get more than one card out of a concept like that, it's all down to how happy you are having cards that are similar.
Maybe your friend needs to get an account and hang out in the variants forum! I am not so much looking for questions along the lines of "how about this card idea?"
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what is your favorite album cover art and brand of chocolate? if you had to be eating the chocolate while admiring the cover art, would your answer change? which of your hands is your favorite?
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what is your favorite album cover art and brand of chocolate? if you had to be eating the chocolate while admiring the cover art, would your answer change? which of your hands is your favorite?
People, please, always check the thread to make sure your question hasn't been answered already.
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what is your favorite album cover art and brand of chocolate? if you had to be eating the chocolate while admiring the cover art, would your answer change? which of your hands is your favorite?
People, please, always check the thread to make sure your question hasn't been answered already.
you did not answer all five of those
i searched with the search bar several variants of 'cover art' and then after your response i looked through my tears at the extended results of the word album and NONE OF YOUR RESPONSES REGARD THE ART
and don't even get me started on the chocolate/hands
even though you made the game that i decided earlier today was my favorite one i am all but forced to call you a steamy thunderbutt
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what is your favorite album cover art and brand of chocolate? if you had to be eating the chocolate while admiring the cover art, would your answer change? which of your hands is your favorite?
People, please, always check the thread to make sure your question hasn't been answered already.
you did not answer all five of those
i searched with the search bar several variants of 'cover art' and then after your response i looked through my tears at the extended results of the word album and NONE OF YOUR RESPONSES REGARD THE ART
and don't even get me started on the chocolate/hands
even though you made the game that i decided earlier today was my favorite one i am all but forced to call you a steamy thunderbutt
Well it's not my interview, but I feel like answering anyways.
Album Cover Art: Dark Side of the Moon
Brand of Chocolate: Hershey's
My answers to both would remain the same.
I am primarily right-handed, so that would be my answer as well.
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what is your favorite album cover art and brand of chocolate? if you had to be eating the chocolate while admiring the cover art, would your answer change? which of your hands is your favorite?
People, please, always check the thread to make sure your question hasn't been answered already.
you did not answer all five of those
i searched with the search bar several variants of 'cover art' and then after your response i looked through my tears at the extended results of the word album and NONE OF YOUR RESPONSES REGARD THE ART
and don't even get me started on the chocolate/hands
even though you made the game that i decided earlier today was my favorite one i am all but forced to call you a steamy thunderbutt
Maybe the posts are in the future, did you check there?
Here's the chocolate brand post you missed, that's right, there was one. It's in another thread but the search bar has no prejudices. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=10698.msg358259#msg358259
And in case you're going to ask me what my superpower is: it's googling.
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what is your favorite album cover art and brand of chocolate? if you had to be eating the chocolate while admiring the cover art, would your answer change? which of your hands is your favorite?
People, please, always check the thread to make sure your question hasn't been answered already.
you did not answer all five of those
i searched with the search bar several variants of 'cover art' and then after your response i looked through my tears at the extended results of the word album and NONE OF YOUR RESPONSES REGARD THE ART
and don't even get me started on the chocolate/hands
even though you made the game that i decided earlier today was my favorite one i am all but forced to call you a steamy thunderbutt
Maybe the posts are in the future, did you check there?
Here's the chocolate brand post you missed, that's right, there was one. It's in another thread but the search bar has no prejudices. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=10698.msg358259#msg358259
And in case you're going to ask me what my superpower (http://i.imgur.com/vW82ujq.jpg) is: it's googling.
i haven't, but i will in a bit.
i bet your superpower isn't even googling, mr. arseboom, i bet it's art history
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Maybe your friend needs to get an account and hang out in the variants forum! I am not so much looking for questions along the lines of "how about this card idea?"
Excellent advice! Thank you, have a great day!
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[quote author=Harley_Beckett link=topic=5799.msg558288#msg558288 date=1452298954
Maybe your friend needs to get an account and hang out in the variants forum! I am not so much looking for questions along the lines of "how about this card idea?"
Excellent advice! Thank you, have a great day!
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Hi Donald!
One thing I haven't understand is why "Merchant Ship" has no +buy and "Wharf" has. Even with +buys "Wharf" would be still better card than "Merchant Ship", because + cards are better than money more often. That's why for example "Pathfinding" costs 8 and Training costs 6.
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One thing I haven't understand is why "Merchant Ship" has no +buy and "Wharf" has. Even with +buys "Wharf" would be still better card than "Merchant Ship", because + cards are better than money more often. That's why for example "Pathfinding" costs 8 and Training costs 6.
Early on I did not understand things as well. Neither had +1 Buy, and we bought Merchant Ship more, so I gave Wharf +1 Buy.
Later on I understood things better. We tried Pathfinding at $7 and there it is at $8.
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If you entered one of the big online Dominion tournaments (when such things exist) how well do you think you would place?
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If you entered one of the big online Dominion tournaments (when such things exist) how well do you think you would place?
It would depend on how much I'd been playing recently, and how new the cards were to everyone. Knowing the cards is a big advantage.
If I don't have that edge, man I don't know. It's no fun for me to guess high or low here and I don't have the data.
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I don't think this question has been asked since Adventures or Dark Ages has come out:
What, in your opinion, is the card that takes the highest skill to play?
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I don't think this question has been asked since Adventures or Dark Ages has come out:
What, in your opinion, is the card that takes the highest skill to play?
People were tossing around Procession as a guess in some thread, and that sounds reasonable. It's a tricky one.
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Has a reprint of Adventures been released yet? I'm still one of those guys who hates the flimsier cards.
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Has a reprint of Adventures been released yet? I'm still one of those guys who hates the flimsier cards.
No. It is not a good time for me to estimate when it will happen; I'll know more later.
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We know that your good at making dominon. The question is whether you are good at Dominion.
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We know that your good at making dominon. The question is whether you are good at Dominion.
What about my good at making Dominion?
I hold my own irl. Now you just need to find out how good those guys are.
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I played Donald once: he won. Extrapolate to your liking.
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I played Donald once: he won. Extrapolate to your liking.
Very well. If you played Donald at Dominion 100 times in a row, you would have a 100 game losing streak.
I'm not very good at this extrapolation thing
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I played Lord Bottington once: I lost. You can extrapolate.
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I played Lord Bottington once: I lost. You can extrapolate.
You need to win the Rats split.
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I played Donald once: he won. Extrapolate to your liking.
(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/extrapolating.png)
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I was reading the flavor text for the base game over dinner last night (as I do) and I noticed that it mentioned 3 of what would become card names in later expansions (Feodum, Minion, Treasury.) Was this in any way intentional? I ask especially for feodum because unlike the others it's a pretty obscure word.
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I was reading the flavor text for the base game over dinner last night (as I do) and I noticed that it mentioned 3 of what would become card names in later expansions (Feodum, Minion, Treasury.) Was this in any way intentional? I ask especially for feodum because unlike the others it's a pretty obscure word.
I named Feodum that because it was in the first blurb (which predated it). The others weren't especially intentional; they were good as card names for the same reasons they were good as blurb details.
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I played Donald once: he won. Extrapolate to your liking.
This is one of those examples of how experience with the cards is significant. I bought up the Gears and put Lost Arts on them. SCSN didn't compete for the Gears; he hadn't seen that combo in action before.
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I was reading the flavor text for the base game over dinner last night (as I do) and I noticed that it mentioned 3 of what would become card names in later expansions (Feodum, Minion, Treasury.) Was this in any way intentional? I ask especially for feodum because unlike the others it's a pretty obscure word.
I named Feodum that because it was in the first blurb (which predated it). The others weren't especially intentional; they were good as card names for the same reasons they were good as blurb details.
Does that mean we can look forward to names such as:
Fife, Freehold, Petty Lord, Banner and Anarchy?
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I was reading the flavor text for the base game over dinner last night (as I do) and I noticed that it mentioned 3 of what would become card names in later expansions (Feodum, Minion, Treasury.) Was this in any way intentional? I ask especially for feodum because unlike the others it's a pretty obscure word.
I named Feodum that because it was in the first blurb (which predated it). The others weren't especially intentional; they were good as card names for the same reasons they were good as blurb details.
Does that mean we can look forward to names such as:
Fife, Freehold, Petty Lord, Banner and Anarchy?
I compiled a list of card names that need cards. (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13796.msg519949#msg519949)
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Any thoughts about a novelization of the game? Or asking/letting someone else (Brandon Sanderson, etc.) do it?
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Any thoughts about a novelization of the game? Or asking/letting someone else (Brandon Sanderson, etc.) do it?
No, but I'll consider it now. Well. If it doesn't use my jokes then what's the point? If it uses my jokes then I want to be the one writing it. And if I'm the one writing it then it will be something else.
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Any thoughts about a novelization of the game? Or asking/letting someone else (Brandon Sanderson, etc.) do it?
No, but I'll consider it now. Well. If it doesn't use my jokes then what's the point? If it uses my jokes then I want to be the one writing it. And if I'm the one writing it then it will be something else.
I guess the point would be we'd all buy them and enjoy them? We've had shared worlds covered by multiple authors for years (remember Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms?), so why not a Dominion world that you define, even write your own first few trilogies set there, and then dozens of fantasy greats could join.
It could be sort of Xanth-y with the jokes, instead of serious. Wouldn't even need a [serious] in the title.
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Which other game captures the essence of Dominion best without being a total ripoff?
I.e.: you can actually admire what someone did with the deckbuilding idea.
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Any thoughts about a novelization of the game? Or asking/letting someone else (Brandon Sanderson, etc.) do it?
No, but I'll consider it now. Well. If it doesn't use my jokes then what's the point? If it uses my jokes then I want to be the one writing it. And if I'm the one writing it then it will be something else.
I think it should be a love story, and should be written by ADK :/
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Any thoughts about a novelization of the game? Or asking/letting someone else (Brandon Sanderson, etc.) do it?
No, but I'll consider it now. Well. If it doesn't use my jokes then what's the point? If it uses my jokes then I want to be the one writing it. And if I'm the one writing it then it will be something else.
I guess the point would be we'd all buy them and enjoy them? We've had shared worlds covered by multiple authors for years (remember Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms?), so why not a Dominion world that you define, even write your own first few trilogies set there, and then dozens of fantasy greats could join.
It could be sort of Xanth-y with the jokes, instead of serious. Wouldn't even need a [serious] in the title.
I'm not seeing it. I don't see what you get other than cashing in on Dominion. Which is better, the best shared world I define, or the best shared world I define that has to involve Dominion?
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Which other game captures the essence of Dominion best without being a total ripoff?
I.e.: you can actually admire what someone did with the deckbuilding idea.
Those are not the same question.
I haven't played any Dominion-based games except my own. In interviews I always cite Eminent Domain and A Few Acres of Snow as examples of how you can be inspired by Dominion without just cloning it, but I haven't actually played those games.
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Which other game captures the essence of Dominion best without being a total ripoff?
I.e.: you can actually admire what someone did with the deckbuilding idea.
Those are not the same question.
I haven't played any Dominion-based games except my own. In interviews I always cite Eminent Domain and A Few Acres of Snow as examples of how you can be inspired by Dominion without just cloning it, but I haven't actually played those games.
Eminent Domain is 10% Dominion and 90% Race for the Galaxy.
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Which other game captures the essence of Dominion best without being a total ripoff?
I.e.: you can actually admire what someone did with the deckbuilding idea.
Those are not the same question.
I haven't played any Dominion-based games except my own. In interviews I always cite Eminent Domain and A Few Acres of Snow as examples of how you can be inspired by Dominion without just cloning it, but I haven't actually played those games.
Eminent Domain is 7--10% Dominion and 90--93% Race for the Galaxy.
Fixed that for you...
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I would read a book by Donald X., and I would be more excited for it if I knew that it wasn't Dominion themed. My stupid fanfiction aside, Dominion doesn't have a coherent story or a fleshed-out world behind it. A Dominion novel would just be a story set in a generic medieval fantasy world with a few Dominion references thrown in.
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Which other game captures the essence of Dominion best without being a total ripoff?
I.e.: you can actually admire what someone did with the deckbuilding idea.
Those are not the same question.
I haven't played any Dominion-based games except my own. In interviews I always cite Eminent Domain and A Few Acres of Snow as examples of how you can be inspired by Dominion without just cloning it, but I haven't actually played those games.
Eminent Domain is 10% Dominion and 90% Race for the Galaxy.
Nah, it's more like 70% Dominion/30% Race.
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Which other game captures the essence of Dominion best without being a total ripoff?
I.e.: you can actually admire what someone did with the deckbuilding idea.
Those are not the same question.
I haven't played any Dominion-based games except my own. In interviews I always cite Eminent Domain and A Few Acres of Snow as examples of how you can be inspired by Dominion without just cloning it, but I haven't actually played those games.
Eminent Domain is 7--10% Dominion and 90--93% Race for the Galaxy.
Fixed that for you...
It's more Dominion than people think.
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I would read a book by Donald X., and I would be more excited for it if I knew that it wasn't Dominion themed. My stupid fanfiction aside, Dominion doesn't have a coherent story or a fleshed-out world behind it. A Dominion novel would just be a story set in a generic medieval fantasy world with a few Dominion references thrown in.
Thanks; I haven't managed a book, but have some very short stories and then 3.8 screenplays. The Hinterlands blurb paraphrases a joke in my Airplane!-style comedy. "It's a big city out there, and we're little people..."
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Which other game captures the essence of Dominion best without being a total ripoff?
I.e.: you can actually admire what someone did with the deckbuilding idea.
Those are not the same question.
I haven't played any Dominion-based games except my own. In interviews I always cite Eminent Domain and A Few Acres of Snow as examples of how you can be inspired by Dominion without just cloning it, but I haven't actually played those games.
Eminent Domain is 7--10% Dominion and 90--93% Race for the Galaxy.
Fixed that for you...
It's more Dominion than people think.
that seems like a thing that you would say
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I would read a book by Donald X., and I would be more excited for it if I knew that it wasn't Dominion themed. My stupid fanfiction aside, Dominion doesn't have a coherent story or a fleshed-out world behind it. A Dominion novel would just be a story set in a generic medieval fantasy world with a few Dominion references thrown in.
Thanks; I haven't managed a book, but have some very short stories and then 3.8 screenplays. The Hinterlands blurb paraphrases a joke in my Airplane!-style comedy. "It's a big city out there, and we're little people..."
Are any of your short stories published?
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Are any of your short stories published?
No, board game blurbs are all I have to my name, writing-wise. I've considered posting a story or excerpt from the funny screenplay, but who knows, maybe I will try to get some of that stuff published/filmed someday, and then too there's the lack of a connection, I mean people selected for "likes Dominion" are not selected for "likes my writing."
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Which other game captures the essence of Dominion best without being a total ripoff?
I.e.: you can actually admire what someone did with the deckbuilding idea.
Those are not the same question.
I haven't played any Dominion-based games except my own. In interviews I always cite Eminent Domain and A Few Acres of Snow as examples of how you can be inspired by Dominion without just cloning it, but I haven't actually played those games.
Eminent Domain is 10% Dominion and 90% Race for the Galaxy.
Nah, it's more like 70% Dominion/30% Race.
I think the strongest Influence on Eminent Domain is Glory to Rome by far.
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You're in a plane that's crashing near a desert island, and you only have time to grab one Dominion set before leaping out with your parachute. Which one do you bring? Assume you keep a spare box of Basic cards in your pocket at all times. Also assume that stopping to grab a box will not in any way endanger anyone else, or result in some indirect way in you all starving to death.
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Which other game captures the essence of Dominion best without being a total ripoff?
I.e.: you can actually admire what someone did with the deckbuilding idea.
Those are not the same question.
I haven't played any Dominion-based games except my own. In interviews I always cite Eminent Domain and A Few Acres of Snow as examples of how you can be inspired by Dominion without just cloning it, but I haven't actually played those games.
Eminent Domain is 10% Dominion and 90% Race for the Galaxy.
Nah, it's more like 70% Dominion/30% Race.
I think the strongest Influence on Eminent Domain is Glory to Rome by far.
I shall have to try GTR then.
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You're in a plane that's crashing near a desert island, and you only have time to grab one Dominion set before leaping out with your parachute. Which one do you bring? Assume you keep a spare box of Basic cards in your pocket at all times. Also assume that stopping to grab a box will not in any way endanger anyone else, or result in some indirect way in you all starving to death.
Oh man, who leaked that there was an upcoming expansion with edible cards?
In a desert island scenario I would just be concerned about survival. If I survive I will find ways to play games. So the question then is, which is worth more towards surviving: more cards, or metal tokens? I bet the tokens are not actually that useful, but then cards are unlikely to be useful either. The tokens at least give me something different that might be useful, so okay, whichever set has more metal tokens. Without checking, I don't know if that's Seaside or Prosperity (my experience is with the prototypes, and I just have a box of tokens for use with many games).
My favorite sets are Dark Ages and Adventures. It's hard to compare them fairly because Adventures is newer and there's that gulf in time between them.
If I am just playing one set by itself with Base Cards, then Adventures has fewer kingdom cards but more variety, due to Events, so that gives it the edge.
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You're in a plane that's crashing near a desert island, and you only have time to grab one Dominion set before leaping out with your parachute. Which one do you bring? Assume you keep a spare box of Basic cards in your pocket at all times. Also assume that stopping to grab a box will not in any way endanger anyone else, or result in some indirect way in you all starving to death.
In a desert island scenario I would just be concerned about survival. If I survive I will find ways to play games. So the question then is, which is worth more towards surviving: more cards, or metal tokens? I bet the tokens are not actually that useful, but then cards are unlikely to be useful either. The tokens at least give me something different that might be useful, so okay, whichever set has more metal tokens. Without checking, I don't know if that's Seaside or Prosperity (my experience is with the prototypes, and I just have a box of tokens for use with many games).
I'm just imagining you thinking, "I want to say Empires but it isn't announced yet."
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You're in a plane that's crashing near a desert island, and you only have time to grab one Dominion set before leaping out with your parachute. Which one do you bring? Assume you keep a spare box of Basic cards in your pocket at all times. Also assume that stopping to grab a box will not in any way endanger anyone else, or result in some indirect way in you all starving to death.
In a desert island scenario I would just be concerned about survival. If I survive I will find ways to play games. So the question then is, which is worth more towards surviving: more cards, or metal tokens? I bet the tokens are not actually that useful, but then cards are unlikely to be useful either. The tokens at least give me something different that might be useful, so okay, whichever set has more metal tokens. Without checking, I don't know if that's Seaside or Prosperity (my experience is with the prototypes, and I just have a box of tokens for use with many games).
I'm just imagining you thinking, "I want to say Empires but it isn't announced yet."
But Adventures does have more cards. With 300 cards, Empires will probably have the normal 25/26 Kingdom cards.
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You're in a plane that's crashing near a desert island, and you only have time to grab one Dominion set before leaping out with your parachute. Which one do you bring? Assume you keep a spare box of Basic cards in your pocket at all times. Also assume that stopping to grab a box will not in any way endanger anyone else, or result in some indirect way in you all starving to death.
In a desert island scenario I would just be concerned about survival. If I survive I will find ways to play games. So the question then is, which is worth more towards surviving: more cards, or metal tokens? I bet the tokens are not actually that useful, but then cards are unlikely to be useful either. The tokens at least give me something different that might be useful, so okay, whichever set has more metal tokens. Without checking, I don't know if that's Seaside or Prosperity (my experience is with the prototypes, and I just have a box of tokens for use with many games).
I'm just imagining you thinking, "I want to say Empires but it isn't announced yet."
But Adventures does have more cards. With 300 cards, Empires will probably have the normal 25/26 Kingdom cards.
Sure, but Empires has more metal tokens.
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You're in a plane that's crashing near a desert island, and you only have time to grab one Dominion set before leaping out with your parachute. Which one do you bring? Assume you keep a spare box of Basic cards in your pocket at all times. Also assume that stopping to grab a box will not in any way endanger anyone else, or result in some indirect way in you all starving to death.
In a desert island scenario I would just be concerned about survival. If I survive I will find ways to play games. So the question then is, which is worth more towards surviving: more cards, or metal tokens? I bet the tokens are not actually that useful, but then cards are unlikely to be useful either. The tokens at least give me something different that might be useful, so okay, whichever set has more metal tokens. Without checking, I don't know if that's Seaside or Prosperity (my experience is with the prototypes, and I just have a box of tokens for use with many games).
I'm just imagining you thinking, "I want to say Empires but it isn't announced yet."
But Adventures does have more cards. With 300 cards, Empires will probably have the normal 25/26 Kingdom cards.
Sure, but Empires has more metal tokens.
I'm sure he could fashion a crude slingshot and use the tokens as ammo.
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Did... did you guys just spoil a new set?
Not that i'm surprised. I'm just wondering: Will a new set finally introduce meeples, player powers, ressources and a catapult to shoot stuff at the supply?
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Did... did you guys just spoil a new set?
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/192951/dominion-empires
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Now that the new set is announced, how many times in do you think you're going to have to put up with people asking you to spoil it in this thread?
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Now that the new set is announced, how many times in do you think you're going to have to put up with people asking you to spoil it in this thread?
This is you asking me to spoil it, isn't it. Oh man. Et tu, ADK?
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Naw I've seen it.
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Naw I've seen it.
Ah, so you're that "ADK" guy Voltaire always mentions.
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Did... did you guys just spoil a new set?
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/192951/dominion-empires
...Uwaaaaaaahhhhh! B-but I've barely played Adventures yet!
Oh, I remember looking up the word for a medieval food taster a while back. I found "Assayer", probably derived from the French word "essayer" (to try).
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Who helped you playtest Empires? Have you been working on this since Adventures released?
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Who helped you playtest Empires? Have you been working on this since Adventures released?
There was some time in-between Adventures ending and Empires starting.
It's a lot of the same people as last time. A couple people dropped out and a couple were added. Including Voltaire, I forgot that he was new.
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Will the playtesters be allowed to preview cards against like last time? :)
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Will the playtesters be allowed to preview cards against like last time? :)
My plan is to have 5 other people preview a card each, like last time. Last time they were not all playtesters and I don't know about this time yet.
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Is it mostly done, just waiting on art and tinkering with the rulebook? Or are you still hardcore testing cards?
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Is it mostly done, just waiting on art and tinkering with the rulebook? Or are you still hardcore testing cards?
It's done from my end except for proofreading cards once the layout is done. I've done some of that but not all of it. And I haven't written the previews yet.
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Is the flavor text going to include any Empire Strikes Back references?
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Is the flavor text going to include any Empire Strikes Back references?
Do you mean the story on the RGG page? I noticed some Shakespeare in it.
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Is the flavor text going to include any Empire Strikes Back references?
Do you mean the story on the RGG page? I noticed some Shakespeare in it.
I didn't know it was done already.
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Is the flavor text going to include any Empire Strikes Back references?
No, but we are going to edit Anakin into the cover of Dominion. It's what we always intended, we just didn't have the technology at the time. And those spears? Walkie-talkies.
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Is the flavor text going to include any Empire Strikes Back references?
No, but we are going to edit Anakin into the cover of Dominion. It's what we always intended, we just didn't have the technology at the time. And those spears? Walkie-talkies.
(http://i.imgur.com/yVzni1K.png)
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Do you have any information about when the German version of Empires will be released? Will it be delayed cpmpared to the English version as much as Adventures?
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Does Hasbro finally have their shit together, or will the English version of Empires be printed in Europe?
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Do you have any information about when the German version of Empires will be released? Will it be delayed cpmpared to the English version as much as Adventures?
http://www.poeppelkiste.de/messe/2016/nuernberg/verlage/ax.php (http://www.poeppelkiste.de/messe/2016/nuernberg/verlage/ax.php)
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Do you have any information about why the German edition won't be released before fall?
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Does Hasbro finally have their shit together, or will the English version of Empires be printed in Europe?
Or printed in the US by Cartamundi, at least.
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Will the playtesters be allowed to preview cards against like last time? :)
My plan is to have 5 other people preview a card each, like last time. Last time they were not all playtesters and I don't know about this time yet.
Do you know which cards you will use for previews? I remember in the Adventures previews, you mentioned that 4 per day was still an acceptable percentage due to the "58 new things" introduced in Adventures.
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Is the flavor text going to include any Empire Strikes Back references?
No, but we are going to edit Anakin into the cover of Dominion. It's what we always intended, we just didn't have the technology at the time. And those spears? Walkie-talkies.
Seriously though: Star Wars is spreading like a desease in the board game world since Disney got their hands on it. I have seen Star Wars Monopoly and Star Wars Pachisi, but also Star Wars Risk, Star Wars Catan, Star Wars Labyrinth, and even Star Wars Carcassonne. I'm not sure there is Star Wars Clue - probably still in the works. Edit: Also in existance: Star Wars Life, Star Wars Operation, Star Wars Guess Who?, Star Wars Trivial Pursuit DVD and Star Wars Stratego...
So, my question: Have you ever been approached/was it ever a consideration to do a licensed Dominion edition? I'm not talking about the japanese manga thing, because that doesn't use characters from another product (as far as i know). I'm thinking more about Disney/Spongebob/Star Wars Dominion, where cards are functionally the same but names and look have been changed.
I'm not even saying this makes sense or is a good idea (except possibly from a publisher's point of view), but i'm curious.
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I have a huge collection of Disney artwork, and can mock up some "Disneyfied" versions of existing cards.
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Is the flavor text going to include any Empire Strikes Back references?
No, but we are going to edit Anakin into the cover of Dominion. It's what we always intended, we just didn't have the technology at the time. And those spears? Walkie-talkies.
Seriously though: Star Wars is spreading like a desease in the board game world since Disney got their hands on it. I have seen Star Wars Monopoly and Star Wars Pachisi, but also Star Wars Risk, Star Wars Catan, Star Wars Labyrinth, and even Star Wars Carcassonne. I'm not sure there is Star Wars Clue - probably still in the works. Edit: Also in existance: Star Wars Life, Star Wars Operation, Star Wars Guess Who?, Star Wars Trivial Pursuit DVD and Star Wars Stratego...
So, my question: Have you ever been approached/was it ever a consideration to do a licensed Dominion edition? I'm not talking about the japanese manga thing, because that doesn't use characters from another product (as far as i know). I'm thinking more about Disney/Spongebob/Star Wars Dominion, where cards are functionally the same but names and look have been changed.
I'm not even saying this makes sense or is a good idea (except possibly from a publisher's point of view), but i'm curious.
I'd pay to have the original art for Apprentice on a real promo version of the card. ;D
Donald, feel free to ignore this question, and sorry if you have to, but how far is Empires from the famous "Treasure Chest" expansion which has been so long hypothesized?
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Is the flavor text going to include any Empire Strikes Back references?
No, but we are going to edit Anakin into the cover of Dominion. It's what we always intended, we just didn't have the technology at the time. And those spears? Walkie-talkies.
Seriously though: Star Wars is spreading like a desease in the board game world since Disney got their hands on it. I have seen Star Wars Monopoly and Star Wars Pachisi, but also Star Wars Risk, Star Wars Catan, Star Wars Labyrinth, and even Star Wars Carcassonne. I'm not sure there is Star Wars Clue - probably still in the works. Edit: Also in existance: Star Wars Life, Star Wars Operation, Star Wars Guess Who?, Star Wars Trivial Pursuit DVD and Star Wars Stratego...
So, my question: Have you ever been approached/was it ever a consideration to do a licensed Dominion edition? I'm not talking about the japanese manga thing, because that doesn't use characters from another product (as far as i know). I'm thinking more about Disney/Spongebob/Star Wars Dominion, where cards are functionally the same but names and look have been changed.
I'm not even saying this makes sense or is a good idea (except possibly from a publisher's point of view), but i'm curious.
I'd pay to have the original art for Apprentice on a real promo version of the card. ;D
Donald, feel free to ignore this question, and sorry if you have to, but how far is Empires from the famous "Treasure Chest" expansion which has been so long hypothesized?
I have more of the feeling that we are entering a "Treasure Chest state" in general, where the strict "No" against reusing older stuff has crumbled. Adventures made the start, Empires follows suit. Curious whether that means that in a few more years we'll see "Dominion - Sorcery" featuring new Potion cards ;)
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Non-Empires question: Is it Vac-CAR-ino, or Vacca-RIN-o?
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Non-Empires question: Is it Vac-CAR-ino, or Vacca-RIN-o?
Throat-WARbler-MANGrove
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Whack-a-Rhino?
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Does Hasbro finally have their shit together, or will the English version of Empires be printed in Europe?
Hasbro sold that printing plant to Cartamundi, and we switched to them. So, Hasbro is no longer relevant here. We are waiting to see a test printing from Cartamundi, to decide if we're printing in Germany (which would delay the set due to shipping) or not.
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Do you have any information about why the German edition won't be released before fall?
It's up to Altenburger and that's what they picked. Probably they just wanted to release at Spiel, in Essen, which is in October.
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Do you know which cards you will use for previews? I remember in the Adventures previews, you mentioned that 4 per day was still an acceptable percentage due to the "58 new things" introduced in Adventures.
I've picked out cards to preview.
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So, my question: Have you ever been approached/was it ever a consideration to do a licensed Dominion edition? I'm not talking about the japanese manga thing, because that doesn't use characters from another product (as far as i know). I'm thinking more about Disney/Spongebob/Star Wars Dominion, where cards are functionally the same but names and look have been changed.
Yes, I turned down Star Wars Dominion a while back, and just today by coincidence, someone without the license asked if they could do it (if you guys see this post before getting an email: sorry, no).
My research at the time suggested that Star Wars Operation, for example, sold on the strength of Operation, not Star Wars; Operation sold better. The license is expensive; what you are doing is paying Star Wars to promote your game, rather than cashing in on lust for Star Wars.
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Donald, feel free to ignore this question, and sorry if you have to, but how far is Empires from the famous "Treasure Chest" expansion which has been so long hypothesized?
I did the math on a Treasure Chest long ago and nothing has changed there. If Empires were a Treasure Chest, we would have advertised it as one.
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Non-Empires question: Is it Vac-CAR-ino, or Vacca-RIN-o?
RIN is the accented syllable, pronounced REEN of course.
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Do you know which cards you will use for previews? I remember in the Adventures previews, you mentioned that 4 per day was still an acceptable percentage due to the "58 new things" introduced in Adventures.
I've picked out cards to preview.
I hope "cards" includes events and landmarks here.
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Kirk or Picard?
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Kirk or Picard?
Man, no one ever asks about Sisko, or Janeway, or Archer. What gives?
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Kirk or Picard?
Man, no one ever asks about Sisko, or Janeway, or Archer. What gives?
No one cares who ranks 3-5.
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Kirk or Picard?
Man, no one ever asks about Sisko, or Janeway, or Archer. What gives?
No one cares who ranks 3-5.
Hey. Janeway is a badass.
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Kirk or Picard?
Man, no one ever asks about Sisko, or Janeway, or Archer. What gives?
No one cares who ranks 3-5.
Hey. Janeway is a badass.
Right?
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I'd go with Sisko, myself. OK, I'll rephrase:
Kirk (Shatner), Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer, or Kirk (Pine)?
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Kirk or Picard?
Man, no one ever asks about Sisko, or Janeway, or Archer. What gives?
No one cares who ranks 3-5.
Hey. Janeway is a badass.
I'd agree and put her at #3.
You can't top Picard/Kirk.
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Kirk or Picard?
I think I have seen zero Picard.
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Kirk or Picard?
Man, no one ever asks about Sisko, or Janeway, or Archer. What gives?
No one cares who ranks 3-5.
Then why are we asking about Kirk?
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Will the denominations of VP chips be the same as Prosperity, or will we get e.g. 10s?
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Will the denominations of VP chips be the same as Prosperity, or will we get e.g. 10s?
Hmmm, the little paragraph doesn't seem to say.
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Is the idea still to keep continuing to create new expansions at Rio/Jay's request or are you eventually done introducing new ideas/mechanics?
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Is the idea still to keep continuing to create new expansions at Rio/Jay's request or are you eventually done introducing new ideas/mechanics?
You are assuming that RGG/Jay is requesting expansions.
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Is the idea still to keep continuing to create new expansions at Rio/Jay's request or are you eventually done introducing new ideas/mechanics?
You are assuming that RGG/Jay is requesting expansions.
Well yes, this is based on an answer by DXV I once read (can't find it unfortunately) that he had a number of expansions set from the get-go and would only do others if Rio/Jay convinced him to do so.
I really wish I could find that answer.
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Were you looking forward to having to repeatedly reread the blurb for us?
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Will the denominations of VP chips be the same as Prosperity, or will we get e.g. 10s?
Hmmm, the little paragraph doesn't seem to say.
I'm hoping for denominations of 11 and 7, myself.
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Will the denominations of VP chips be the same as Prosperity, or will we get e.g. 10s?
Hmmm, the little paragraph doesn't seem to say.
I'm hoping for denominations of 11 and 7, myself.
I'd go for denominations of pi and e. Also that way you get cooler shapes.
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Will the denominations of VP chips be the same as Prosperity, or will we get e.g. 10s?
Hmmm, the little paragraph doesn't seem to say.
I'm hoping for denominations of 11 and 7, myself.
I'd go for denominations of pi and e. Also that way you get cooler shapes.
I'm wondering what shape you're thinking of for the e denomination. Obviously pi would be half a circle.
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Will the denominations of VP chips be the same as Prosperity, or will we get e.g. 10s?
Hmmm, the little paragraph doesn't seem to say.
I'm hoping for denominations of 11 and 7, myself.
I'd go for denominations of pi and e. Also that way you get cooler shapes.
I'm wondering what shape you're thinking of for the e denomination. Obviously pi would be half a circle.
Why not just a metal e ?
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Kirk or Picard?
I think I have seen zero Picard.
I will spare you with "OMG Then you must change this at once"-nonsense, but personally, i have seen practically everything with Picard, and enjoyed most of it a lot. Then again, my dad used to watch these, and to me watching Next Gen Star Trek has been part of bonding with him, so that might influence my opinion.
Wow, i should call my dad immediately.
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Kirk or Picard?
I think I have seen zero Picard.
I will spare you with "OMG Then you must change this at once"-nonsense, but personally, i have seen practically everything with Picard, and enjoyed most of it a lot. Then again, my dad used to watch these, and to me watching Next Gen Star Trek has been part of bonding with him, so that might influence my opinion.
Wow, i should call my dad immediately.
So much Dad bonding happened over TNG and Voyager. To the extent that "Remodulate it!" is our standard `how-to-fix-anything' joke.
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I'd go for denominations of pi and e.
I don't think that's rational.
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I'd go for denominations of pi and e.
I don't think that's rational.
I may be irrational, but I am keepin' it real.
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I think we could afford to transcend this whole discussion.
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Is the idea still to keep continuing to create new expansions at Rio/Jay's request or are you eventually done introducing new ideas/mechanics?
You are assuming that RGG/Jay is requesting expansions.
Well yes, this is based on an answer by DXV I once read (can't find it unfortunately) that he had a number of expansions set from the get-go and would only do others if Rio/Jay convinced him to do so.
I really wish I could find that answer.
I have said something like, "Publishers will want more at some point and I like to be friendly." I have had that experience with both Kingdom Builder (the 3rd and 4th expansions) and Dominion (Alchemy jumping ahead and being small) (and promos for both, those never start with me), but Adventures and Empires came about in similar ways, due to me feeling like I wasn't getting anything done on other projects. For Adventures that was it; I'd puttered around some on spin-offs, and then, okay, a Dominion expansion. For Empires, there was a point where I considered what the good future space for Dominion was, and came up with some stuff, and then it was like, okay, nothing else is going on, why not try some of that. But in both cases it was me, wanting to be getting work done on something.
The idea as always is to work on new games, to not fall into this trap again. Given my past experiences it seems likely I will though. I will try to put it off, but at some point, it will be what I can get done and I will do it.
Demand goes down with each expansion. People think, three expansions is enough, or five, or however many. It may still stay profitable for RGG to make more for years and years. For me, that part isn't even an issue; I think at some point it could be that another expansion wasn't going to ever come out, and I might make one anyway. They're fun, what can I say.
Having enough reasonably simple stuff to do is an issue. Cards are more hemmed in than ever by what's already been done. It might just be a few more expansions before it seems too hard to make stuff that isn't too obviously better/worse than something else at the same cost, too hard to make stuff that doesn't require extra components, too hard to make new things that fit on the cards. But I won't really know this until I'm there, struggling with that expansion.
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I will spare you with "OMG Then you must change this at once"-nonsense, but personally, i have seen practically everything with Picard, and enjoyed most of it a lot. Then again, my dad used to watch these, and to me watching Next Gen Star Trek has been part of bonding with him, so that might influence my opinion.
It's something we're keeping in mind for when the kids seem old enough. We tried Galaxy Quest a month or so ago, and each of them watched about half of it. So I don't think we're quite there but maybe in a year or so.
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Having enough reasonably simple stuff to do is an issue. Cards are more hemmed in than ever by what's already been done. It might just be a few more expansions before it seems too hard to make stuff that isn't too obviously better/worse than something else at the same cost, too hard to make stuff that doesn't require extra components, too hard to make new things that fit on the cards. But I won't really know this until I'm there, struggling with that expansion.
Wizards has no problem creating cards that are strictly better or worse than older cards. Of course they can do this because of the way they have different formats for tournaments. But would you ever consider allowing Dominion to have such things; where an old card is simply considered obsolete because of a new card?
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Wizards has no problem creating cards that are strictly better or worse than older cards. Of course they can do this because of the way they have different formats for tournaments. But would you ever consider allowing Dominion to have such things; where an old card is simply considered obsolete because of a new card?
Wizards sells environments rather than cards. The way for Dominion to do that is to have spin-offs, and sure a spin-off would be able to make that strictly-better Scout or whatever (though probably not exactly comparable due to whatever differences the spin-off had). Within Dominion, well I know some people would hate hate hate it. It continues to sound like a bad move.
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Wizards has no problem creating cards that are strictly better or worse than older cards. Of course they can do this because of the way they have different formats for tournaments. But would you ever consider allowing Dominion to have such things; where an old card is simply considered obsolete because of a new card?
Wizards sells environments rather than cards. The way for Dominion to do that is to have spin-offs, and sure a spin-off would be able to make that strictly-better Scout or whatever (though probably not exactly comparable due to whatever differences the spin-off had). Within Dominion, well I know some people would hate hate hate it. It continues to sound like a bad move.
I get that people would hate it. But I wouldn't. It would be so extremely rare that such cards would end up being played at the same time. When they are, you have one card that's autoignored; which happens in most kingdoms anyway. And when they don't, well, it's just "hey, this kingdom has Smithy+ which draws 4 cards instead of Smithy that Draws 3 cards; I guess this game will have stronger draw available".
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I get that people would hate it. But I wouldn't.
It turns out that you not hating it is not sufficient for me to do it.
I have to do things that some people hate (in order to have anything anyone loves), but I only do hated things when they are in fact otherwise loved. The hate for strictly better cards is a basic thing I should just avoid, "being strictly better" has no upside. If I am at the point where I can't make cards without doing strictly better cards, again, why haven't I switched to spin-offs already.
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I get that people would hate it. But I wouldn't. It would be so extremely rare that such cards would end up being played at the same time. When they are, you have one card that's autoignored; which happens in most kingdoms anyway. And when they don't, well, it's just "hey, this kingdom has Smithy+ which draws 4 cards instead of Smithy that Draws 3 cards; I guess this game will have stronger draw available".
I think the bad feeling of "Smithy is dead this game because Smithy+ is available" is significantly worse than the bad feeling of "Mountebank is dead this game because there's Watchtower and Counting House and Gardens*".
* I 100% do not want to hear about whether or not Mountebank is still worth going for under these circumstances. You understand the gist of what I'm saying.
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I get that people would hate it. But I wouldn't.
It turns out that you not hating it is not sufficient for me to do it.
I have to do things that some people hate (in order to have anything anyone loves), but I only do hated things when they are in fact otherwise loved. The hate for strictly better cards is a basic thing I should just avoid, "being strictly better" has no upside. If I am at the point where I can't make cards without doing strictly better cards, again, why haven't I switched to spin-offs already.
You did a pretty good job of improving cards without rendering them obsolete in Hinterlands. Noble Brigand and Cartographer are both better incarnations of Thief and Scout, but neither of them are strictly better cards. There are situations where you'd want Thief over Noble Brigand, and Scout and Cartographer don't even share a price point.
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Is the idea still to keep continuing to create new expansions at Rio/Jay's request or are you eventually done introducing new ideas/mechanics?
You are assuming that RGG/Jay is requesting expansions.
Well yes, this is based on an answer by DXV I once read (can't find it unfortunately) that he had a number of expansions set from the get-go and would only do others if Rio/Jay convinced him to do so.
I really wish I could find that answer.
I have said something like, "Publishers will want more at some point and I like to be friendly." I have had that experience with both Kingdom Builder (the 3rd and 4th expansions) and Dominion (Alchemy jumping ahead and being small) (and promos for both, those never start with me), but Adventures and Empires came about in similar ways, due to me feeling like I wasn't getting anything done on other projects. For Adventures that was it; I'd puttered around some on spin-offs, and then, okay, a Dominion expansion. For Empires, there was a point where I considered what the good future space for Dominion was, and came up with some stuff, and then it was like, okay, nothing else is going on, why not try some of that. But in both cases it was me, wanting to be getting work done on something.
The idea as always is to work on new games, to not fall into this trap again. Given my past experiences it seems likely I will though. I will try to put it off, but at some point, it will be what I can get done and I will do it.
Demand goes down with each expansion. People think, three expansions is enough, or five, or however many. It may still stay profitable for RGG to make more for years and years. For me, that part isn't even an issue; I think at some point it could be that another expansion wasn't going to ever come out, and I might make one anyway. They're fun, what can I say.
Having enough reasonably simple stuff to do is an issue. Cards are more hemmed in than ever by what's already been done. It might just be a few more expansions before it seems too hard to make stuff that isn't too obviously better/worse than something else at the same cost, too hard to make stuff that doesn't require extra components, too hard to make new things that fit on the cards. But I won't really know this until I'm there, struggling with that expansion.
I don't mind you working on Dominion instead of new games. :)
You once said this about online only expansions:
Have you ever considered making online only promos / expansions?
Without physical limitations, it seems there's much more you can do.
I have not considered an online-only expansion; it's a lot of work that could instead go towards a physical expansion that could also appear online. It would just never seem preferable to rule out a physical expansion.
I have considered an online-only promo, to the extent that Peasant/Page came from that considering. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13082.0
MF has not been interested in an online-only promo so far, but if and when I will consider it again.
And let me paraphrase this bit from the initial quoted reply: I think at some point it could be that another expansion wasn't going to ever come out, and I might make one anyway. They're fun, what can I say.
So if you have such an expansion ready and RGG isn't interested anymore, it could still be published only I think?
Just know that there's an appreciative community here who really enjoys the commitment you have with this game. You don't need to stay in touch with us or make more expansions, yet you choose to do so. I am/we are very thankful for that.
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So if you have such an expansion ready and RGG isn't interested anymore, it could still be published only I think?
Just know that there's an appreciative community here who really enjoys the commitment you have with this game. You don't need to stay in touch with us or make more expansions, yet you choose to do so. I am/we are very thankful for that.
I'm there for you!
Yes if somehow I was making an expansion despite a lack of demand for physical product, it could be an online-only set (whether dedicated to that premise, or not but just not available physically). It's really unlikely though. I wasn't saying that that scenario was at all likely; I was trying to show an extreme for me being interested in getting stuff done. That extreme tells you something about me but does not tell you so much about the odds of online-only expansions. In reality the odds are that RGG will publish any Dominion expansions I ever make. Like, if sales were just break-even, it would still have promotional value.
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You did a pretty good job of improving cards without rendering them obsolete in Hinterlands. Noble Brigand and Cartographer are both better incarnations of Thief and Scout, but neither of them are strictly better cards. There are situations where you'd want Thief over Noble Brigand, and Scout and Cartographer don't even share a price point.
I am willing to go as far as Noble Brigand, but note that there were in fact people who screamed about that.
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So if you have such an expansion ready and RGG isn't interested anymore, it could still be published only I think?
Just know that there's an appreciative community here who really enjoys the commitment you have with this game. You don't need to stay in touch with us or make more expansions, yet you choose to do so. I am/we are very thankful for that.
I'm there for you!
Yes if somehow I was making an expansion despite a lack of demand for physical product, it could be an online-only set (whether dedicated to that premise, or not but just not available physically). It's really unlikely though. I wasn't saying that that scenario was at all likely; I was trying to show an extreme for me being interested in getting stuff done. That extreme tells you something about me but does not tell you so much about the odds of online-only expansions. In reality the odds are that RGG will publish any Dominion expansions I ever make. Like, if sales were just break-even, it would still have promotional value.
I don't mind RGG publishing any Dominion expansion you make, that's only better for the offline players.
More expansions is always more fun in my opinion and I do love me some offline Dominion.
I'm only worried about the Dutch publisher 999 Games translating and publishing them. :-\
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When you come up with a new card idea, do you first test it on a simulator? Or do you just bring it out to the next game night? Do you do IRL or online testing first?
Also, do you test cards first in 2-player games; in larger groups; or does it depend mostly on who shows up to the next playing session?
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When you come up with a new card idea, do you first test it on a simulator? Or do you just bring it out to the next game night? Do you do IRL or online testing first?
Also, do you test cards first in 2-player games; in larger groups; or does it depend mostly on who shows up to the next playing session?
I test cards first irl, and usually never test them in a simulator. It has to look specifically like something I want to simulate, to simulate it (typically, a card you can just buy with money). When we used a program of mine to do online testing, pre-isotropic, I would sometimes try cards first there, just because that was the next chance to play. Once it was isotropic, I didn't want to ask Doug to program something that might instantly fail.
I test cards with however many players show up. Usually that's 3-4 players though. I do way less 2-player testing (but some). Online leaned towards 2-player but that stopped midway through Empires.
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Do you already know the theme of the expansion after Empires?
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Why are Reserve cards colored? I understand the type is necessary to make them capable of calling themselves into play, but the other colored types are for ease of separation and I see no reason that Reserve cards need to be easy to identify from other cards.
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Why are Reserve cards colored? I understand the type is necessary to make them capable of calling themselves into play, but the other colored types are for ease of separation and I see no reason that Reserve cards need to be easy to identify from other cards.
I think this is the same question as why is Reserve a type in the first place, which has been discussed a couple times. The type definitely isn't necessary to call itself into play. Plus not all Reserves do that (Wine Merchant, Distant Lands).
Donald answered it here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13168.msg488809#msg488809
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Why don't you play Dominion online?
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Do you already know the theme of the expansion after Empires?
And when was the last time I played Dominion?
It turns out that leaving announcements up to RGG precludes answering some questions.
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Why are Reserve cards colored? I understand the type is necessary to make them capable of calling themselves into play, but the other colored types are for ease of separation and I see no reason that Reserve cards need to be easy to identify from other cards.
The color reminds you to put the card on the mat when you play it. It's a thing players are not used to doing and can forget.
"Ease of separation" is not really the deal. Victory cards are green to remind you that they are not exciting when in your hand; look elsewhere for answers. Treasures are yellow to remind you that they can be played in the Buy phase. Reactions are blue to remind you that they may have value at an unexpected moment that they aren't directly involved in (and Tunnel crept in there on the strength of the unexpectedness of the moment, despite being involved there). Duration cards are orange to remind you that they stay out.
Attacks meanwhile have a functional identity but don't need to call attention to themselves. At one point they had a different color, and possibly some players would prefer that. You can argue that you want to note that other players can interact with you with them, although then, why not non-Attack interaction too?
Shelters are a special case; they needed a color. They have a variety of other types and couldn't be pure the other color, because Actions do that for Reactions. You can also argue some ease of separation there, and for Ruins. It does maybe help a little in your hand to have Shelters and Ruins distinguished from (other) Actions.
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Why don't you play Dominion online?
I have played Dominion online a lot. I have even played the MF version a lot, though most of the time that was testing campaign levels. I played a tiny amount in public; usually there was something to test instead, and playing against a human means a certain commitment to not suddenly getting up from your computer for some reason.
Last I checked the computer I'm mostly on won't run it, so when I want to quickly play a game of something, I find something else. Lately Spectromancer has been my fast game of choice, although I think I'm about done with it.
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When you come up with a new card idea, do you first test it on a simulator? Or do you just bring it out to the next game night? Do you do IRL or online testing first?
Also, do you test cards first in 2-player games; in larger groups; or does it depend mostly on who shows up to the next playing session?
I test cards first irl, and usually never test them in a simulator. It has to look specifically like something I want to simulate, to simulate it (typically, a card you can just buy with money). When we used a program of mine to do online testing, pre-isotropic, I would sometimes try cards first there, just because that was the next chance to play. Once it was isotropic, I didn't want to ask Doug to program something that might instantly fail.
I test cards with however many players show up. Usually that's 3-4 players though. I do way less 2-player testing (but some). Online leaned towards 2-player but that stopped midway through Empires.
Does this mean you stopped testing online halfway through Empires or that you moved to 3/4 player testing online on Empires. If so, that's a very interesting decision.
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Does this mean you stopped testing online halfway through Empires or that you moved too 3/4 player testing online on Empires. If so, that's a very interesting decision.
Doug found better things to do with his time midway through Empires. So, he stopped updating isotropic, so we couldn't test new cards on it anymore.
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Does this mean you stopped testing online halfway through Empires or that you moved too 3/4 player testing online on Empires. If so, that's a very interesting decision.
Doug found better things to do with his time midway through Empires. So, he stopped updating isotropic, so we couldn't test new cards on it anymore.
Does that mean isotropic is going down?
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Does this mean you stopped testing online halfway through Empires or that you moved too 3/4 player testing online on Empires. If so, that's a very interesting decision.
Doug found better things to do with his time midway through Empires. So, he stopped updating isotropic, so we couldn't test new cards on it anymore.
Does that mean isotropic is going down?
Dude, there's still Innovation, and uh. The Celtic knot thingy.
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Does this mean you stopped testing online halfway through Empires or that you moved too 3/4 player testing online on Empires. If so, that's a very interesting decision.
Doug found better things to do with his time midway through Empires. So, he stopped updating isotropic, so we couldn't test new cards on it anymore.
Does that mean isotropic is going down?
Dude, there's still Innovation, and uh. The Celtic knot thingy.
Looks like he found better things to do (than updating isotropic Innovation) for quite a while now.
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Hopefully the better things to do are making a new dominion online client
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Hopefully the better things to do are making a new dominion online client
Hope springs eternal.
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You made a comment during the Twitch match that at some point you realized that cards costing $2 are more like cards costing $4 and that $2-$4 are essentially the same. At what point did you reach this conclusion? I'm just curious because it seems the power level of $2 costs in Adventures is much higher than normal, which I'm not complaining about.
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You made a comment during the Twitch match that at some point you realized that cards costing $2 are more like cards costing $4 and that $2-$4 are essentially the same. At what point did you reach this conclusion? I'm just curious because it seems the power level of $2 costs in Adventures is much higher than normal, which I'm not complaining about.
I don't know exactly, but looking at the cards, Pearl Diver is an example of "you buy it with $2 so it's okay," and there are no later examples. Let's put it at during Prosperity, which has no $2's.
Maybe you immediately want to cite Duchess, but Duchess doesn't cost $2, it costs $2 or gaining a Duchy. It did not want to be a card you'd typically pay $3-$4 for.
Page and Peasant are stand-out $2's, but Coin of the Realm, Ratcatcher and Raze all seem like completely reasonable/normal $2's.
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Honestly, i think you have to blame the +Buy mechanic for this. If you could just buy as many cards as you liked, you could pick up two $2s instead of a $4. In Dominion, you first need to play a card that allows you to do it, so often $4/$3/$2/$0 is the same to you.
Obviously somebody is going to say this wouldn't work with cost reduction and $0 costs, but man, those are conclusions, not premises.
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Honestly, i think you have to blame the +Buy mechanic for this. If you could just buy as many cards as you liked, you could pick up two $2s instead of a $4. In Dominion, you first need to play a card that allows you to do it, so often $4/$3/$2/$0 is the same to you.
Obviously somebody is going to say this wouldn't work with cost reduction and $0 costs, but man, those are conclusions, not premises.
In order for me to assign blame, I would first need to be unhappy. I'm not! It's fine that the differences between $2's and $4's come down to +Buys and openings.
Your deck starts out making ~$3.5 a turn, and tends to go up from there; that's what makes $2-$4 similar.
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I wasn't really meaning "blame". You decided for buys being a ressource a player needs to akquire first if they need it, which creates strategical depth and allows you to make more cards. It's a very plausible step to make, especially as smaller costs still matter occasionally and also help structure the game a bit.
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Does this mean you stopped testing online halfway through Empires or that you moved too 3/4 player testing online on Empires. If so, that's a very interesting decision.
Doug found better things to do with his time midway through Empires. So, he stopped updating isotropic, so we couldn't test new cards on it anymore.
Does that mean isotropic is going down?
Dude, there's still Innovation, and uh. The Celtic knot thingy.
Looks like he found better things to do (than updating isotropic Innovation) for quite a while now.
Come back Doug!!!!
(Or, you know, open-source... pretty pretty please?)
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What??? Isotopic is going down??? No!!!
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What??? Isotopic is going down??? No!!!
ugh ... is it?
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Have you ever tested a version of Treasure Hunter that gains "at most" as many Silvers as the player to your right gained cards? Because i have found myself to play Treasure Hunter almost exclusively to get Warrior, and never bother about the on-play effect until it's too late and i realize i didn't count. It wouldn't matter if i could just say, "Whoops, i forgot how many it were, you know? Three? Four? Let's go with three to be save, okay?". But maybe that's just me and other people find it to be a non-issue.
Also, i apologize for many of my questions being a bit complain-ish. Please don't take it as a general opposition, as Dominion is probably the best-designed game i ever played and it's just me having a kind of "black thinking hat" approach to things in general.
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Have you ever tested a version of Treasure Hunter that gains "at most" as many Silvers as the player to your right gained cards? Because i have found myself to play Treasure Hunter almost exclusively to get Warrior, and never bother about the on-play effect until it's too late and i realize i didn't count. It wouldn't matter if i could just say, "Whoops, i forgot how many it were, you know? Three? Four? Let's go with three to be save, okay?". But maybe that's just me and other people find it to be a non-issue.
No. Usually we can work out how many Silvers it should be, if someone wasn't paying attention. I don't think I would possibly use "up to" as a solution to memory issues; it doesn't solve the problem, because someone may really really want the maximum they're allowed to get, and feel cheated if they can't get it. The solution would be not to do this wonderful card.
Treasure Hunter was a card a broad swath of casual players loved, that playtesters didn't like much and so got dropped from multiple expansions. It was great to put it into a Traveller slot, where the players who don't like it can just grumble a little before upgrading it, while the players who love it get to have it.
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Have you ever tested a version of Treasure Hunter that gains "at most" as many Silvers as the player to your right gained cards? Because i have found myself to play Treasure Hunter almost exclusively to get Warrior, and never bother about the on-play effect until it's too late and i realize i didn't count. It wouldn't matter if i could just say, "Whoops, i forgot how many it were, you know? Three? Four? Let's go with three to be save, okay?". But maybe that's just me and other people find it to be a non-issue.
Also, i apologize for many of my questions being a bit complain-ish. Please don't take it as a general opposition, as Dominion is probably the best-designed game i ever played and it's just me having a kind of "black thinking hat" approach to things in general.
This would be quite a buff for the Champion line and I don't think that this would be a good thing.
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Have you ever tested a version of Treasure Hunter that gains "at most" as many Silvers as the player to your right gained cards? Because i have found myself to play Treasure Hunter almost exclusively to get Warrior, and never bother about the on-play effect until it's too late and i realize i didn't count. It wouldn't matter if i could just say, "Whoops, i forgot how many it were, you know? Three? Four? Let's go with three to be save, okay?". But maybe that's just me and other people find it to be a non-issue.
No. Usually we can work out how many Silvers it should be, if someone wasn't paying attention. I don't think I would possibly use "up to" as a solution to memory issues; it doesn't solve the problem, because someone may really really want the maximum they're allowed to get, and feel cheated if they can't get it. The solution would be not to do this wonderful card.
Treasure Hunter was a card a broad swath of casual players loved, that playtesters didn't like much and so got dropped from multiple expansions. It was great to put it into a Traveller slot, where the players who don't like it can just grumble a little before upgrading it, while the players who love it get to have it.
Well, i would assume a player who actually wants the Silvers would also pay attention. The point is that there's no way to fix a situation where people remember differently. If it was "up to", you could grumble over a compromise that you think is unfair for you. The way it is, at least one player will be certain you actually broke the rules of the game.
This would be quite a buff for the Champion line and I don't think that this would be a good thing.
Well, if you assume several players use their Treasure Hunters in one turn, the first player will gain the least cards and get the least of this "buff". Though that player will also be the first to have a Warrior, and actually i think it's unfair to have the last player in turn order swamped with Silvers, possibly never to draw and play their Warrior at all. Making it a choice means play order matters less.
Also i really might be wrong here, but i feel Treasure Hunter isn't that relevant for the Page line, either way. If you think it's too strong, start with Warrior.
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I think the silver "flood" is a great way to stop the fast cycling, so being able to take no silvers would take a weakness (on some boards) away from it.
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Well, i would assume a player who actually wants the Silvers would also pay attention. The point is that there's no way to fix a situation where people remember differently. If it was "up to", you could grumble over a compromise that you think is unfair for you. The way it is, at least one player will be certain you actually broke the rules of the game.
I continue to feel no pull whatsoever towards "up to."
Also i really might be wrong here, but i feel Treasure Hunter isn't that relevant for the Page line, either way. If you think it's too strong, start with Warrior.
It's relevant for the game to have fun cards for casual players. It's more relevant than any of this other stuff for sure.
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The point is that there's no way to fix a situation where people remember differently.
In practice this just never happens, though. One player says, "But you also gained that other card, remember?" And the other player says, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that!" It's so easy to reach an agreement.
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I always assumed not having "up to" was because of balance issues. Because you often don't want all those Silvers. It also slows down the Traveler progression.
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The point is that there's no way to fix a situation where people remember differently.
In practice this just never happens, though. One player says, "But you also gained that other card, remember?" And the other player says, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that!" It's so easy to reach an agreement.
Is it? At the Cincy tournament, I can't speak for the other players, but I got the impression the four of us in the Page game I played were operating with 75% certainty and just accepting it. I certainly was. And that was a tournament situation.
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The point is that there's no way to fix a situation where people remember differently.
In practice this just never happens, though. One player says, "But you also gained that other card, remember?" And the other player says, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that!" It's so easy to reach an agreement.
Is it? At the Cincy tournament, I can't speak for the other players, but I got the impression the four of us in the Page game I played were operating with 75% certainty and just accepting it. I certainly was. And that was a tournament situation.
But you were accepting it. There wasn't any sort of intractable disagreement?
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I always assumed not having "up to" was because of balance issues. Because you often don't want all those Silvers. It also slows down the Traveler progression.
It's not "up to" because I never once considered "up to." It never came up. The premise was, gain a Silver per card the previous player gained. I liked that premise and was not looking to change it.
It does slow down the Page line a little. That was not missed. Treasure Hunter wasn't put there to do that, but that was not invisible. It was factored in in its mild way, to the balance of the whole line.
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But you were accepting it. There wasn't any sort of intractable disagreement?
Correct. But in my small way I was unhappy.
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The point is that there's no way to fix a situation where people remember differently.
In practice this just never happens, though. One player says, "But you also gained that other card, remember?" And the other player says, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that!" It's so easy to reach an agreement.
It seems like some of the most difficult to remember situations with Treasure Huntrr could have been avoided if the card set a maximum number of Silvers gained, such as five. Then you wouldn't have to remember the number of cards gained exactly, only that it was at least five.
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I can just say that this happened to us, in a casual 4-player game, and we found we were tracking stuff just to not break the rules when doing an effect nobody cared for (as we only played TH in order to get a Warrior/Champion).
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The point is that there's no way to fix a situation where people remember differently.
In practice this just never happens, though. One player says, "But you also gained that other card, remember?" And the other player says, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that!" It's so easy to reach an agreement.
It seems like some of the most difficult to remember situations with Treasure Huntrr could have been avoided if the card set a maximum number of Silvers gained, such as five. Then you wouldn't have to remember the number of cards gained exactly, only that it was at least five.
But then you wouldn't have the fun of gaining 16 Silvers with one play of Treasure Hunter.
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Also i really might be wrong here, but i feel Treasure Hunter isn't that relevant for the Page line, either way. If you think it's too strong, start with Warrior.
It's relevant for the game to have fun cards for casual players. It's more relevant than any of this other stuff for sure.
If you intend to say my point is irrelevant because strength doesn't matter that much, well, you are actually supporting the point of my post, which was that "TH becomes too strong" isn't a relevant argument.
I would also argue a casual player to be more willing to take a compromise if they don't remember stuff (which is against the rules with the existing card), and to be more likely to run into that situation in the first place. So casual players are in fact the ones affected most.
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Also i really might be wrong here, but i feel Treasure Hunter isn't that relevant for the Page line, either way. If you think it's too strong, start with Warrior.
It's relevant for the game to have fun cards for casual players. It's more relevant than any of this other stuff for sure.
If you intend to say my point is irrelevant because strength doesn't matter that much, well, you are actually supporting the point of my post, which was that "TH becomes too strong" isn't a relevant argument.
I would also argue a casual player to be more willing to take a compromise if they don't remember stuff (which is against the rules with the existing card), and to be more likely to run into that situation in the first place. So casual players are in fact the ones affected most.
Let me try again. You say "i feel Treasure Hunter isn't that relevant for the Page line." Well man, the idea on my side was never "Treasure Hunter is in the Page line because it's relevant to the Page line." It was "Treasure Hunter is in the Page line to be a fun card for the people that like it." There's no discussion of "what it contributes to the Page line" that in any way interacts with the actual reason for the card existing.
I continue to feel zero pull towards Treasure Hunter being any different. You are not convincing me of anything there. If you don't enjoy the Page experience because of Treasure Hunter memory issues, there are 29 other kingdom cards in Adventures. I can't make cards people love without having cards people hate.
If I had felt the memory issue loomed too large, I would not have made the card. That was not the experience I had.
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Treasure Hunter was a card a broad swath of casual players loved, that playtesters didn't like much and so got dropped from multiple expansions. It was great to put it into a Traveller slot, where the players who don't like it can just grumble a little before upgrading it, while the players who love it get to have it.
I'd never thought about it before this conversation, but this really cuts the other way too, doesn't it? If Treasure Hunter were a Kingdom card, you could just ignore it. But since it's in a Traveller line you have to play it if you want the fun of Warrior, Hero, and Champion.
I think Treasure Hunter is fine where it is, though. I've definitely had the conversations of "how many cards did you gain last turn?", but they don't bother me, and they don't happen every time someone plays Treasure Hunter.
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Also i really might be wrong here, but i feel Treasure Hunter isn't that relevant for the Page line, either way. If you think it's too strong, start with Warrior.
It's relevant for the game to have fun cards for casual players. It's more relevant than any of this other stuff for sure.
If you intend to say my point is irrelevant because strength doesn't matter that much, well, you are actually supporting the point of my post, which was that "TH becomes too strong" isn't a relevant argument.
I would also argue a casual player to be more willing to take a compromise if they don't remember stuff (which is against the rules with the existing card), and to be more likely to run into that situation in the first place. So casual players are in fact the ones affected most.
Let me try again. You say "i feel Treasure Hunter isn't that relevant for the Page line." Well man, the idea on my side was never "Treasure Hunter is in the Page line because it's relevant to the Page line." It was "Treasure Hunter is in the Page line to be a fun card for the people that like it." There's no discussion of "what it contributes to the Page line" that in any way interacts with the actual reason for the card existing.
I continue to feel zero pull towards Treasure Hunter being any different. You are not convincing me of anything there. If you don't enjoy the Page experience because of Treasure Hunter memory issues, there are 29 other kingdom cards in Adventures. I can't make cards people love without having cards people hate.
If I had felt the memory issue loomed too large, I would not have made the card. That was not the experience I had.
I never implied that your intent was for Treasure Hunter to be relevant to the Page line, and i certainly did not complain about it not being relevant. You are apparently reading my answer to another poster's concern as a critizism, even though it was not intended as such. He said, "TH like you suggest makes the Page line too strong", i answered "TH doesn't have much of an influence on the Page line's strength", and you read "It's bad that TH has so little relevance for the Page line". It's not what i answered to, and not the discussion i was intending to have.
Either way, thank you for answering.
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I'd never thought about it before this conversation, but this really cuts the other way too, doesn't it? If Treasure Hunter were a Kingdom card, you could just ignore it. But since it's in a Traveller line you have to play it if you want the fun of Warrior, Hero, and Champion.
Well just once per Page. You gain your Silver, as every fiber of your being screams in agony, then return it to the pile and take a Warrior.
The cards being grouped together doesn't mean they want to all be can't-possibly-offend-anyone things. They want to try to avoid being hated but they can only go so far that way before no-one cares about them. I guess you can argue, they should have tried to please similar kinds of players, so that the people who loved/hated one card in a line tended to love/hate one or two more of them too. Like, the Page line aimed at casual players, the Peasant line aimed at serious players. I didn't think of that then though, I just tried to make good cards.
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I never implied that your intent was for Treasure Hunter to be relevant to the Page line, and i certainly did not complain about it not being relevant. You are apparently reading my answer to another poster's concern as a critizism, even though it was not intended as such. He said, "TH like you suggest makes the Page line too strong", i answered "TH doesn't have much of an influence on the Page line's strength", and you read "It's bad that TH has so little relevance for the Page line". It's not what i answered to, and not the discussion i was intending to have.
Either way, thank you for answering.
The internet is hard. I thought you were saying, "Treasure Hunter has no relevance to the page line, therefore it doesn't have to be there, we could have some other card that I liked more."
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I never implied that your intent was for Treasure Hunter to be relevant to the Page line, and i certainly did not complain about it not being relevant. You are apparently reading my answer to another poster's concern as a critizism, even though it was not intended as such. He said, "TH like you suggest makes the Page line too strong", i answered "TH doesn't have much of an influence on the Page line's strength", and you read "It's bad that TH has so little relevance for the Page line". It's not what i answered to, and not the discussion i was intending to have.
Either way, thank you for answering.
The internet is hard. I thought you were saying, "Treasure Hunter has no relevance to the page line, therefore it doesn't have to be there, we could have some other card that I liked more."
Yeah, maybe it wasn't the best idea to answer to two different people in one post. I have to blame myself for that one.
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I think the Traveller concept is overall very interesting, and I think the existence of TH adds an interesting level of depth to the Page line.
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Have Travellers always had linear paths? Did you consider a line that branches, or two lines that converge?
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For what it's worth, I think Treasure Hunter is a rather unique card that works quite well as a part of a traveller line. It's a bit strange since it works so well leeching off someone else's copy more than anything else most of the time, but the allure of Champion makes it likely for Treasure Hunters to come into play as players make their way towards Champion.
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Have Travellers always had linear paths? Did you consider a line that branches, or two lines that converge?
Initially it was a pile of different cards at each level - a $3 turned into any of the $4's (your choice at first, then random). Then it was the thing it is, four specific upgrades in an order, telling a story. I did not consider anything trickier. I considered doing one that went backwards - starts expensive and gets weaker - but it would have to be mandatory (and then when you forget you're cheating).
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Sorry if I missed this being asked before.
Will there be previews from people other than you for Empires like there were for Adventures?
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Will there be previews from people other than you for Empires like there were for Adventures?
Yes.
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Will there be previews from people other than you for Empires like there were for Adventures?
Yes.
Have said people been decided already, or can people volunteer?
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Will there be previews from people other than you for Empires like there were for Adventures?
Yes.
Have said people been decided already, or can people volunteer?
Translation:
(https://38.media.tumblr.com/9a3a86c472bdb6d02d67e3a7d42fd918/tumblr_inline_n05ku3CFfi1s6gdld.gif)
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Have said people been decided already, or can people volunteer?
All slots are spoken for. If one opens back up, I probably will pick someone to offer it to, rather than going with volunteers.
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The discussion about treasure hunter made me curious on the thought process behind traveller effects. Looking at the secret history it seemed like a number of the cards picked were cards that you previously tried but didn't work out for various reasons and making them part of a traveller line seemed to fix those issues.
Is that sort of how it went, or did you have more specific criteria for the kinds of effects you wanted traveller cards to have? (e.g. something that synergizes/anti-synergizes with the other cards in that line, a niche card or generally useful one, something you might want to stop at in some instances, etc.)
Are there types of effects you think would make a poor traveller upgrade but would work as a card? Vice-versa?
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The discussion about treasure hunter made me curious on the thought process behind traveller effects. Looking at the secret history it seemed like a number of the cards picked were cards that you previously tried but didn't work out for various reasons and making them part of a traveller line seemed to fix those issues.
Is that sort of how it went, or did you have more specific criteria for the kinds of effects you wanted traveller cards to have? (e.g. something that synergizes/anti-synergizes with the other cards in that line, a niche card or generally useful one, something you might want to stop at in some instances, etc.)
Well for the step where I first had the two linear paths, I picked names first. One line was just someone getting better, the other told a little story. Then, the effects wanted to at least somewhat fit the names.
For the Page line, I liked the idea of having just one attack (and one in the other in the obvious Soldier slot). The names thus had to work with not being attacks despite being names that might otherwise go on attack cards. One thing was to have a Moat, but that had to go on the top, since the under-the-line space was reserved for upgrading. So, there's an attack, a Moat, and two treasure-gainers, which also fits with the names. Your Hero fights, but doesn't fight the other players.
For the Peasant line, things were more of a mystery. Soldier wanted to attack and Teacher wanted to hand out tokens. Fugitive and Disciple did not suggest as much in terms of what they would do. At one point the Fugitive went on the Tavern mat; that was cute, he hid out in the Tavern. That was part of trying to make Teacher harder to go nuts with, but was very wordy.
It was natural to look at old ideas to see if some of them would work; I mean I needed 8 extra cards. Fugitive in particular was a card I was resigned to never doing, but I could just do it here with no issues. Treasure Hunter you know about. It had been in Hinterlands, it was pretty cool there, what with Haggler and Border Village and so on. Disciple tried another classic dead card, but didn't keep it. Hero tried something new simple & exciting, that would be dangerous on a regular card. Champion was a Moat variant, then Moated from anywhere. Teacher was new. Soldier and Warrior were just very simple attacks using the tokens (at first). Attacks are hard and that was an easy way to get terse new ones.
There were things that weren't a reason why a card showed up, but which then seemed nice, and made it less likely that that card would leave. It was cute that Page and Treasure Hunter were +1 Action while Peasant and Soldier weren't. It was cute that Peasant was the +'s not on Page, but it didn't start that way. It was cute that Champion was a duration and Teacher a reserve; neither started that way. It was cute that Soldier gave the -1 card token and Warrior gave the -$1 token, while Soldier gave +$2 and Warrior gave +2 Cards.
I liked the idea of trying to have each step be worth stopping on sometimes, but it was clear you would usually want to push to the top with your first Page/Peasant. I do think it ended up where every step is worth stopping on sometimes, except Page (and yes even then but way less often). You don't stop on Fugitive that often, but I have done it. You stop on Soldier, Warrior, and Disciple all the time; and then sometimes there's a combo for Treasure Hunter or Hero (or you don't need Champion).
Are there types of effects you think would make a poor traveller upgrade but would work as a card? Vice-versa?
Mostly what makes for a poor upgrade but not a poor card, is something that's missing out by being an upgrade. You see the upgrade less often; it would bring more joy to the game as a regular card. There's also, things you need early game, since the upgrades are delayed. Arguably when an ability is precious (e.g. +buy, in some games) it's bad to have it on a traveller (other than the 1st or last one). I kind of shied away from those but not completely.
A card that's too narrow as a regular card can hope to find life in a less-used slot like the travellers; if this isn't the game for Treasure Hunter combos, you just play it once and move on. A card that's hard to cost (e.g. Fugitive) gets this new option of costing time.
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Well for the step where I first had the two linear paths, I picked names first. One line was just someone getting better, the other told a little story.
You have said this before, but I don't see how Treasure Hunter is in any way a natural progression from Page. A page is like a young servant to a knight, possibly being trained as a knight themselves. This page apparently just said "screw this" and went off to seek her fortune.
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Well for the step where I first had the two linear paths, I picked names first. One line was just someone getting better, the other told a little story.
You have said this before, but I don't see how Treasure Hunter is in any way a natural progression from Page. A page is like a young servant to a knight, possibly being trained as a knight themselves. This page apparently just said "screw this" and went off to seek her fortune.
I'm with you. And then in the end she came back.
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Mercenary is the only terminal with both +cards and +coins. Were other such terminals ever tested? If so, why were they scrapped?
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Well for the step where I first had the two linear paths, I picked names first. One line was just someone getting better, the other told a little story.
You have said this before, but I don't see how Treasure Hunter is in any way a natural progression from Page. A page is like a young servant to a knight, possibly being trained as a knight themselves. This page apparently just said "screw this" and went off to seek her fortune.
Play some D&D. You gotta kill some monsters and get some phat lewt before you can become a high-level Specialist.
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Mercenary is the only terminal with both +cards and +coins. Were other such terminals ever tested? If so, why were they scrapped?
That's not exactly true. Tribute for example can do that. And uh Storeroom.
The main set at one point had "+2 Cards +$2," for $5. It was dull. It also seemed strong, given my technology at the time.
Smaller amounts, e.g. "+1 Card +$2," always just look wonky to me. Man just go ahead and give +3 of something. Larger amounts have the problem of needing to be really expensive (or saddled with penalties, or expensive in an unusual way like travellers). "+2 Cards +$2" itself isn't impossible; Prosperity could have managed that with a bonus. I had it on a Peasant upgrade when the 5 cards at each level were all unique.
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I do think it ended up where every step is worth stopping on sometimes, except Page (and yes even then but way less often).
Huh, i always thought the whole point of Page was "Play 8 of these and then a Warrior." At least the carnage you can do with this left a lasting impression on me.
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Mercenary is the only terminal with both +cards and +coins. Were other such terminals ever tested? If so, why were they scrapped?
That's not exactly true. Tribute for example can do that. And uh Storeroom.
Trusty Steed anyone :)?
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Mercenary is the only terminal with both +cards and +coins. Were other such terminals ever tested? If so, why were they scrapped?
That's not exactly true. Tribute for example can do that. And uh Storeroom.
Trusty Steed anyone :)?
Pawn. Also Band of Misfits.
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Mercenary is the only terminal with both +cards and +coins. Were other such terminals ever tested? If so, why were they scrapped?
That's not exactly true. Tribute for example can do that. And uh Storeroom.
Trusty Steed anyone :)?
Pawn. Also Band of Misfits.
Peddler. Grand Market. Saboteur with Pathfinding and Training tokens on it.
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Mercenary is the only terminal with both +cards and +coins. Were other such terminals ever tested? If so, why were they scrapped?
That's not exactly true. Tribute for example can do that. And uh Storeroom.
Trusty Steed anyone :)?
Pawn. Also Band of Misfits.
Peddler. Grand Market. Saboteur with Pathfinding and Training tokens on it.
Also Ruined Mine with Pathfinding and Training.
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Mercenary is the only terminal with both +cards and +coins. Were other such terminals ever tested? If so, why were they scrapped?
That's not exactly true. Tribute for example can do that. And uh Storeroom.
Trusty Steed anyone :)?
Pawn. Also Band of Misfits.
Peddler. Grand Market. Saboteur with Pathfinding and Training tokens on it.
I get the tokens bit, but Peddler and Grand Market can't ever be terminal.
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Mercenary is the only terminal with both +cards and +coins. Were other such terminals ever tested? If so, why were they scrapped?
That's not exactly true. Tribute for example can do that. And uh Storeroom.
Trusty Steed anyone :)?
For this question, I would not have counted Trusty Steed or Pawn since they can be non-terminal if you want. Tribute is iffy too since it is also sometimes non-terminal, but it's not your choice anyway so there it is. Storeroom certainly works.
Pawn. Also Band of Misfits.
Peddler. Grand Market. Saboteur with Pathfinding and Training tokens on it.
I get the tokens bit, but Peddler and Grand Market can't ever be terminal.
I think he's poking fun at you naming Band of Misfits, which doesn't give +cards or +coins itself.
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If Storeroom counts, then so does Vault.
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Also Ruined Mine with Pathfinding and Training.
You can't fool me, there is no such card.
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I get the tokens bit, but Peddler and Grand Market can't ever be terminal.
I see, I forgot about that after seeing Pawn.
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I do think it ended up where every step is worth stopping on sometimes, except Page (and yes even then but way less often).
Huh, i always thought the whole point of Page was "Play 8 of these and then a Warrior." At least the carnage you can do with this left a lasting impression on me.
You've played a bunch of cantrips and drawn two cards because your opponent almost certainly has a Champion already?
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Vault seems like a more interesting version of +2 cards, +2 coin that has a similar effect a lot of the time.
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Huh, i always thought the whole point of Page was "Play 8 of these and then a Warrior." At least the carnage you can do with this left a lasting impression on me.
You've played a bunch of cantrips and drawn two cards because your opponent almost certainly has a Champion already?
What I've observed is that when Page is present, all of the players try to drive for Champion as hard as they can, but often one player's Warriors kill off the other players' Treasure Hunters and Warriors before they can make it to Hero. By the time those players can repurchase and promote new Pages, the first has a Champion/Warrior engine running, and quickly gains or trashes the rest of the Warriors, ensuring that nobody else can get any of the higher-level Travelers.
It doesn't always happen, but it's more common than I'd like; probably more than half the games with Page.
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Do you get excited when you see there is a new post in this thread? Do you feel let down after actually reading the post? Is that happening now?
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Do you get excited when you see there is a new post in this thread? Do you feel let down after actually reading the post? Is that happening now?
Yes
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Do you get excited when you see there is a new post in this thread? Do you feel let down after actually reading the post? Is that happening now?
Yes
You're not Donald X!
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All the forum games people are acting out & misbehaving lately.
Donald, any clue why?
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All the forum games people are acting out & misbehaving lately.
Donald, any clue why?
Is it night?
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All the forum games people are acting out & misbehaving lately.
Donald, any clue why?
Is it night?
Lol yup
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NO TALKING ABOUT ONGOING GAMES.
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Well for the step where I first had the two linear paths, I picked names first. One line was just someone getting better, the other told a little story. Then, the effects wanted to at least somewhat fit the names.
Oh, hm, starting with the names and then attaching effects to them. I remember you saying that happened with Pirate Ship as well. Are there other cards that have that history?
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Oh, hm, starting with the names and then attaching effects to them. I remember you saying that happened with Pirate Ship as well. Are there other cards that have that history?
Very few. You can of course read all the secret histories, looking for them. Off the top of my head... Goons started with leftover art, then a name. Cultist tried to get a bonus ability to fit the name. I wanted a Giant, which suggested a slow attack.
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Huh, i always thought the whole point of Page was "Play 8 of these and then a Warrior." At least the carnage you can do with this left a lasting impression on me.
You've played a bunch of cantrips and drawn two cards because your opponent almost certainly has a Champion already?
What I've observed is that when Page is present, all of the players try to drive for Champion as hard as they can, but often one player's Warriors kill off the other players' Treasure Hunters and Warriors before they can make it to Hero. By the time those players can repurchase and promote new Pages, the first has a Champion/Warrior engine running, and quickly gains or trashes the rest of the Warriors, ensuring that nobody else can get any of the higher-level Travelers.
It doesn't always happen, but it's more common than I'd like; probably more than half the games with Page.
This seems like it scales more with more players. I do think in 2P games, the whole Warrior trashing thing is not as bad as a lot of people think. At least, that has been my experience so far.
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Donald, in the endless lists of outtakes there are some that you liked but that you say you had to cut because they wouldn't appeal to Dominion's estabilished fans. (for instance the Event that attacks every turn, or more Potion cards, in a way). What is your favourite card or mechanic that you chose to cut for such a reason?
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Huh, i always thought the whole point of Page was "Play 8 of these and then a Warrior." At least the carnage you can do with this left a lasting impression on me.
You've played a bunch of cantrips and drawn two cards because your opponent almost certainly has a Champion already?
What I've observed is that when Page is present, all of the players try to drive for Champion as hard as they can, but often one player's Warriors kill off the other players' Treasure Hunters and Warriors before they can make it to Hero. By the time those players can repurchase and promote new Pages, the first has a Champion/Warrior engine running, and quickly gains or trashes the rest of the Warriors, ensuring that nobody else can get any of the higher-level Travelers.
It doesn't always happen, but it's more common than I'd like; probably more than half the games with Page.
This seems like it scales more with more players. I do think in 2P games, the whole Warrior trashing thing is not as bad as a lot of people think. At least, that has been my experience so far.
Try to win the Page split and reveal 6/7 cards per turn with just one Warrior. It trashes all Treasure Hunters/Warriors except yours sooner or later, and then you can build on the advantage you have. The point is to NOT exchange the Pages nor the Warrior until your opponent's deck is destroyed. Of course, if your opponent is lucky to get one Hero, or any $5 that helps hitting $5 (if one exists in the kingdom), you might need to abandon this strategy and get your Champion, possibly exchanging your Pages only after you got it (so they never run the risk of being trashed). I don't know about mirrors, but when your opponent just thinks of Warrior as a stepping stone, there's a good chance this strategy keeps him from ever lifting off.
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I do think it ended up where every step is worth stopping on sometimes, except Page (and yes even then but way less often).
Huh, i always thought the whole point of Page was "Play 8 of these and then a Warrior." At least the carnage you can do with this left a lasting impression on me.
You've played a bunch of cantrips and drawn two cards because your opponent almost certainly has a Champion already?
The point is that your opponent never gets a Champion, nor a Hero, and later not even a chance to play Treasure Hunter. If two players go for this, one will be lucky and trash the other's Warrior, and then that other player never really comes back. From this point onward you can actually make pretty much sure your opponent is incapable of ever reaching Champion, or attacking with Warrior. You kill every card he gains in the $3/$4 span, while having all the time in the world to keep building your engine (as long as the trash-a-ton keeps running). The fact Page is a Traveller actually supports this, as your opponent will put them back in the supply for you to gain when he exchanges them for Treasure Hunter. If there are no good $5s, or you can throw in something to keep your opponent from reaching $5, he can just as well quit. Even if there are, he basically has to hope for a hand with 5 Coppers to appear. I have done this in an actual game and know it works. Edit: Or, of course, he must buy something like Silver, hope to draw it in hand, and skip the Page line entirely. Treasure Hunter doesn't work, unless he trashed down, as either TH or Warrior (and Silver) will be trashed.
Obviously, if your opponent actually manages to get a Hero, you must switch plans, and exchange your Warrior for a Hero, and your Pages for Treaaure Hunters, to still have a chance. If your opponent's Warrior trashes yours, however, you can only hope he actually thinks Warrior is just a stepping stone and exchanges it. Either way, Warrior trashing Warrior is usually a big step towards winning, either way. Multipage-Warrior is a way to get there with a high probability, as Pages both boost your Warrior and defend against opponent's.
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The point is to NOT exchange the Pages nor the Warrior until your opponent's deck is destroyed.
I'll differ on the implementation, while agreeing with the overall observation. You want to get one Traveler out of the vulnerable range and up to Champion ASAP so that your opponents' Warriors become ineffective. Also, until all of the players have gotten Heroes, I would continue to upgrade Pages/THs toward Warrior as quickly as possible, because every Warrior you gain is a Warrior not available to your opponents, and your Warriors become attacking Labs once you have your Champion.
As soon as the Warrior pile empties, the race is over, and you should probably stop buying/upgrading Pages.
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Donald, in the endless lists of outtakes there are some that you liked but that you say you had to cut because they wouldn't appeal to Dominion's estabilished fans. (for instance the Event that attacks every turn, or more Potion cards, in a way). What is your favourite card or mechanic that you chose to cut for such a reason?
It's not exactly like that. The things that established fans won't like, probably some playtesters didn't like either. So for example, when I said that established fans wouldn't appreciate an Event attacking them every turn, I meant it, but we didn't like it either.
If I liked a card but it somehow didn't go over well, I may have tried it again later. I thought "play a treasure twice" sounded nice; we never bought it, it died; there it is in Dark Ages, fixed up.
Some things were fun but not in a lasting way. I think fans wouldn't appreciate "go through your deck and play all the attacks," but we got sick of it too. It's the kind of thing I'd be happy with if it were a 3-card combo instead of a single card; it's fun the first time.
There are a couple cards I felt like casual players would like, but which died because playtesters didn't (and I could have some other card, you always have to compare the other card you could have instead). Treasure Hunter was an example until it made it out; in the league commentary I cited that Explorer-like thing from Adventures.
Things I think fans tend to like less than me and playtesters:
- attacks (Witch)
- cards perceived to be attacks though they aren't (Tribute)
- cards that let you imagine screwing yourself over (Lookout)
- slow to resolve cards (Philosopher's Stone)
- strictly better cards, or cards perceived to be strictly better (Noble Brigand)
- cards they perceive to be broken but which aren't (Hireling)
So okay, I can't pick out a favorite because that would be endless work studying the files. But for example, there was +$2, name a type, reveal cards until one with that type, discard the rest and put that one on top. It was slow to resolve, strictly better than Chancellor (you name a type not in your deck) but didn't want to cost $4. We liked it but it didn't happen.
Dark Ages had another Knight-family attack, that some of us were fond of. When theory/rrenaud/Cap'n Frisk showed up to playtest briefly, they were aghast at the multiple cards that could eat Duchies. I ended up deciding, maybe just Knight and Rogue (which rarely gets a shot at Duchies).
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Things I think fans tend to like less than me and playtesters:
- attacks (Witch)
- cards perceived to be attacks though they aren't (Tribute)
- cards that let you imagine screwing yourself over (Lookout)
- slow to resolve cards (Philosopher's Stone)
- strictly better cards, or cards perceived to be strictly better (Noble Brigand)
- cards they perceive to be broken but which aren't (Hireling)
You could make an argument for pirate ship being in basically all of these categories.
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Things I think fans tend to like less than me and playtesters:
- attacks (Witch)
- cards perceived to be attacks though they aren't (Tribute)
- cards that let you imagine screwing yourself over (Lookout)
- slow to resolve cards (Philosopher's Stone)
- strictly better cards, or cards perceived to be strictly better (Noble Brigand)
- cards they perceive to be broken but which aren't (Hireling)
You could make an argument for pirate ship being in basically all of these categories.
And yet somehow, a lot of people like Pirate Ship (at least newer players do).
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How has the game design process changed for you as you have become more successful?
For instance, do you still mostly pitch games or expansions as you think of them to publishers? Or are you asked or commissioned by publishers for particular types of games or expansions?
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How has the game design process changed for you as you have become more successful?
For instance, do you still mostly pitch games or expansions as you think of them to publishers? Or are you asked or commissioned by publishers for particular types of games or expansions?
I mostly just work on Dominion expansions. No pitching happens. If nothing's been happening, Jay will say, do I have more Dominion stuff? Or something else?
Companies have asked me to show them something. That has gone okay; some of those companies took a game. There was a period where I was pitching games to companies, sending them around. That did not go so well, after starting with a bang.
How did these games get published?
- Dominion, Monster Factory - pitched to RGG at Origins
- Temporum - RGG said, what are you working on? And then wanted it.
- Nefarious - ran into Scott at the GoF, after a few rejections from other companies; then Mosigra/Magellan got it due to pestering me to get to make a Russian version when Scott went awol
- Infiltration - FFG asked me to show them some games
- Kingdom Builder - Queen asked me to show them something
- Greed - Queen found out I had another company looking at this, and wanted it
- Pina Pirata - IELLO asked me to show them some games
- Gauntlet of Fools - Travis was part of the local scene, and was playing it before I was done with it
Some entities have asked for something specific, but nothing has happened there.
- 999 Games wanted a game that simulated being in the Dutch army during peacetime. I never had much of a grip on what you'd be doing.
- FFG wanted me to do a deckbuilding game for them. I would have needed a pitch that sounded good to them but which RGG didn't want. They were too busy for pitches.
- BGG wanted micro games, to try to get into the micro game business. I didn't really have one but offered them something at least kind of small. They liked it but decided against it. I had another thing to potentially offer them but it required work I never put into it.
- An Italian company wanted something along certain lines, I thought I had a reasonable match, they did not want it
- Travis wanted a dice game along the lines of Cosmic Wimpout. I came up with some directions that weren't much like that, and maybe I will still pursue those someday.
The expansions, well for Dominion they knew I had a pile of them, then HiG asked for a small one, then after Guilds one day I said "I'm working on a new one" and what were the odds, RGG was interested. For Kingdom Builder I made a large one because there was stuff to do and it seemed likely that they'd want it. Then they wanted it split into two, then I was done but the SdJ made them say, more expansions please. Who knows, those may come out after all.
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When did you start frequenting this forum? What gave you the impulse to do so and start replying to stuff people write?
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When did you start frequenting this forum? What gave you the impulse to do so and start replying to stuff people write?
I've been here since the beginning dude; just sort the members list by "date registered." theory and rrenaud joined 6 days earlier, but I was here the day they opened the doors.
I thought, some forums about my game, I will hang out there.
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When did you start frequenting this forum? What gave you the impulse to do so and start replying to stuff people write?
I've been here since the beginning dude; just sort the members list by "date registered." theory and rrenaud joined 6 days earlier, but I was here the day they opened the doors.
I thought, some forums about my game, I will hang out there.
If I make another forum about your game, will you hang out there?
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Do you ever try to build deliberately cwazy sets of cards when playtesting? For example, do you deliberately test most cards against King's Court, or check how well the new cards combo with Scout?
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If I make another forum about your game, will you hang out there?
Well, I might try it out, see how I liked it.
There are German forums but I don't speak German and they don't get much traffic. There's the reddit; sometimes I flirt with replying to something, but it has yet to happen. I'm on BGG. And I'm here. And I mean, those are really the places so far.
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Do you ever try to build deliberately cwazy sets of cards when playtesting? For example, do you deliberately test most cards against King's Court
King's Court testing happened as part of Prosperity; there's no special reason to test each new card with King's Court.
I do sometimes test particular combos though. Something will be obviously better with whatever category of cards, and so I try that out.
Sometimes I try a gimmicky set. That's just for fun though, it's not so much getting work done. Focused testing on a card tends to be, play that specific card, plus random cards. See it in different situations, the classic way.
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At least the reserve cards (maybe save Wine Merchant) don't cost you too much sleep wrt King's Court interaction.
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When did you start frequenting this forum? What gave you the impulse to do so and start replying to stuff people write?
I've been here since the beginning dude; just sort the members list by "date registered." theory and rrenaud joined 6 days earlier, but I was here the day they opened the doors.
I thought, some forums about my game, I will hang out there.
If I make another forum about your game, will you hang out there?
You should make a forum game here that he could hang out in and immediately be lynched day1 for acti-lurking
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Will we also get something like this again? http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12811.0
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Will we also get something like this again? http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12811.0
I think so.
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
Write a bible of Limetime. Also design a game and join a forum dedicated to that game. Also that wasn't a question. :o
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
Write a bible of Limetime. Also design a game and join a forum dedicated to that game. Also that wasn't a question. :o
Or a "interview with limetime"
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How do you feel about the name of the "Blue Dog Rule", and the way it came to be? If you could give it a name today, what would it be?
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How do you feel about the name of the "Blue Dog Rule", and the way it came to be? If you could give it a name today, what would it be?
I can give it a name today. And then I'd have power of it, like in A Wizard of Earthsea. But I choose to let it run free, nameless. Call it whatever you want; it won't come.
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Where did you go to college (if you did)? Did you major in anything relevant to game design?
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How do you feel about the name of the "Blue Dog Rule", and the way it came to be? If you could give it a name today, what would it be?
I can give it a name today. And then I'd have power of it, like in A Wizard of Earthsea. But I choose to let it run free, nameless. Call it whatever you want; it won't come.
Or like in The Name of the Wind.
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
- Write what you know. But don't write about writing. If that's what you know, you're in trouble.
- Believe in yourself. If you're fictional, try breaking the 4th wall. There's gotta be a way out.
- The real respect was inside you the whole time!
- Pick different units. Why you're already well over 2000 in dog-respect.
- Have you tried socking it to anyone?
- Get 9999 respect, and then just make one more good post.
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
Make 10,000 posts, then make an alt account to upvote each one of your posts. Or 5,000 and two alt accounts, or whatever partition works for you.
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
Also, Donald earned 13 respect for typing just, "I think so." Maybe try responding to everything with "I think so."
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Where did you go to college (if you did)? Did you major in anything relevant to game design?
I got a full-time computer programming job when I was 16. I did end up putting myself through a couple years of college on the side, after saving up. I majored in math. Game designers are often math people.
I hemmed and hawed on the "where." I dunno, it's not too interesting and just a little too stalkery.
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
Also, Donald earned 13 respect for typing just, "I think so." Maybe try responding to everything with "I think so."
reserved
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
Also, Donald earned 13 respect for typing just, "I think so." Maybe try responding to everything with "I think so."
reserved
I always want to post "outgoing" after the last "reserved."
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Where did you go to college (if you did)? Did you major in anything relevant to game design?
I got a full-time computer programming job when I was 16. I did end up putting myself through a couple years of college on the side, after saving up. I majored in math. Game designers are often math people.
I hemmed and hawed on the "where." I dunno, it's not too interesting and just a little too stalkery.
Donald, what is your address and home phone number?
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Where did you go to college (if you did)? Did you major in anything relevant to game design?
I got a full-time computer programming job when I was 16. I did end up putting myself through a couple years of college on the side, after saving up. I majored in math. Game designers are often math people.
I hemmed and hawed on the "where." I dunno, it's not too interesting and just a little too stalkery.
Donald, what is your address and home phone number?
Donald, what is your credit card number?
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
Be Donald X.
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
Be Donald X.
Donald, what's your SSN?
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
Be Donald X.
Donald, what's your SSN?
Donald, what is your F.DS login info?
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Donald X. was born in 1969, after years of not existing. Of his life, little is known. Donald X. is like something you've forgotten that no-one wants you to remember. He's everything and nothing, but not at the same time. If you rotate Donald X. 360 degrees, he'll only be standing upside down. You have to rotate him 720 degrees to get him back where he started. You know how if you hook tons and tons of computers together, maybe they'll develop some kind of bizarre mass sentience? That's Donald X. in a nutshell. In fact Donald X. is nothing more than a corrupt, profane monument to a slightly earlier version of himself.
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Donald X. was born in 1969, after years of not existing. Of his life, little is known. Donald X. is like something you've forgotten that no-one wants you to remember. He's everything and nothing, but not at the same time. If you rotate Donald X. 360 degrees, he'll only be standing upside down. You have to rotate him 720 degrees to get him back where he started. You know how if you hook tons and tons of computers together, maybe they'll develop some kind of bizarre mass sentience? That's Donald X. in a nutshell. In fact Donald X. is nothing more than a corrupt, profane monument to a slightly earlier version of himself.
So when you see an Xbox 360, you walk away on your hands?
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It's a spinor joke.
I would try to explain it more precisely, but then you wouldn't know where I am going.
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It's a spinor joke.
I would try to explain it more preciselycompletely, but then you wouldn't know where I am going.
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It's a spinor joke.
I would try to explain it more precisely, but then you wouldn't know where I am going.
Looked it up on Wikipedia and am now freaking out. Here's a quote from there:
No one fully understands Donald X. Their game is formally understood but their general significance is mysterious. In some sense they describe the "rules" of Dominion and, just as understanding of blue dogs took centuries, the same might be true of Donald X.
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It's a spinor joke.
I would try to explain it more precisely, but then you wouldn't know where I am going.
Once on BGG, someone edited that joke out of my bio. They changed it to 180 and 360, noting that they were fixing a math error.
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Give me tips on how to get 10,000 respect
- Write what you know. But don't write about writing. If that's what you know, you're in trouble.
- Believe in yourself. If you're fictional, try breaking the 4th wall. There's gotta be a way out.
- The real respect was inside you the whole time!
- Pick different units. Why you're already well over 2000 in dog-respect.
- Have you tried socking it to anyone?
- Get 9999 respect, and then just make one more good post.
Did you ever try stand up comedy?
Have I already asked you that?
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It's a spinor joke.
I would try to explain it more precisely, but then you wouldn't know where I am going.
Once on BGG, someone edited that joke out of my bio. They changed it to 180 and 360, noting that they were fixing a math error.
People on BGG can be... problematic.
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It's a spinor joke.
I would try to explain it more precisely, but then you wouldn't know where I am going.
Once on BGG, someone edited that joke out of my bio. They changed it to 180 and 360, noting that they were fixing a math error.
People on BGG can be... problematic.
Well, obviously you wouldn't want to turn just 180 degrees when you see an Xbox 360.
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Did you ever try stand up comedy?
Have I already asked you that?
I don't think you've asked.
I tried it briefly when I was 16 or 17. My routine started, "I was young as a child." There was a competition. The top 3 people got prize money; I came in 4th. They had it in again next week but decided to split the cash between the top 2; I came in 3rd. Next week, lower attendance, they just gave the money to the top guy. I came in 2nd. I missed the next week and they never had it again.
I've also written an Airplane!-style comedy, which is where the Hinterlands blurb comes from. "It's a big city out there, and we're little people..." I always look through it when writing those blurbs, but I think that's the only joke I've taken from it.
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And when I read that story I knew I had heard it before. I asked about a year back:
Based on how this thread has been going, have you ever considered standup comedy?
I've considered being a writer, and wrote an Airplane!-style comedy screenplay in the early oughts, which the Hinterlands blurb comes from. "It's a big city out there, and we're little people..."
I did try a local stand-up competition when I was 16. It ran weekly. The first night, the top 3 people finished in the money, and I came in 4th. The next night, attendance was down, they split the money between the top 2; I came in 3rd. The next night, just the top guy got paid; I came in 2nd. I skipped the next week and they never had it again.
I'd say you should give it another shot, but I think the game design thing is working better for you, and also no one should be taking life advice from me.
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And when I read that story I knew I had heard it before. I asked about a year back:
Based on how this thread has been going, have you ever considered standup comedy?
I've considered being a writer, and wrote an Airplane!-style comedy screenplay in the early oughts, which the Hinterlands blurb comes from. "It's a big city out there, and we're little people..."
I did try a local stand-up competition when I was 16. It ran weekly. The first night, the top 3 people finished in the money, and I came in 4th. The next night, attendance was down, they split the money between the top 2; I came in 3rd. The next night, just the top guy got paid; I came in 2nd. I skipped the next week and they never had it again.
I'd say you should give it another shot, but I think the game design thing is working better for you, and also no one should be taking life advice from me.
Wow, crazy how he phrased his answer in nearly exactly the same way a year later with no memory of it.
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And when I read that story I knew I had heard it before. I asked about a year back:
Based on how this thread has been going, have you ever considered standup comedy?
I've considered being a writer, and wrote an Airplane!-style comedy screenplay in the early oughts, which the Hinterlands blurb comes from. "It's a big city out there, and we're little people..."
I did try a local stand-up competition when I was 16. It ran weekly. The first night, the top 3 people finished in the money, and I came in 4th. The next night, attendance was down, they split the money between the top 2; I came in 3rd. The next night, just the top guy got paid; I came in 2nd. I skipped the next week and they never had it again.
I'd say you should give it another shot, but I think the game design thing is working better for you, and also no one should be taking life advice from me.
Well you got slightly more information this time. Plus now I know I was 16, not 17. We all learned something today.
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Ask again in a year and he'll be 15.
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I downloaded Dudes of Stuff and Things and, uh, it's really good. I'm running it in WINE, because I use Linux. I couldn't help but notice that there's a bunch of Turbo Pascal (or maybe Delphi? It's been a while) code in dosdudes.zip. Other than using Windows to render, are there any meaningful differences between the DOS version and the Windows one? More importantly, would you be willing to let someone try and port the game to something more modern? Not that I personally necessarily have much time to do so, but I'm sure you know that HoMM3 still has a pretty big fan-base on the Internet.
(Edit: Could be Delphi, I'm not sure.)
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Do you think you will ever regret making the "When you trash this, gain an Attach card" clause on Squire? I would think this sort of puts an upper limit on how expensive/powerful attack cards can be, because with Squire you can potentially gain them super easily. So lets say for some reason you wanted to make a $10 attack card that was basically a game-changer if obtained (similar to how Prince, Champion, and Teacher can have a great effect on the rest of the game). Squire would break the mechanic of having to naturally buy such a card.
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I downloaded Dudes of Stuff and Things and, uh, it's really good. I'm running it in WINE, because I use Linux. I couldn't help but notice that there's a bunch of Turbo Pascal (or maybe Delphi? It's been a while) code in dosdudes.zip. Other than using Windows to render, are there any meaningful differences between the DOS version and the Windows one? More importantly, would you be willing to let someone try and port the game to something more modern? Not that I personally necessarily have much time to do so, but I'm sure you know that HoMM3 still has a pretty big fan-base on the Internet.
(Edit: Could be Delphi, I'm not sure.)
Thanks, it's in Borland Pascal 7 (they added objects in 5, and that remains the main difference between it and Turbo Pascal). I don't think there are any differences for the Windows version other than running in Windows.
I don't need to rule out a port, that someone else does, right this minute. I guess it would depend.
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Do you think you will ever regret making the "When you trash this, gain an Attach card" clause on Squire? I would think this sort of puts an upper limit on how expensive/powerful attack cards can be, because with Squire you can potentially gain them super easily. So lets say for some reason you wanted to make a $10 attack card that was basically a game-changer if obtained (similar to how Prince, Champion, and Teacher can have a great effect on the rest of the game). Squire would break the mechanic of having to naturally buy such a card.
I don't regret that although you're correct that it's a thing. I would either be accepting that some games would have that combo (which does require a third piece - the way to trash Squire - unless the big attack is also a way to trash Squire and even then that probably delays you a lot), or would be tweaking the new card to get rid of it.
That doesn't sound so bad though. I couldn't make an $8 attack where all $8 was being paid for the attack; people would hate it. And if it's a big positive effect plus a minor attack, probably I can happily take off the attack part.
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Recently you seem to have relaxed your self-imposed rule against giving strategy advice. What was the inspiration?
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Recently you seem to have relaxed your self-imposed rule against giving strategy advice. What was the inspiration?
I was just trying to make sure people were having fun talking about Dominion.
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Do you think you will ever regret making the "When you trash this, gain an Attach card" clause on Squire? I would think this sort of puts an upper limit on how expensive/powerful attack cards can be, because with Squire you can potentially gain them super easily. So lets say for some reason you wanted to make a $10 attack card that was basically a game-changer if obtained (similar to how Prince, Champion, and Teacher can have a great effect on the rest of the game). Squire would break the mechanic of having to naturally buy such a card.
I don't regret that although you're correct that it's a thing. I would either be accepting that some games would have that combo (which does require a third piece - the way to trash Squire - unless the big attack is also a way to trash Squire and even then that probably delays you a lot), or would be tweaking the new card to get rid of it.
That doesn't sound so bad though. I couldn't make an $8 attack where all $8 was being paid for the attack; people would hate it. And if it's a big positive effect plus a minor attack, probably I can happily take off the attack part.
Would you ever consider getting around an issue like that by simply removing "attack" from the type? That would of course simply make the card stronger as it prevents reactions from working. And I'm sure plenty of people would complain about it as in "this card really should be an attack!"
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Would you ever consider getting around an issue like that by simply removing "attack" from the type? That would of course simply make the card stronger as it prevents reactions from working. And I'm sure plenty of people would complain about it as in "this card really should be an attack!"
I don't think I want an attack that doesn't say "attack."
There might other approaches. For example there's having an extra cost - like, "when you gain this, you may trash a Gold from your hand. if you don't, trash this." Then it's harder to get even if you get it via Squire. Those things uh have all the problems they have. Starting with, when you put in the dividing line and that text, not a lot of space is left.
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Would you ever consider getting around an issue like that by simply removing "attack" from the type? That would of course simply make the card stronger as it prevents reactions from working. And I'm sure plenty of people would complain about it as in "this card really should be an attack!"
I don't think I want an attack that doesn't say "attack."
<cough>IGG<cough>Raid<cough>
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Would you ever consider getting around an issue like that by simply removing "attack" from the type? That would of course simply make the card stronger as it prevents reactions from working. And I'm sure plenty of people would complain about it as in "this card really should be an attack!"
I don't think I want an attack that doesn't say "attack."
<cough>IGG<cough>Raid<cough>
If I were making the game today, possibly I would put "Attack" inside card text, and phrase Moat appropriately, and then I could let you Moat IGG and Raid and a bought Noble Brigand, and you could wait to reveal Moat for e.g. Minion until they picked the attack. I might not; I'd have to try it. I didn't think of it though, and it's not doable now.
Anyway IGG and Raid are not all that much like dropping the word "attack" from e.g. Militia. Masquerade is more like it. Somehow people complain more about Tribute.
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Would you ever consider getting around an issue like that by simply removing "attack" from the type? That would of course simply make the card stronger as it prevents reactions from working. And I'm sure plenty of people would complain about it as in "this card really should be an attack!"
I don't think I want an attack that doesn't say "attack."
<cough>IGG<cough>Raid<cough>
If I were making the game today, possibly I would put "Attack" inside card text, and phrase Moat appropriately, and then I could let you Moat IGG and Raid and a bought Noble Brigand, and you could wait to reveal Moat for e.g. Minion until they picked the attack. I might not; I'd have to try it. I didn't think of it though, and it's not doable now.
Anyway IGG and Raid are not all that much like dropping the word "attack" from e.g. Militia. Masquerade is more like it. Somehow people complain more about Tribute.
People complain about Tribute being an "attack"? That's... surprising.
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People complain about Tribute being an "attack"? That's... surprising.
There are at least a couple BGG threads about it, and I see a reddit thread where someone says they house ruled it to an attack.
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Masquerade is more like it. Somehow people complain more about Tribute.
Tribute rarely bothers me at all. Masq...yeah, it hurts a lot more often, and I think I'd have preferred it as an attack. You'd just have to say something like "Each player passes a card from his hand to the next affected player on his left".
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Would you ever consider getting around an issue like that by simply removing "attack" from the type? That would of course simply make the card stronger as it prevents reactions from working. And I'm sure plenty of people would complain about it as in "this card really should be an attack!"
I don't think I want an attack that doesn't say "attack."
<cough>IGG<cough>Raid<cough>
If I were making the game today, possibly I would put "Attack" inside card text, and phrase Moat appropriately, and then I could let you Moat IGG and Raid and a bought Noble Brigand, and you could wait to reveal Moat for e.g. Minion until they picked the attack. I might not; I'd have to try it. I didn't think of it though, and it's not doable now.
Anyway IGG and Raid are not all that much like dropping the word "attack" from e.g. Militia. Masquerade is more like it. Somehow people complain more about Tribute.
People complain about Tribute being an "attack"? That's... surprising.
The concept of Schrödinger's Deck is lost on many casual gamers.
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Also I think MtG fans are used to the idea that forcing your opponent to cycle their deck is something you do to hurt them.
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Also I think MtG fans are used to the idea that forcing your opponent to cycle their deck is something you do to hurt them.
As an MtG fan, I'm used to the idea that forcing your opponent to cycle their deck is something you do to help them.
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Also I think MtG fans are used to the idea that forcing your opponent to cycle their deck is something you do to hurt them.
As an MtG fan, I'm used to the idea that forcing your opponent to cycle their deck is something you do to help them.
Yeah, obv. you can sometimes actually run them out of cards and win, but in Magic people have always vastly overrated the negative effects of having cards "milled." And many environments have made it noticeably bad to mill your opponent.
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Why is milling good or bad in Magic?
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Why is milling good or bad in Magic?
Bad: You lose if you need to draw a card from your empty deck.
Good: More cards in graveyard to be used as a resource.
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Why is milling good or bad in Magic?
Bad: You lose if you need to draw a card from your empty deck.
Good: More cards in graveyard to be used as a resource.
Oh... apparently I totally don't remember Magic rules.
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The thing with Magic is that there's 2 general ways that you cycle/mill cards:
1. You are milling them yourself because your deck is built around having stuff in the graveyard.
2. Your opponent is milling them because his deck is built around wining via emptying your deck.
It's not like your opponent is going to play just a couple cards that would make you discard the top of your library. If he's playing cards like that, then his entire deck is designed to do it enough to win by making you run out of cards.
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Well, if a player has some sort of combo deck, getting milled can be bad if it discards all the copies of a key component of the combo (unless he has a way to get them back from his graveyard). So even if on average it has no effect, in any single game it can be an instant loss for that player.
Granted, milling only because you are hoping for that seems like a pretty terrible idea.
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Well, if a player has some sort of combo deck, getting milled can be bad if it discards all the copies of a key component of the combo (unless he has a way to get them back from his graveyard). So even if on average it has no effect, in any single game it can be an instant loss for that player.
Granted, milling only because you are hoping for that seems like a pretty terrible idea.
Milling is just as likely to make an opponent draw his key card that he otherwise wouldn't have drawn as it is to make him miss his key card.
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The difference being that MtG has tutors!
EDIT: another difference is that combo decks tend to stall the game until they get the key components in hand. If the deck is good enough at stalling as to eventually draw their whole deck if needed, then milling away a key component is also hurtful.
Note that I haven't actually played MtG that much, but I've played other CCGs where the same concepts applied.
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The difference being that MtG has tutors!
EDIT: another difference is that combo decks tend to stall the game until they get the key components in hand. If the deck is good enough at stalling as to eventually draw their whole deck if needed, then milling away a key component is also hurtful.
Note that I haven't actually played MtG that much, but I've played other CCGs where the same concepts applied.
In MtG, combo decks don't stall the game. They mulligan until they get the key components in hand and then they win faster than aggro decks do, and a lot of them do so by utilizing the graveyard in one way or another.
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Well, if a player has some sort of combo deck, getting milled can be bad if it discards all the copies of a key component of the combo (unless he has a way to get them back from his graveyard). So even if on average it has no effect, in any single game it can be an instant loss for that player.
Granted, milling only because you are hoping for that seems like a pretty terrible idea.
Milling is just as likely to make an opponent draw his key card that he otherwise wouldn't have drawn as it is to make him miss his key card.
Plus no one knows the deck better than the wizard who crafted it. The information which cards are not available anymore is much more useful to her than her opponent.
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What constitutes a big horizontal line on a card? I kind of thought it separates things that happen on-play vs. things that happen at some other time like during setup (Young Witch), as a reaction (Secret Chamber), during cleanup (Treasury), etc. But that doesn't explain why Nobles has it but Harem doesn't. Or why Lighthouse has it but other Durations don't.
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What constitutes a big horizontal line on a card? I kind of thought it separates things that happen on-play vs. things that happen at some other time like during setup (Young Witch), as a reaction (Secret Chamber), during cleanup (Treasury), etc. But that doesn't explain why Nobles has it but Harem doesn't. Or why Lighthouse has it but other Durations don't.
It signifies an effect that happens other than when the card is played. Duration cards don't have them because the Duration effect is set up when the card is played - it's not a "while in play" effect (except for Lighthouse and Bridge Troll). Same with Scheme. Effects that are not under a dividing line can be Throned.
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What constitutes a big horizontal line on a card? I kind of thought it separates things that happen on-play vs. things that happen at some other time like during setup (Young Witch), as a reaction (Secret Chamber), during cleanup (Treasury), etc. But that doesn't explain why Nobles has it but Harem doesn't. Or why Lighthouse has it but other Durations don't.
Yes. Harem should have it - it's a mistake that it doesn't.
Duration cards don't because they set up an effect for later, now. The text below the line is something the *card* does at some time other than when-played. You play Merchant Ship, it sets you up to get +$2 next turn, and the card is no longer involved; you could Procession it and still get the $. Whereas say Highway requires the card in play to give you the bonus.
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There are several cases of cards that do something fairly similar or have similar effects, but a difference in wording means they end up being used differently. The obvious example would be Bridge versus Highway, where a lack of "while this is in play" allows you to TR Bridge but not Highway. But there's also Conspirator versus Peddler - Conspirator counts action cards you have played while Peddler counts action cards in play. It usually doesn't matter but Conspirator is affected by one-shots, whereas Peddler is affected by durations.
Is this usually intentional? Did you make it that way for balance purposes, or did the idea of how to word cards just evolve over time?
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There are several cases of cards that do something fairly similar or have similar effects, but a difference in wording means they end up being used differently. The obvious example would be Bridge versus Highway, where a lack of "while this is in play" allows you to TR Bridge but not Highway. But there's also Conspirator versus Peddler - Conspirator counts action cards you have played while Peddler counts action cards in play. It usually doesn't matter but Conspirator is affected by one-shots, whereas Peddler is affected by durations.
Is this usually intentional? Did you make it that way for balance purposes, or did the idea of how to word cards just evolve over time?
For those two cases it's evolution.
Today I would do Conspirator like Peddler, no question. It's very similar but simpler.
For Bridge the presence or lack of Throne Room combos matters enough that it's not 100% that I would go the Highway route. Also for a while I thought the while-in-play wording was simpler, but now I'm not so sure. So the evolution is on-going. Still, Princess, Highway, and Bridge Troll all use the new wording.
In general I would like Throne Room combos to exist, if there are no other factors, and don't so much mind if they do or not, if there are other factors, which there always are.
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What did you think of Star Wars Episode 7, if you have seen it? What do you think of Star Wars in general?
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What did you think of Star Wars Episode 7, if you have seen it? What do you think of Star Wars in general?
Given the nature of my life, I don't see movies in the theater anymore. I will probably see it via Netflix some months after they get it. I'm not anticipating being awed based on the reviews, but I doubt it will be hard to sit through.
Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back are good, with Star Wars being better though most people say otherwise. It's hard to remember how bad Return of the Jedi is; in my memory it sounds good but my memory also knows that it isn't. Even if you remember "it's mostly muppets fighting robots" it still doesn't sound as bad as it actually is. Phantom Menace was awful; as Richard Garfield put it, Star Wars fans must be thinking, what have I done with my life? Attack of the Clones was bad and then I thought, man why did I see that, and never saw Revenge of the Sith. People said it was better but whatever guys; no regrets there. Life is too short for me to see movies just so I can unfunnily mock them.
At the root of Star Wars is this idea of taking good ideas other people had had and combining them together. Overall it's an homage to old serials and Japanese stuff. It copies a lot but I don't hold that against it; it's a fine mix of things.
To me it seems like Lucas and Spielberg led the charge for movies becoming more glossy in the 80s. Star Wars is from 1977 and feels more like a 70s movie. It has slow patches, less polish. It has some natural scenery.
When I last did the math, Star Wars was my 11th favorite movie of the 70s. I have it behind four Woody Allen movies and two Monty Python movies, oh yes, plus A Clockwork Orange, Snake in Eagle's Shadow, Taxi Driver, and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
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Here's an easy one: What is your opinion on Magic: The Gathering's so-called "Double-Faced Cards"?
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Here's an easy one: What is your opinion on Magic: The Gathering's so-called "Double-Faced Cards"?
The basic idea of having one card turn into another, with the second one all laid out exactly like a regular card, is fantastic. And for casual or serious constructed play, you can just use opaque sleeves (which bend at the corners more than clear ones), or use the thing they have to mark what the card is and then get the card when you need it. And hey I did Hermit/Madman and Urchin/Mercenary in Dark Ages, and the Travellers in Adventures.
For many years there all of my Magic games were after drafts. For drafts I don't like how the one card is announced; I've got this werewolf, now I'm taking it. For many years the way I drafted was a "greed draft," where you look at cards one a time and stop when you want but can't go backwards. They don't work at all there. To play with Innistrad I would have had to take out the DFC, and replace them with regular cards with a slip of paper explaining what you were really getting.
I never actually drafted with DFC so maybe it's not as bad as it sounds for people doing non-greed drafts.
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Are there other tabletop games where the creator/owner/president awesomely and reliably responds to random people within like 30 minutes?
And on another note, thanks for doing what you do! Dominion You have had a direct effect on the improvement of my quality of life, and my relationships with my friends and loved ones :)
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Are there other tabletop games where the creator/owner/president awesomely and reliably responds to random people within like 30 minutes?
And on another note, thanks for doing what you do! Dominion You have had a direct effect on the improvement of my quality of life, and my relationships with my friends and loved ones :)
I just heard of this game called kingdom builder that is supposed to have a pretty cool creator too. You should try talking to him sometime.
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Are there other tabletop games where the creator/owner/president awesomely and reliably responds to random people within like 30 minutes?
And on another note, thanks for doing what you do! Dominion You have had a direct effect on the improvement of my quality of life, and my relationships with my friends and loved ones :)
I'm there for you.
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What are some things that your opinion/enjoyment of changed significantly due to age/life experiences? Not so much childhood things, since you probably don't watch the same Saturday morning cartoons, but something that a different outlook caused you to appreciate in a different way.
For example, when I first read Great Gatsby I didn't have much of an opinion on it, but I had to read it again for a college class, and it became one of my favorites. I'm not sure what changed, really, maybe just because I was older, or maybe I took more time to pay attention to it.
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What do you despise more than anything else in the world? Is it nails on a chalk board? Dull pencils? Stepping in the dog's water dish?
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What do you despise more than anything else in the world? Is it nails on a chalk board? Dull pencils? Stepping in the dog's water dish?
Annoying questions?
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What do you despise more than anything else in the world? Is it nails on a chalk board? Dull pencils? Stepping in the dog's water dish?
Annoying questions?
Is it really that bad?
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What do you despise more than anything else in the world? Is it nails on a chalk board? Dull pencils? Stepping in the dog's water dish?
Annoying questions?
Is it really that bad?
No, I was making a self-deprecating joke that was probably in need of explaining.
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What do you despise more than anything else in the world? Is it nails on a chalk board? Dull pencils? Stepping in the dog's water dish?
Annoying questions?
Is it really that bad?
No, I was making a self-deprecating joke that was probably in need of explaining.
It sounded more like it was Seprix-deprecating. :P
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What are some things that your opinion/enjoyment of changed significantly due to age/life experiences? Not so much childhood things, since you probably don't watch the same Saturday morning cartoons, but something that a different outlook caused you to appreciate in a different way.
For example, when I first read Great Gatsby I didn't have much of an opinion on it, but I had to read it again for a college class, and it became one of my favorites. I'm not sure what changed, really, maybe just because I was older, or maybe I took more time to pay attention to it.
Yeah it's been months since I've seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
I'm not sure I have any real examples of that.
- I used to be more tolerant of slow movies.
- I use up music; put on a great song I've heard too many times, and my brain just edits it out.
- I guess there are differences due to having kids. It used to be, there's a kid screaming in a restaurant, man who are those awful people. Now it's, ah, not my problem. Check out how great things are going over at my table. Anyway that probably affects what I'd think of some book, but man I can't cite a book there.
- When something has lots of cultural references, you will get more of that stuff as you learn more of the referenced stuff. There's nothing special about me there though.
My perspective on reality has shifted over time, but not in a way that has really spoiled or enriched entertainment.
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What do you despise more than anything else in the world? Is it nails on a chalk board? Dull pencils? Stepping in the dog's water dish?
Nothing is worse than having an itch you can never scratch.
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Are we going to see reserve cards again (ok not in empires but maybe post-empires 8))? Or at least do you have some ideas left to do for them?
I feel like there is still plenty to do and of couse you would need mats for them but that isnt a big problem is it?
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I apologize if this has been asked before, but what is your storage solution?
I have everything but Cornucopia and the Promos, and I'm still good with my modded Hobby Lobby case, but I think Empires will force me to go another route.
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Are we going to see reserve cards again (ok not in empires but maybe post-empires 8))? Or at least do you have some ideas left to do for them?
I feel like there is still plenty to do and of couse you would need mats for them but that isnt a big problem is it?
Questions like this about the far future tend to be impossible to answer, and when they're about the near future I'm not answering them. Reserve cards are not ruled out for future use; as with anything, it would need to seem exciting enough to revisit them.
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I apologize if this has been asked before, but what is your storage solution?
I have everything but Cornucopia and the Promos, and I'm still good with my modded Hobby Lobby case, but I think Empires will force me to go another route.
I use the long white cardboard boxes that people store Magic cards in; one 400-count box per regular sleeved large expansion. The prototypes are sleeved Magic cards with slips of paper in front of them. And they still look like they always have, like the ones you can see in the outtakes article.
I don't do anything for actual Dominion cards; I don't play with them or lug them around. I have them in their original boxes.
There are three storage solutions that always sound the best to me:
- the long white cardboard boxes that I use
- binders
- each pile in a separate baggie sans randomizer
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Hiw du yuo deak wi/ all the drunks posting in yuor question thrad two days b4 their weddinf?
8)
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Are there other tabletop games where the creator/owner/president awesomely and reliably responds to random people within like 30 minutes?
And on another note, thanks for doing what you do! Dominion You have had a direct effect on the improvement of my quality of life, and my relationships with my friends and loved ones :)
Gene Billingsley seems to do so on his own designs. Admittedly, he's much more prominent as a game publisher (GMT Games, published Twilight Struggle, Command & Colors and many other things) rather than designer.
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Are there other tabletop games where the creator/owner/president awesomely and reliably responds to random people within like 30 minutes?
And on another note, thanks for doing what you do! Dominion You have had a direct effect on the improvement of my quality of life, and my relationships with my friends and loved ones :)
Gene Billingsley seems to do so on his own designs. Admittedly, he's much more prominent as a game publisher (GMT Games, published Twilight Struggle, Command & Colors and many other things) rather than designer.
Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier games.
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Why is there a line on Farmland? Shouldn't both of the effects be "below-the-line" effects?
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Why is there a line on Farmland? Shouldn't both of the effects be "below-the-line" effects?
The abilities happen at different times. The 2 VP is at the end of the game; the when-buy is when you buy it.
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What would you say is the likelihood of ever getting a card type with a black banner color, say with white text?
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What would you say is the likelihood of ever getting a card type with a black banner color, say with white text?
Is it time for Empires previews already? No, I know when those will be, I will go post it in the other thread.
It doesn't seem like much of a spoiler but I don't like encouraging these kinds of questions. I can talk about Adventures. For Adventures, we needed a new border color for Reserves. What about tan? I tried tan and was happy with it. I said "make 'em tan" and they're tan.
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Do you think small expansions are a reasonable design choice sometimes, like when you think an idea can be used for only a bunch of cards? Or would you try to avoid them in the future? I'm not exactly sure how much influence HiG, who apparently pushed for small expansions, had during the development of Guilds. Also, do you think any of the small ones would have become a big set if you hadn't had to deliver them small (and quick, fot Alchemy)?
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Do you think small expansions are a reasonable design choice sometimes, like when you think an idea can be used for only a bunch of cards? Or would you try to avoid them in the future? I'm not exactly sure how much influence HiG, who apparently pushed for small expansions, had during the development of Guilds. Also, do you think any of the small ones would have become a big set if you hadn't had to deliver them small (and quick, fot Alchemy)?
I picked 20 cards as the default expansion size, with 25 cards for the main set. Jay wanted Intrigue to have more cards due to getting particular price quotes for particular numbers of cards. So it was 25 and then that was the default size.
HiG wanted small expansions. They envisioned a cheap impulse-buy option, something like 5 cards. I didn't want to go that low due to wanting a good mix of effects regardless of which expansions you owned. The smaller the sets, the worse you do there. I agreed to half the usual size. So Alchemy is 13 (counting Potion).
Then it seemed like we would alternate. So Cornucopia is also small.
Later on there was the issue of, Dominion and Intrigue were 500 cards, Seaside and Prosperity were 300 cards but had extra bits. Could a set be 300 cards with no bits and just be cheaper, or what? I made Dark Ages 500 cards with no bits to solve the problem there, and the tentative plan was for Hinterlands to be a standalone and thus 500 cards. Jay went back and forth there but ended with Hinterlands at 300 cards, no bits, slightly cheaper.
Guilds existed just to go between Hinterlands and Dark Ages, but Base Cards came out and delayed it, and one small set in a year didn't seem as nice as one gigantic set in a year, so I switched the order. In the end HiG did not get to put out Guilds due to their ending of doing business with RGG. They had no influence on it other than that small expansions only existed because of them.
With Adventures I had more than enough stuff, and was eating up a bunch of space on the Travellers. I decided to go for 400 cards and Jay okay'd it.
Okay so that is the story of the sizes of the expansions to date.
I think bigger is better. There's the reason already stated, that you want a good mix of villages and +Buys and things no matter what group of expansions someone owns. But also, it turns out people didn't like the small expansions as much as the big ones (and not just because of Alchemy's problems). So there's just no push towards small expansions. I might do one if I felt like there was demand for expansions that I couldn't ignore but I only felt up for making a small one. But uh. If it's just, an idea only goes so far, well, an expansion can have more than one idea.
If I hadn't been asked for small sets, then Alchemy would have been a large set. It's hard to say what the rest of it would look like since it had been cannibalized; possibly somewhat like Cornucopia since that's what I ended up with that at all relates to the remaining unmoved Alchemy cards. A big thing there is, there might have been one or two cards that interacted with potions (e.g. +Potion on something), but I bet there would have been no additional potion-costing cards. When Alchemy was big and hadn't been cannibalized, it had even fewer potion-costing cards.
If small sets hadn't been called for then I wouldn't have made Guilds when I did. The ideas were in the file and so I probably would have turned to them first when making Adventures. I don't know what that set would have looked like; some mix of those things and whatever things those things suggested. There probably would have been a few more cards that produced coin tokens, but probably not much more overpay, maybe one card. Overpay was not trivial to do. A large version of Guilds thus would probably have had another mechanic to go with overpay and coin tokens.
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Do you think you'd ever consider releasing a sort of "Alchemy II", that would include cards that interact with potions in better ways? I know you'd have to include potions in the set, so that may be a mark against it, but I know I'd personally like the potion mechanic more if it were more thoroughly supported.
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Who is this mysterious Jay?
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Do you think you'd ever consider releasing a sort of "Alchemy II", that would include cards that interact with potions in better ways? I know you'd have to include potions in the set, so that may be a mark against it, but I know I'd personally like the potion mechanic more if it were more thoroughly supported.
No, it doesn't make sense as a project. The time spent on that could be time spent on some other project that wouldn't automatically have people who didn't want it.
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Who is this mysterious Jay?
Rio Grande Games is one guy, Jay Tummelson. As he puts it, "I also do the windows."
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Who is this mysterious Jay?
Rio Grande Games is one guy, Jay Tummelson. As he puts it, "I also do the windows."
A follow up question: Does he have an account on this forum?
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Who is this mysterious Jay?
Rio Grande Games is one guy, Jay Tummelson. As he puts it, "I also do the windows."
A follow up question: Does he have an account on this forum?
I doubt it. He has an account on BGG, clearly identified as him.
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Wow Donald, thanks for that elaborate answer :)
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Is it deliberate that a Knight isn't allowed to kill a Squire?
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Is it deliberate that a Knight isn't allowed to kill a Squire?
Not really.
Originally Squire was "+1 Card +1 Action, you may play an Attack." It specifically was a village for Attacks only. Then it got a Buy for Treasures only in case the game had no Attacks. Anyway it always played Knights.
Knights however started as "each other player trashes the top card of their deck." They could kill whatever, including Squires.
Later on, with the cards as printed, it was certainly visible that Squires were immune to Knights. It wasn't a premise of the card though.
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Originally Squire was "+1 Card +1 Action, you may play an Attack." It specifically was a village for Attacks only.
That would have been hilarious with Relic.
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Originally Squire was "+1 Card +1 Action, you may play an Attack." It specifically was a village for Attacks only.
That would have been hilarious with Relic.
NO.
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Originally Squire was "+1 Card +1 Action, you may play an Attack." It specifically was a village for Attacks only.
That would have been hilarious with Relic.
Am I missing something? Wouldn't that be a waste of the village effect? I don't see why it's hilarious.
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So, what do you think is the best village?
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Originally Squire was "+1 Card +1 Action, you may play an Attack." It specifically was a village for Attacks only.
That would have been hilarious with Relic.
Am I missing something? Wouldn't that be a waste of the village effect? I don't see why it's hilarious.
Just more ways to play Treasures during your Action phase. And Squire is cheaper than Storyteller (and doesn't use up your (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png)), so it might have been easier to pull off shenanigans with the -1 Card token in between Lost City gains or Council Room plays.
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So, what do you think is the best village?
There are just so many ways you could mean that. The one I enjoy the most is probably Fortress.
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What do you think is the best list of villages?
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What do you think is the best list of villages?
It was Kenya. 1947. Ernest Hemingway and I had been wandering around near Kilimanjaro for what seemed like months. We needed a donkey, or just any roughly donkey-like pack animal. We would have settled for a trained duiker. But each village would just send us to the next village; oh yes, they have a donkey there. That's where the donkeys are. But there was never a donkey.
Hemingway became convinced we'd already seen all of the villages, that we were just going in circles. So he made a list of all the villages, noting which other village they'd sent us to, drawing an arrow between them. It was a complex pattern that he came to believe held great significance. I felt like each village had just sent us randomly to another nearby one. I made my own list and drew in random arrows, to see if I could fool him with it. He wasn't fooled. "That gibberish will never get us a donkey," he said. Still I was proud of it.
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What do you think is the best list of villages?
It was Kenya. 1947. Ernest Hemingway and I had been wandering around near Kilimanjaro for what seemed like months. We needed a donkey, or just any roughly donkey-like pack animal. We would have settled for a trained duiker. But each village would just send us to the next village; oh yes, they have a donkey there. That's where the donkeys are. But there was never a donkey.
Hemingway became convinced we'd already seen all of the villages, that we were just going in circles. So he made a list of all the villages, noting which other village they'd sent us to, drawing an arrow between them. It was a complex pattern that he came to believe held great significance. I felt like each village had just sent us randomly to another nearby one. I made my own list and drew in random arrows, to see if I could fool him with it. He wasn't fooled. "That gibberish will never get us a donkey," he said. Still I was proud of it.
Correct.
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What do you think is the best list of villages?
It was Kenya. 1947. Ernest Hemingway and I had been wandering around near Kilimanjaro for what seemed like months. We needed a donkey, or just any roughly donkey-like pack animal. We would have settled for a trained duiker. But each village would just send us to the next village; oh yes, they have a donkey there. That's where the donkeys are. But there was never a donkey.
Hemingway became convinced we'd already seen all of the villages, that we were just going in circles. So he made a list of all the villages, noting which other village they'd sent us to, drawing an arrow between them. It was a complex pattern that he came to believe held great significance. I felt like each village had just sent us randomly to another nearby one. I made my own list and drew in random arrows, to see if I could fool him with it. He wasn't fooled. "That gibberish will never get us a donkey," he said. Still I was proud of it.
There's a short story Hemingway wrote about Kilimanjaro.
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What do you think is the best list of villages?
It was Kenya. 1947. Ernest Hemingway and I had been wandering around near Kilimanjaro for what seemed like months. We needed a donkey, or just any roughly donkey-like pack animal. We would have settled for a trained duiker. But each village would just send us to the next village; oh yes, they have a donkey there. That's where the donkeys are. But there was never a donkey.
Hemingway became convinced we'd already seen all of the villages, that we were just going in circles. So he made a list of all the villages, noting which other village they'd sent us to, drawing an arrow between them. It was a complex pattern that he came to believe held great significance. I felt like each village had just sent us randomly to another nearby one. I made my own list and drew in random arrows, to see if I could fool him with it. He wasn't fooled. "That gibberish will never get us a donkey," he said. Still I was proud of it.
There's a short story Hemingway wrote about Kilimanjaro.
Does it involve Kilimanjaro rising like Olympus above the Serengeti?
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What do you think is the best list of villages?
It was Kenya. 1947. Ernest Hemingway and I had been wandering around near Kilimanjaro for what seemed like months. We needed a donkey, or just any roughly donkey-like pack animal. We would have settled for a trained duiker. But each village would just send us to the next village; oh yes, they have a donkey there. That's where the donkeys are. But there was never a donkey.
Hemingway became convinced we'd already seen all of the villages, that we were just going in circles. So he made a list of all the villages, noting which other village they'd sent us to, drawing an arrow between them. It was a complex pattern that he came to believe held great significance. I felt like each village had just sent us randomly to another nearby one. I made my own list and drew in random arrows, to see if I could fool him with it. He wasn't fooled. "That gibberish will never get us a donkey," he said. Still I was proud of it.
There's a short story Hemingway wrote about Kilimanjaro.
Does it involve Kilimanjaro rising like Olympus above the Serengeti?
Probably.
I really liked The Old Man and The Sea, and well, Donald seems to know all about this Kilimanjaro business, so I figure it must be a good short story. Or at least, it's a hint about Dominion: Empires. Possible confirmed Ernest Hemingway card?
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Plus, as they traveled from village to village, they had to carry all of their food with them. Fortunately, they were always able to exchange it for even better food when they arrived in the next village, leading Hemingway to write A Movable Feast. They saved on porters by storing their valuables on sandbars on the Tana river, whence Islands in the Stream.
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Does it involve Kilimanjaro rising like Olympus above the Serengeti?
Ohhhhhhhhh.
Now I can stop thinking, "dude, a lepress is a female leper, not a female leopard" whenever I hear that song.
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Ohhhhhhhhh.
Now I can stop thinking, "dude, a lepress is a female leper, not a female leopard" whenever I hear that song.
So I wasn't the only one!
(Not that trying to create a simile that compares one mountain to another mountain is THAT much better . . . )
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Ohhhhhhhhh.
Now I can stop thinking, "dude, a lepress is a female leper, not a female leopard" whenever I hear that song.
So I wasn't the only one!
(Not that trying to create a simile that compares one mountain to another mountain is THAT much better . . . )
You've gone pretty deep inside the analysis of that song. Do you seek to cure it?
Or are you frightened of the thing you might become?
...
...
...
I'll go kill myself now.
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Ohhhhhhhhh.
Now I can stop thinking, "dude, a lepress is a female leper, not a female leopard" whenever I hear that song.
So I wasn't the only one!
(Not that trying to create a simile that compares one mountain to another mountain is THAT much better . . . )
You've gone pretty deep inside the analysis of that song. Do you seek to cure it?
Or are you frightened of the thing you might become?
...
...
...
I'll go kill myself now.
What song is this? I know I've heard it. These lines sound familiar, but I don't remember what song they're from.
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Ohhhhhhhhh.
Now I can stop thinking, "dude, a lepress is a female leper, not a female leopard" whenever I hear that song.
So I wasn't the only one!
(Not that trying to create a simile that compares one mountain to another mountain is THAT much better . . . )
You've gone pretty deep inside the analysis of that song. Do you seek to cure it?
Or are you frightened of the thing you might become?
...
...
...
I'll go kill myself now.
What song is this? I know I've heard it. These lines sound familiar, but I don't remember what song they're from.
I don't have any recollection of having ever heard these lyrics, but the song is Africa by Toto.
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I don't have any recollection of having ever heard these lyrics, but the song is Africa by Toto.
Indeed:
...I know that I must do what's right,
Sure as Kiliminjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti,
I seek to cure what's deep inside,
Frightened of this thing that I've become.
Ooohhhhh...
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How did the reserve concept develop? You mentioned in some secret histories that a mechanic like that already existed in (the) dark ages, but were there differences between the old and the new variant, or did you completely take over the old variant?
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How did the reserve concept develop? You mentioned in some secret histories that a mechanic like that already existed in (the) dark ages, but were there differences between the old and the new variant, or did you completely take over the old variant?
Royal Carriage in Dark Ages (called Procession in its day) was essentially identical to Royal Carriage as published. It didn't refer to a mat. Okay I dug up an image, and in text form it's:
Procession: Action, $5
+1 Action
Set this card aside.
----------
While this is set aside, when you play an Action card, you may put this into play. If you do, play that Action card again after it resolves.
I don't remember the particular spark for that card in Dark Ages. Probably it was "what if there was a Throne Room you could save until you needed it." We liked the card but it needed a mat and couldn't have one.
For Adventures, I was looking at what a Seaside sequel could do. Seaside had mats, though it didn't get much use out of them. One obvious nice thing to do with a mat was to save cards for later, like that Dark Ages card. And why wouldn't that work; it had already worked on that Dark Ages card. So I tried some out.
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Two questions:
1. Do you remember the exact release time for Intrigue? I know the year and month, but do you know the day? Do you know if it was in the morning or afternoon?
2. Income questions probably aren't appreciated, but I recently learned that by 2010 you had sold over 1 million copies of Dominion and friends. Congratulations! Would you say, compared to other game designers, you make more money than them (I understand if you don't want to answer any questions like these)?
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1. Do you remember the exact release time for Intrigue? I know the year and month, but do you know the day? Do you know if it was in the morning or afternoon?
I don't remember, but it's easy enough to look up the date on BGG. People post things like "I got it!" There isn't a release time-of-day.
2. Income questions probably aren't appreciated, but I recently learned that by 2010 you had sold over 1 million copies of Dominion and friends. Congratulations! Would you say, compared to other game designers, you make more money than them (I understand if you don't want to answer any questions like these)?
Well if you don't have a hit then you aren't making any money from board games. If you have a hit then you could certainly be doing better than me. You can just look at sales rank on Amazon or whatever similar thing you prefer.
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Will we ever have another card that gives + 3 Actions (like Crossroads)?
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Will we ever have another card that gives + 3 Actions (like Crossroads)?
Spoilers: He can't say yes or no to this.
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Will we ever have another card that gives + 3 Actions (like Crossroads)?
Coin of the Realm is the equivalent of a card that gives +3 Actions since it is called after you play an action.
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Will we ever have another card that gives + 3 Actions (like Crossroads)?
Coin of the Realm is the equivalent of a card that gives +3 Actions since it is called after you play an action.
Similarly, Fishing Village gives you a total of 3 Actions.
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Buying Port is very similar to buying a card that says "+1 card, +3 actions".
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Will we ever have another card that gives + 3 Actions (like Crossroads)?
Coin of the Realm is the equivalent of a card that gives +3 Actions since it is called after you play an action.
I thought it was called Coin of the Realm.
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Will we ever have another card that gives + 3 Actions (like Crossroads)?
As others have noted that isn't the type of question I answer.
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Have you ever had a dream about a new card that ended up making it into an actual set (or something based on an idea in a dream)?
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Have you ever had a dream about a new card that ended up making it into an actual set (or something based on an idea in a dream)?
I have thought of a card in a dream and tried it, but I don't remember if it was for Dominion or some other game, or what it was or if it survived.
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Have you ever had a dream about a new card that ended up making it into an actual set (or something based on an idea in a dream)?
I have thought of a card in a dream and tried it, but I don't remember if it was for Dominion or some other game, or what it was or if it survived.
But how can you be sure of where the dream really ends?
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Have you ever had a dream about a new card that ended up making it into an actual set (or something based on an idea in a dream)?
I have thought of a card in a dream and tried it, but I don't remember if it was for Dominion or some other game, or what it was or if it survived.
But how can you be sure of where the dream really ends?
He has only to check whether his Journey token has flipped, of course.
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But how can you be sure of where the dream really ends?
William Poundstone suggests keeping a book of limericks by your bed, and not reading it. If you ever think you're dreaming, go to your bedroom, open the book, and read a limerick. You can't compose a limerick instantly on the spot, but you can recognize one when you read it.
Obv. professional limerick-writers may wish to use a different test.
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But how can you be sure of where the dream really ends?
William Poundstone suggests keeping a book of limericks by your bed, and not reading it. If you ever think you're dreaming, go to your bedroom, open the book, and read a limerick. You can't compose a limerick instantly on the spot, but you can recognize one when you read it.
Obv. professional limerick-writers may wish to use a different test.
except how, like, it's a dream so you open up the book and it's scorpions
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But how can you be sure of where the dream really ends?
William Poundstone suggests keeping a book of limericks by your bed, and not reading it. If you ever think you're dreaming, go to your bedroom, open the book, and read a limerick. You can't compose a limerick instantly on the spot, but you can recognize one when you read it.
Obv. professional limerick-writers may wish to use a different test.
except how, like, it's a dream so you open up the book and it's scorpions
Mystery solved!
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But how can you be sure of where the dream really ends?
William Poundstone suggests keeping a book of limericks by your bed, and not reading it. If you ever think you're dreaming, go to your bedroom, open the book, and read a limerick. You can't compose a limerick instantly on the spot, but you can recognize one when you read it.
Obv. professional limerick-writers may wish to use a different test.
except how, like, it's a dream so you open up the book and it's scorpions
Easy: keep a box of scorpions by your bed. If you think you're dreaming, go to your bedroom, open the box, and if there are scorpions, get the fuck out of there.
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Question:
One obvious (to me) trashing element would be something like this:
Card $x
Something something
--------
When trashed this card is worth $y
It seems like a natural add-on for a card in Dark Ages. Like the below the line stuff in Catacombs and Hunting Grounds.
Did you test this and rule it out for some reason. Or did it just not occur to you?
Thanks.
Ed
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Question:
One obvious (to me) trashing element would be something like this:
Card $x
Something something
--------
When trashed this card is worth $y
It seems like a natural add-on for a card in Dark Ages. Like the below the line stuff in Catacombs and Hunting Grounds.
Did you test this and rule it out for some reason. Or did it just not occur to you?
Thanks.
Ed
that doesn't play well with knights. well it cost $5 when i trashed it, officer!
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Question:
One obvious (to me) trashing element would be something like this:
Card $x
Something something
--------
When trashed this card is worth $y
It seems like a natural add-on for a card in Dark Ages. Like the below the line stuff in Catacombs and Hunting Grounds.
Did you test this and rule it out for some reason. Or did it just not occur to you?
Thanks.
Ed
that doesn't play well with knights. well it cost $5 when i trashed it, officer!
Yeah, same problem with Rogue and Warrior.
Also rules unclarity with cost-reducers (if it says it costs $5, but Highway is in play, does it cost $5 or $4?)
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Question:
One obvious (to me) trashing element would be something like this:
Card $x
Something something
--------
When trashed this card is worth $y
It seems like a natural add-on for a card in Dark Ages. Like the below the line stuff in Catacombs and Hunting Grounds.
Did you test this and rule it out for some reason. Or did it just not occur to you?
There is a card ideas forum; this thread is not the place for them. I do not want to see your card ideas. Man.
The way to do that would be to vary the cost after bought; either like Peddler (e.g. cost is $8 but it says "In Buy phases this costs $4") or vice versa (e.g. cost is $2 and it says "in Action phases this costs $6"). There is also just being a "payload" card, not in the Dominion terminology sense but in the uh me the game designer sense, a payload card is one that comes with something and then maybe you don't need the card itself anymore, e.g. Border Village.
I not only thought of it, I did Peddler, and had that mechanic on a Magic card in those tournaments at ManaFest in 1996 (a 2B creature called Sacrificial Beast with "While this is in play it costs 6"). Magic got to it years later with Scornful Egotist (it costs 8 mana but you play it as a morph for 3 and flip it over for U).
Dark Ages itself has Rats; it costs "play a Rats" but is worth $4.
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Is Rats the most thematic card you've made?
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Is Rats the most thematic card you've made?
Knights!
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Between the time you first think of a new card idea and it makes it into its final form, how many games does it end up getting tested in (ballpark of typical case)?
Do you have a standard set of cards that you initially test new ideas with or does it vary?
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Why do Witch and Sea Hag say "gain a curse card", while other cursing attacks (like Mountebank) just say "gain a curse"?
Also, how did you decide the colors for reaction, duration, victory, curse and treasure cards?
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Did you cut out all the cards from your first versions all by yourself? Did you use regular paper; or "thick" paper; or did yo sleeve the cards? Actually, I guess my question boils down to this: What did your first cards look and feel like?
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Is Rats the most thematic card you've made?
I feel like I'm not the one to ask, but I don't think so. Like, it gives you a card when you trash it; what's Ratsy about that?
My first thought is the Peasant or Page line. There's a lot of flavor throughout. The Peasant is some kind of Woodcutter or something; the Soldier works better with others fighting on his side; the Fugitive is on the run; the Disciple learns from example; the Teacher teaches cards to be better. And then there's the whole thing together, the guy going through life.
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Between the time you first think of a new card idea and it makes it into its final form, how many games does it end up getting tested in (ballpark of typical case)?
Well it varies hugely with how well the card is working. A card that isn't working but seems promising will get more focus on it, specific games where it's played with. Things that work right away will just show up when they show up.
Also if you are counting everybody then it varies hugely with how many external playtesters I have and how much they end up playing.
Me personally, I will play typically two nights a week, 3-5 games depending on number of players and experience level and AP level and how sloggy the games are. The number of months spent on an expansion has varied a lot; if nothing else is pressing to be worked on afterwards then plays won't trail off though accomplishing things will. For Adventures the work was mainly June-October, but we kept playing for months afterwards and tweaks were made.
And then, the number of cards in the set affects how often each card is seen. Typically 5 new cards are in each game, 5 old cards. But Adventures had Events so the math works out differently for them.
And then of course a card thought of late in the going got played a lot less than an early card that worked out. Dungeon got played a lot more than Raze, because Dungeon was early and Raze was later.
I can't do this math, man. There is the information that you could use to make a guess.
Do you have a standard set of cards that you initially test new ideas with or does it vary?
I play the new cards with the other new cards, and with all the old expansions, with whatever individual other expansion each evening.
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Why do Witch and Sea Hag say "gain a curse card", while other cursing attacks (like Mountebank) just say "gain a curse"?
I did not think "card" was necessary and I like cutting unnecessary words. Ditto for "Silver card" etc.
Also, how did you decide the colors for reaction, duration, victory, curse and treasure cards?
The initial colors depended in part on the colors of paper I had lying around; at the time I printed in black and white on colored paper. I initially made Actions green because I had more green, but when I was going to keep working on the game I shifted Actions to white (most plentiful), Victory to green (lots of green paper; they're land). Attacks were pink (the color of rage), later dropped because there was no functional meaning to "Attack." Treasure was yellow because gold. I had purple paper too so Curse was purple. Reactions were blue because Moat was the original and they have water in them.
Durations originally had no special color. When I added that, I would have made it blue to tie in with Seaside but blue was taken. Orange was unused and vaguely suggests sand.
After that (Shelter, Ruins, Reserve) we are really just looking at, man what colors are left, pick one.
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Did you cut out all the cards from your first versions all by yourself? Did you use regular paper; or "thick" paper; or did yo sleeve the cards? Actually, I guess my question boils down to this: What did your first cards look and feel like?
Yes I control the scissors.
The very first version had thicker colored paper; thin construction paper. Now there is just laser printer paper.
I always sleeved the cards, that's how I make prototypes. A slip of paper in a sleeve with a Magic card behind it. That's what I did then and what I still do.
The first cards had black & white printing on colored paper but are otherwise similar to modern prototype cards. And then for a while my printer had oversaturated colors and now I have undersaturated colors.
You can see images in the outtakes article on the front page, which is also linked to in the Bible subforum. They are actual images used at the beginning and still used today.
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Is that you and Jay on the card art for Prince?
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Is that you and Jay on the card art for Prince?
No, I look like me and Jay looks like Jay.
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Is that you and Jay on the card art for Prince?
No, I look like me and Jay looks like Jay.
Erm, got any proof for this claim?
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Is that you and Jay on the card art for Prince?
No, I look like me and Jay looks like Jay.
Erm, got any proof for this claim?
Yeah, if there's anyone who defies tautologies, it's Donald X.
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Donald, may I review your Empires cards for you, since I'm kind of pretty much the leader (besides ol' Palpy) of the greatest Galactic Empire known to man?
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Donald, may I review your Empires cards for you, since I'm kind of pretty much the leader (besides ol' Palpy) of the greatest Galactic Empire known to man?
Join me, Donald. Together we can rule the Empire.
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Donald, may I review your Empires cards for you, since I'm kind of pretty much the leader (besides ol' Palpy) of the greatest Galactic Empire known to man?
Dominion: Empires is more of a Roman thing. Plus I already have everyone signed up for doing previews. You could try to find someone to let you take over their preview though. I'd try Augustus first, then maybe Caligula's horse.
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Why do you have the "(Action, not Action card)" part on Diadem, but not on Conspirator?
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Why do you have the "(Action, not Action card)" part on Diadem, but not on Conspirator?
It's removing confusion on Diadem. I don't see how it would do that on Conspirator. That isn't the reason exactly - I didn't think of clarifying Conspirator, and did think of clarifying Diadem. But if I'd thought of it for Conspirator, I don't think I would have changed it.
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Why do you have the "(Action, not Action card)" part on Diadem, but not on Conspirator?
I'm confused by this question. "Action, not Action card" doesn't seem to apply to Conspirator at all. It applies to Diadem because Diadem is counting the number of "action resources" that you have. Conspirator does no such thing, it counts the number of times action cards were played.
In Dominion, the term "action" has 2 mostly-unrelated meanings. 1) It is a type of card. 2) It is an intangible resource that you have, like (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png). You start with 1 each turn, and get more by playing certain cards. Those things could have been called something other than "actions", but they weren't. Diadem cares about those. Conspirator does not. Putting "Action, not Action card" on Conspirator isn't just unneeded; it would be flat-out wrong.
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I'm assuming he meant to have Conspirator say 'Action Card'. But it isn't necessary because the other interpretation doesn't make much sense, as you say.
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No, I meant Action, not Action card, because that's what Conspirator refers to. So like, when you play King's Court - Conspirator (1) - Conspirator (2) - Conspirator (3), the Conspirator (2) will activate because that's your third Action that turn, even though it's your second Action card.
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No, I meant Action, not Action card, because that's what Conspirator refers to. So like, when you play King's Court - Conspirator (1) - Conspirator (2) - Conspirator (3), the Conspirator (2) will activate because that's your third Action that turn, even though it's your second Action card.
It's not your second Action card, though. It's your third. First was King's Court, second was Conspirator (1), third was Conspirator (2). At least that's how I'd see it.. Conspirator doesn't say Action (or Action card) in play, it says 'played'.
You can't play the 'Actions' that are considered in Diadem because those are counters, not things that get played.
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No, I meant Action, not Action card, because that's what Conspirator refers to. So like, when you play King's Court - Conspirator (1) - Conspirator (2) - Conspirator (3), the Conspirator (2) will activate because that's your third Action that turn, even though it's your second Action card.
It's not your second Action card, though. It's your third. First was King's Court, second was Conspirator (1), third was Conspirator (2). At least that's how I'd see it.. Conspirator doesn't say Action (or Action card) in play, it says 'played'.
You can't play the 'Actions' that are considered in Diadem because those are counters, not things that get played.
Conspirator (1) and Conspirator (2) are the same card, so they are the same Action card. So what is Conspirator counting? I think it must be:
Number of the times during the turn you either
1) Played an Action card by spending an action from your action pool; or
2) Played an Action card as a result of being instructed to do so by some effect (like Throne Room, Procession, King's Court, Golem, Herald, and Cultist).
I remembed Donald saying before that if he had a do-over on Conspirator, he would word it like Peddler to count Action cards in play.
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No, I meant Action, not Action card, because that's what Conspirator refers to. So like, when you play King's Court - Conspirator (1) - Conspirator (2) - Conspirator (3), the Conspirator (2) will activate because that's your third Action that turn, even though it's your second Action card.
It's not your second Action card, though. It's your third. First was King's Court, second was Conspirator (1), third was Conspirator (2). At least that's how I'd see it.. Conspirator doesn't say Action (or Action card) in play, it says 'played'.
You can't play the 'Actions' that are considered in Diadem because those are counters, not things that get played.
I could be wrong but I'm like 95% sure Conspirator counts the Actions (like Diadem), not Action cards. This is different than things like Horn of Plenty, Peddler, Shanty Town, etc., which specifically count the cards themselves.
So for example, you KC - Conspirator (1), C (2), C (3). The second and third C's will be activated because they're your third and fourth used Actions that turn, although that string of cards only counts as 2 cards towards Peddler.
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No, I meant Action, not Action card, because that's what Conspirator refers to. So like, when you play King's Court - Conspirator (1) - Conspirator (2) - Conspirator (3), the Conspirator (2) will activate because that's your third Action that turn, even though it's your second Action card.
It's not your second Action card, though. It's your third. First was King's Court, second was Conspirator (1), third was Conspirator (2). At least that's how I'd see it.. Conspirator doesn't say Action (or Action card) in play, it says 'played'.
You can't play the 'Actions' that are considered in Diadem because those are counters, not things that get played.
Exactly. If you play TR+Conspirator, you are playing an action card a total of 3 times. And what conspirator cares about is the number of times you played an action card. It doesn't care about actions in the way Diadem does.
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No, I meant Action, not Action card, because that's what Conspirator refers to. So like, when you play King's Court - Conspirator (1) - Conspirator (2) - Conspirator (3), the Conspirator (2) will activate because that's your third Action that turn, even though it's your second Action card.
It's not your second Action card, though. It's your third. First was King's Court, second was Conspirator (1), third was Conspirator (2). At least that's how I'd see it.. Conspirator doesn't say Action (or Action card) in play, it says 'played'.
You can't play the 'Actions' that are considered in Diadem because those are counters, not things that get played.
I could be wrong but I'm like 95% sure Conspirator counts the Actions (like Diadem), not Action cards. This is different than things like Horn of Plenty, Peddler, Shanty Town, etc., which specifically count the cards themselves.
So for example, you KC - Conspirator (1), C (2), C (3). The second and third C's will be activated because they're your third and fourth used Actions that turn, although that string of cards only counts as 2 cards towards Peddler.
You're mixing up terminology. Imagine that Dominion had clearer terminology... To play an action card, you must spend a mana. You start every turn with 1 mana in your mana pool. When you play a Village, you first spend a mana, because that's the cost of playing an action card. You then draw a card and add 2 mana to your mana pool.
Diadem counts the amount of mana in your mana pool. Conspirator doesn't care at all about how much mana is in your mana pool. It cards about how many spells you've cast this turn.
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So for example, you KC - Conspirator (1), C (2), C (3). The second and third C's will be activated because they're your third and fourth used Actions that turn, although that string of cards only counts as 2 cards towards Peddler.
Sorry for the triple reply here, but this statement is 90% correct; all but the bold part. It's not counting how many actions you used, but rather how many times you played an action card. This is different, because when you play a card with TR, that doesn't use any actions other than the 1 you used to play throne room. But you're right that it's different for Peddler, which counts cards in play.
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No, I meant Action, not Action card, because that's what Conspirator refers to. So like, when you play King's Court - Conspirator (1) - Conspirator (2) - Conspirator (3), the Conspirator (2) will activate because that's your third Action that turn, even though it's your second Action card.
It's not your second Action card, though. It's your third. First was King's Court, second was Conspirator (1), third was Conspirator (2). At least that's how I'd see it.. Conspirator doesn't say Action (or Action card) in play, it says 'played'.
You can't play the 'Actions' that are considered in Diadem because those are counters, not things that get played.
Exactly. If you play TR+Conspirator, you are playing an action card a total of 3 times. And what conspirator cares about is the number of times you played an action card. It doesn't care about actions in the way Diadem does.
I think maybe we're saying the same thing but just thinking about it differently. I guess I can see 4 completely different usages of the word "action" in Dominion:
- Your Action phase
- An Action card
- The thing in your "action pool". That is, the things that you start with 1 of at the start of your Action phase, that you can gain more of with cards like Village. Diadem counts these.
- The thing Conspirator counts. That is, how many times you've played an Action card.
It helps me to think of (3) and (4) as the same thing, at least I think it does.
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(3) and (4) aren't the same thing. After you play a Village, (3) is 2 actions remaining while (4) is one action played. (4) only increases while (3) goes up and down as you play splitters and terminals. Cards like TR and KC provide ways to increment (4) without a corresponding decrement of (3).
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No, I meant Action, not Action card, because that's what Conspirator refers to. So like, when you play King's Court - Conspirator (1) - Conspirator (2) - Conspirator (3), the Conspirator (2) will activate because that's your third Action that turn, even though it's your second Action card.
It's not your second Action card, though. It's your third. First was King's Court, second was Conspirator (1), third was Conspirator (2). At least that's how I'd see it.. Conspirator doesn't say Action (or Action card) in play, it says 'played'.
You can't play the 'Actions' that are considered in Diadem because those are counters, not things that get played.
Conspirator (1) and Conspirator (2) are the same card, so they are the same Action card. So what is Conspirator counting? I think it must be:
Number of the times during the turn you either
1) Played an Action card by spending an action from your action pool; or
2) Played an Action card as a result of being instructed to do so by some effect (like Throne Room, Procession, King's Court, Golem, Herald, and Cultist).
I remembed Donald saying before that if he had a do-over on Conspirator, he would word it like Peddler to count Action cards in play.
I don't see why it matters whether they are the same Action Card or not. You played that Action Card twice. You're counting how many times you played them, not how many cards there are.
Edit: I suppose my earlier post there should have said 'It's not your second Action card played, though. It's your third.' to make it clear.
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(3) and (4) aren't the same thing. After you play a Village, (3) is 2 actions remaining while (4) is one action played. (4) only increases while (3) goes up and down as you play splitters and terminals. Cards like TR and KC provide ways to increment (4) without a corresponding decrement of (3).
Right. In MTG terms, 3 is mana, while 4 is the number of spells cast this turn. Throne Room allows you to cast a spell without paying its mana cost. When you TR-Conspirator, you have only spent 1 mana (or one (3) action), but you have played 3 spells (or three (4) actions).
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Now, why doesn't Conspirator work like Peddler does, that's because I didn't think of it. I don't so much care how the Throne Room case falls out, and would prefer the simplicity of "just count Action cards in play." Obv. it would be better with Durations so that's a thing that would need testing.
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There was some discussion about designing an "online-only" promo card for Dominion Online, and I seem to recall you were in favour of the idea (and may have even openly offered to Goko/MF to design one). Is that offer still on the table for ShuffleIT, should they want it?
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There was some discussion about designing an "online-only" promo card for Dominion Online, and I seem to recall you were in favour of the idea (and may have even openly offered to Goko/MF to design one). Is that offer still on the table for ShuffleIT, should they want it?
Sure. It would depend on me having a good idea and then having it work out, but it's on the table.
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There was some discussion about designing an "online-only" promo card for Dominion Online, and I seem to recall you were in favour of the idea (and may have even openly offered to Goko/MF to design one). Is that offer still on the table for ShuffleIT, should they want it?
Sure. It would depend on me having a good idea and then having it work out, but it's on the table.
I feel some of the best parts about playing online are that during big enginey turns, it (1) remembers decisions you made (e.g. Pawn), (2) keeps track of crazy stuff (Procession-Procession-Bandit Camp-...), and (3) enforces weird rules (or at least tries to), so that you don't have to keep track of such things as carefully as you would IRL. As such, would an online-only promo utilize decisions, crazy stuff, and weird rules (more so than typical cards, at least)?
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I feel some of the best parts about playing online are that during big enginey turns, it (1) remembers decisions you made (e.g. Pawn), (2) keeps track of crazy stuff (Procession-Procession-Bandit Camp-...), and (3) enforces weird rules (or at least tries to), so that you don't have to keep track of such things as carefully as you would IRL. As such, would an online-only promo utilize decisions, crazy stuff, and weird rules (more so than typical cards, at least)?
No, it would have to be something that could not be done in the physical version - not just something that would suck in the physical version due to memory issues etc.
My previous example was a card that modified itself each time you played it... and then I made that in the physical version.
But uh let's not try to figure this out here dude, there's a forum for homemade cards.
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Who is your favourite North Korean dictator?
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Who is your favourite North Korean dictator?
Dude, it's like you're asking me which of my children is my favorite.
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Which North Korean dictator's child is your favorite?
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Who is your favourite North Korean dictator?
Dude, it's like you're asking me which of my children is my favorite.
Today I learned that Donald X. is every North Korean dictator's dad.
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What was the hardest card to develop?
What is your favorite Empires card? Is it your new favorite now?
What inspired you to create Dominion: Empires?
How do you get card ideas? Do you dream of them? Do you dream of electrip sheep?
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What was the hardest card to develop?
Horn of Plenty stands out as one that got tried in a bunch of forms over a period of years.
What is your favorite Empires card? Is it your new favorite now?
It's sad that it wasn't absolutely clear to you that I wasn't possibly answering this.
What inspired you to create Dominion: Empires?
There will be a Secret History article as usual.
How do you get card ideas? Do you dream of them? Do you dream of electrip sheep?
I don't wait for ideas to come to me; I hunt them down.
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Is it too soon to ask the question 'if you had a time machine, what card of Adventureres would you change'? If not, than that's my question.
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Is it too soon to ask the question 'if you had a time machine, what card of Adventureres would you change'? If not, than that's my question.
I would reword Borrow and Save to put the +1 Buy after the "Once per turn." I would fix the art on Pathfinding.
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Is it too soon to ask the question 'if you had a time machine, what card of Adventureres would you change'? If not, than that's my question.
I would reword Borrow and Save to put the +1 Buy after the "Once per turn." I would fix the art on Pathfinding.
So, are you or are you not allowed to buy Borrow more than once, while getting no effect the second time? I know, it's one of those rules questions that doesn't ever matter... but then again, we know that you are allowed to reveal Moat a second time even though it doesn't matter.
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Is it too soon to ask the question 'if you had a time machine, what card of Adventureres would you change'? If not, than that's my question.
I would reword Borrow and Save to put the +1 Buy after the "Once per turn." I would fix the art on Pathfinding.
So, are you or are you not allowed to buy Borrow more than once, while getting no effect the second time? I know, it's one of those rules questions that doesn't ever matter... but then again, we know that you are allowed to reveal Moat a second time even though it doesn't matter.
It says right in the official FAQ that you can only buy it once per turn.
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What was the hardest card to develop?
Man, one time I had this crazy engine going, and I seriously contemplated developing my Possession (then costing 1P) into a Vineyard. That was super hard.
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What was the hardest card to develop?
Man, one time I had this crazy engine going, and I seriously contemplated developing my Possession (then costing 1P) into a Vineyard. That was super hard.
I wanted to make that joke but couldn't think of anything particularly hard. Well played.
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Did your wife and daughters (and I suppose the other playgroup members) get to choose which effects went on their personal Knights?
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Did your wife and daughters (and I suppose the other playgroup members) get to choose which effects went on their personal Knights?
Dame Josephine, Dame Molly, and Sir Destry picked their effects (from the list).
Sir Martin is younger than the rest of us fogies so he's the little Knight. Sir Vander has been suicidal so he's the Knight that rewards you for dying. Dame Natalie was/is small so she got gaining small cards, a more tenuous connection. Dame Sylvia just got something decent, and the others are random.
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Did your wife and daughters (and I suppose the other playgroup members) get to choose which effects went on their personal Knights?
Sir Vander has been suicidal so he's the Knight that rewards you for dying.
Awwww... :(
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Did your wife and daughters (and I suppose the other playgroup members) get to choose which effects went on their personal Knights?
Dame Josephine, Dame Molly, and Sir Destry picked their effects (from the list).
Sir Martin is younger than the rest of us fogies so he's the little Knight. Sir Vander has been suicidal so he's the Knight that rewards you for dying. Dame Natalie was/is small so she got gaining small cards, a more tenuous connection. Dame Sylvia just got something decent, and the others are random.
Are you sure you just dont wanna publically state that Dame Anna is trashy?
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Are you sure you just dont wanna publically state that Dame Anna is trashy?
Dude, that's Sir Martin's girlfriend you're talking about.
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Are you sure you just dont wanna publically state that Dame Anna is trashy?
Dude, that's Sir Martin's girlfriend you're talking about.
Ah, so Dame Anna has to be a trasher to get rid of the crap that Sir Martin keeps buying. Makes sense.
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Will you be attending GenCon 2016?
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Will you be attending GenCon 2016?
Probably not, I almost never go to cons.
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Are you surprised with the direction cards have gone lately? I mean, did you used to think there was a more limited amount of variable cards before you found new avenues?
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Are you surprised with the direction cards have gone lately? I mean, did you used to think there was a more limited amount of variable cards before you found new avenues?
As a follow-up, was there a point in time early on when you decided that you wouldn't ever make an action-treasure?
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Are you sure you just dont wanna publically state that Dame Anna is trashy?
Dude, that's Sir Martin's girlfriend you're talking about.
I knew Dame Anna in college. All I can say was that she dominated the room's attention whenever she appeared.
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Are you sure you just dont wanna publically state that Dame Anna is trashy?
Dude, that's Sir Martin's girlfriend you're talking about.
I knew Dame Anna in college. All I can say was that she dominated the room's attention whenever she appeared.
Well you always notice whenever someone comes in and takes out the trash.
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If you had an avatar on f.ds, what card would it be?
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Well you always notice whenever someone comes in and takes out the trash.
True (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/little-girl-cupcake-garbage-man_us_5719c563e4b0d0042da8ce94).
(http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scalefit_630_noupscale/57194adf2200002900254363.jpeg)
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Are you surprised with the direction cards have gone lately? I mean, did you used to think there was a more limited amount of variable cards before you found new avenues?
Uh, I dunno. Sometimes a concept is a surprise. Debt was in the file since before the game came out; it wasn't a surprise. Split piles showed up during playtesting for the set; I hadn't anticipated them.
I guess the main big surprises, in terms of like actually being a surprise, like I'm remotely thinking of it that way, are when there's a new simple card to do, that doesn't involve new tokens or something.
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As a follow-up, was there a point in time early on when you decided that you wouldn't ever make an action-treasure?
I ruled out Action - Treasure at one point because it would be too confusing. Crown got rid of those issues though. People have found lots of questions to ask about it, but they're all "what if you use it with this really confusing other card," or "so it's really both an Action and a Treasure?" With I guess a little "how does Throne Room work."
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If you had an avatar on f.ds, what card would it be?
Well it probably wouldn't be a card. If it was a card, I don't know, I'm used to the prototype images.
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At what point did you realize that Dominion was a really in depth game that was super strategic and could generate tons of discussion?
As soon as you came up with the idea? After it was released? After a certain expansion was released? After the Wiki and forum went up?
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At what point did you realize that Dominion was a really in depth game that was super strategic and could generate tons of discussion?
As soon as you came up with the idea? After it was released? After a certain expansion was released? After the Wiki and forum went up?
Are you saying - but that would mean...
May 11, 2016.
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At what point did you realize that Dominion was a really in depth game that was super strategic and could generate tons of discussion?
As soon as you came up with the idea? After it was released? After a certain expansion was released? After the Wiki and forum went up?
Are you saying - but that would mean...
May 11, 2016.
I think this was one of your wittiest jokes to date.
I am just mentioning it because I know you deeply care about my opinion.
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At what point did you realize that Dominion was a really in depth game that was super strategic and could generate tons of discussion?
As soon as you came up with the idea? After it was released? After a certain expansion was released? After the Wiki and forum went up?
Are you saying - but that would mean...
May 11, 2016.
I think this was one of your wittiest jokes to date.
I am just mentioning it because I know you deeply care about my opinion.
I have a friend that didn't get the joke...
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I have a friend that didn't get the joke...
Next time you see your friend, tell them that Donald is implying that, previously to Roadrunner asking him when he realized that Dominion was a really in depth game, he hadn't realized such a thing. Thus, the day when he realized was May 11th 2016.
And now that I have properly expounded Donald's antics, they have been rendered more amusing.
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I have a friend that didn't get the joke...
Next time you see your friend, tell them that Donald is implying that, previously to Roadrunner asking him when he realized that Dominion was a really in depth game, he hadn't realized such a thing. Thus, the day when he realized was May 11th 2016.
And now that I have properly expounded Donald's antics, they have been rendered more amusing.
My friend sometimes can't comprehend things he reads before drinking coffee in the morning.
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I think he was simply refering to the fact that the forums went up yesterday (after being down for half a day)
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I just wanted to say that based off everything I know about Empires, the expansion is amazing! I can't wait until May 25th.
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Since there are bound to be interested parties here, Donald X. did an AMA on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/4ivtt3/im_donald_x_designer_of_dominion_kingdom_builder/) yesterday. Probably a lot of the stuff we've already read elsewhere (including in this thread), but it may be fun to read through anyway, especially if you appreciate Donald's writing style.
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Will Prosperity be getting the newer style VP tokens in future editions?
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Since there are bound to be interested parties here, Donald X. did an AMA on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/4ivtt3/im_donald_x_designer_of_dominion_kingdom_builder/) yesterday. Probably a lot of the stuff we've already read elsewhere (including in this thread), but it may be fun to read through anyway, especially if you appreciate Donald's writing style.
That bit where Donald met David Sirlin was gold. Unlike Sirlin, who isn't Gold at all.
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Which do you like better, Heroes of Might and Magic II or III?
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Will Prosperity be getting the newer style VP tokens in future editions?
Uh I think so, depending on what it's getting now and what you mean. I think something was improved somewhere and that will someday apply to Prosperity if it hasn't already. I don't think it will be getting 2's.
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Which do you like better, Heroes of Might and Magic II or III?
You know I worked on a mod for Heroes III. WoG. I did all the best parts. I mean not counting making it possible. And the underlying game.
I have played them both recently. I have more nostalgia for II, but III was mostly a step up. It's so sad the expansion got hacked up by angry fans (as with Might & Magic games, they were going to have a lurking sci-fi element, and had Naga Tanks and such in the new town for the expansion; fans complained and they replaced it with the Conflux).
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Since there are bound to be interested parties here, Donald X. did an AMA on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/4ivtt3/im_donald_x_designer_of_dominion_kingdom_builder/) yesterday. Probably a lot of the stuff we've already read elsewhere (including in this thread), but it may be fun to read through anyway, especially if you appreciate Donald's writing style.
That bit where Donald met David Sirlin was gold. Unlike Sirlin, who isn't Gold at all.
I like Sirlin's article about scrubs, and it's an article I'll often show other people.
I dislike pretty much everything else about Sirlin.
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You know I worked on a mod for Heroes III. WoG.
That is awesome! HoMM3 was my main game right up until I discovered Dominion. Love that game. I honestly would prefer the normal HoMM3 over WoG, but WoG was certainly really cool.
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I am really looking forward to Empires!
You said that you care about anachronisms in the illustrations, so why did you name a card "Gladiator" then? Do you slowly run out of medieval-sounding card names? Or was that specifically intended for the card's duel-like gameplay concept?
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I am really looking forward to Empires!
You said that you care about anachronisms in the illustrations, so why did you name a card "Gladiator" then? Do you slowly run out of medieval-sounding card names? Or was that specifically intended for the card's duel-like gameplay concept?
This expansion has a Roman Empire theme despite the Roman Empire as we think of it not being medieval. It had come up for Adventures, I made a list of themes, and Roman Empire had a lot of good names. I mean that was it; a theme with a lot of good card names. And it seemed like an okay fit otherwise, for the mechanics. So, the set isn't just named Dominion: Rome or whatever, it tries to get in later periods that overlap with medieval times, and also have medieval things, but the Roman stuff I just let be Roman.
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This might sound crazy, but can you see a Victorian England themed set? Yes, it's not Middle Ages, but it's still sorta classy.
But then you'd have WWI and then other weird times as well. Oh well, at least that Hemingway card would be possible.
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This might sound crazy, but can you see a Victorian England themed set?
I do not see it.
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This might sound crazy, but can you see a Victorian England themed set? Yes, it's not Middle Ages, but it's still sorta classy.
But then you'd have WWI and then other weird times as well. Oh well, at least that Hemingway card would be possible.
Yes, it does sound crazy.
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How many non-Dominion games do you currently have "in the works" right now?
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How many non-Dominion games do you currently have "in the works" right now?
It depends on what you mean. Like, how likely are these games to get anywhere? If that's not relevant, man, dozens. If it's really relevant, I dunno, could be as low as zero.
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How many non-Dominion games do you currently have "in the works" right now?
It depends on what you mean. Like, how likely are these games to get anywhere? If that's not relevant, man, dozens. If it's really relevant, I dunno, could be as low as zero.
How many non-non-Dominion games/expansions do you currently have "in the works" right now?
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Are there any questions in this thread that you get tired of answering repeatedly, including this one perhaps?
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I understand if you can't answer this, but:
is any dominion promo going to come out within the next few months? I need to get my Pathfinding bgg order to the minimum of 5$ and I can't find much that I'd really like from the store.
"Tough luck" is an acceptable answer. :)
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I understand if you can't answer this, but:
is any dominion promo going to come out within the next few months? I need to get my Pathfinding bgg order to the minimum of 5$ and I can't find much that I'd really like from the store.
"Tough luck" is an acceptable answer. :)
If you don't have them already, get one of the Castles of Burgundy mini expansion. And if you don't have Castles of Burgundy, get that.
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I understand if you can't answer this, but:
is any dominion promo going to come out within the next few months? I need to get my Pathfinding bgg order to the minimum of 5$ and I can't find much that I'd really like from the store.
"Tough luck" is an acceptable answer. :)
I had the same problem and got the Troyes cards.
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How many non-non-Dominion games/expansions do you currently have "in the works" right now?
That would be telling.
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Are there any questions in this thread that you get tired of answering repeatedly, including this one perhaps?
It's easy enough to link people to whatever previous long essay on the topic. I don't have a long essay on this one yet.
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I understand if you can't answer this, but:
I appreciate your understanding.
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Is the answer to this question false?
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Is the answer to this question false?
No.
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Is the answer to this question false?
Do colorless green ideas sleep furiously?
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Are there any questions in this thread that you get tired of answering repeatedly, including this one perhaps?
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Are there any questions in this thread that you get tired of answering repeatedly, including this one perhaps?
There's a previous long essay on that topic here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg600287#msg600287
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Is the answer to this question false?
Do colorless green ideas sleep furiously?
http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=772
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Are there any questions in this thread that you get tired of answering repeatedly, including this one perhaps?
The important thing is that we're posting.
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Now that you've actually done multiple interviews, do you have an answer to the question "What question are you most often asked in interviews?"?
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What was your first job?
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So I'd really like to see the comedy you wrote, the one that you got the Hinterlands flavor text from. Is there any chance of you publishing that or posting it somewhere at some point in the future?
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Now that you've actually done multiple interviews, do you have an answer to the question "What question are you most often asked in interviews?"?
Feel free to go through all the ones you can find and count up instances.
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What was your first job?
I had a paper route if that counts. Otherwise computer programmer.
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So I'd really like to see the comedy you wrote, the one that you got the Hinterlands flavor text from. Is there any chance of you publishing that or posting it somewhere at some point in the future?
I consider posting an excerpt sometimes, but you have not found the day when I go through with it.
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With Isotropic not being maintained anymore, was all play testing for Empires done in person? Did a portion of it get tested on Isotropic and then the rest did not? How quickly would you make iterations to cards (do you like play one game and then you're like "okay for the next game Forum costs $5")?
When you play tested Catapult how many people threw their cards across the table?
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As you worked as a programmer before, did you ever consider doing video games?
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With Isotropic not being maintained anymore, was all play testing for Empires done in person? Did a portion of it get tested on Isotropic and then the rest did not? How quickly would you make iterations to cards (do you like play one game and then you're like "okay for the next game Forum costs $5")?
I have always done plenty of testing irl, so it wasn't such a change for me. Doug started out doing Empires but stopped at some point. I recruited Bryan L. Doughty to have another external playtester irl.
It has always been the case that sometimes I change a card between games - I did it on the first night of trying Dominion, I did it in games before Dominion.
When you play tested Catapult how many people threw their cards across the table?
No-one. You could be the first.
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As you worked as a programmer before, did you ever consider doing video games?
For a while I thought I would end up making video games. I did not get that job.
I did make two fleshed-out games as a hobby: The Little Guy Game (like a very puzzly Loderunner) and Dudes of Stuff & Things (my take on Heroes of Might and Magic), the latter of which still works and can be downloaded from this site. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg356980#msg356980
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Why have you made more posts at 5 AM, 4 AM and 3 AM than at 7 AM?
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Why have you made more posts at 5 AM, 4 AM and 3 AM than at 7 AM?
Since mostly I don't need to be awake at a particular time, except dinner time and evening gaming, I tend to stay up slightly later each night, until I am up all night. Then I want to be awake during days again, so I try to pull an all-dayer to reset when I'm getting up to the morning. Then, the cycle repeats.
So I spend a lot more time awake in the middle of the night than I do in the morning.
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Will we be seeing a Secret History of Empires soon? :)
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Will we be seeing a Secret History of Empires soon? :)
I'm there for you.
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What is your favorite expansion to date?
Related question: What (other than promos) do you consider to be your greatest failure in dominion?
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What is your favorite expansion to date?
It's like you're asking me to pick my favorite North Korean dictator!
Related question: What (other than promos) do you consider to be your greatest failure in dominion?
So you mean cards, since you cite promos? Or maybe, other than the horrible mistake of having promos? The promos are not topping any lists of biggest mistakes, I will just make that clear. Yes they fill up the list of biggest promo mistakes, someone needed me to say that.
In the rules, I think the worst thing is just that reactions should be played when reacting (you can argue that this isn't in the rules, but it should also be in the rules).
In the cards, in general, I would have made both trashing and Witches a little weaker. The intention was not to almost always buy those things. Possibly the fix for Witches would be changing the way the player count determines the number of Curses, in which case that would also count as a rules thing.
In the cards, specifically, Rebuild is the worst mistake power-level-wise, Trader and Possession rules-wise. No surprises there.
Business-wise, obv. I should have rushed out a clone soon after the main game, gotten a head-start in the Dominion clone business.
For flavor paragraphs I will go with Cornucopia. Once it lost the jesters fighting to the death, it really needed another good joke.
In terms of catching other peoples' mistakes, there was not realizing that the guy saying his Intrigue cards were thinner was reporting something real that just wasn't that.
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Engineer: For a while there was a different Workshop: Gain a card costing up to $4, get +1 VP per empty pile. It seemed reasonable and then I had one too many games that were dominated by it. I tried a lot of replacements, man, like ten other cards, mostly very briefly. Engineer stood out. However it had the issue of being able to trash it to gain something plus another Engineer, to run out the pile. Dame Josephine suggested having it cost Debt, which fixed that problem while taking no space on the card.
Can you elaborate how the Workshop with "+1VP per empty Supply pile" ended up dominating games? It sounds totally innocuous to me, so a story or two about those games would be really enlightening!
I'm also interested in why the version that could gain itself was an issue that needed solving, since there are other cards that can run themselves out pretty easily (e.g. Magpie, Stonemason).
No guarantees that Gathering cards will ever appear outside of Empires, but should they remain strictly tied to VP? Gathering with coin tokens seems like an obvious thing that could work. Same question for Landmarks.
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Can you elaborate how the Workshop with "+1VP per empty Supply pile" ended up dominating games? It sounds totally innocuous to me, so a story or two about those games would be really enlightening!
Some players buy some, maybe eager to get copies of some cantrip everyone likes, like Caravan. The Caravans run out. Now the workshop is making +1 VP. That's attractive so people start getting more of the workshops. The people who already have them want a 2nd pile to run out and help empty the workshops. Now they make +2 VP per hit and there are ten of them in decks so players scramble for points while the workshops empty the Estates.
I had a couple early games that were stupid because of this card. Then for a while the card seemed fine. But we started to see the bad cases more and it was clear that one reason we hadn't been seeing them was because we hadn't realized how good the card was.
I'm also interested in why the version that could gain itself was an issue that needed solving, since there are other cards that can run themselves out pretty easily (e.g. Magpie, Stonemason).
It's not "it's awful that this pile runs out," it's "it's awful that you can choose to run out this pile incidentally." What you want is Caravans. But instead of gaining a Caravan, you trash the workshop and gain a Caravan and another workshop. You're running out the workshops as this random extra thing you're allowed to do on top of what you actually wanted, which was gaining Caravans.
Some players will just automatically do this; they can do it and that's enough for them. They exercise their power. And it sucks. It's anti-fun, so the card doesn't do that.
No guarantees that Gathering cards will ever appear outside of Empires, but should they remain strictly tied to VP? Gathering with coin tokens seems like an obvious thing that could work.
For me Gathering cards want to be things that Defiled Shrine is specifically dodging putting tokens on. So, cards that put VP tokens on their pile. "Gathering with coin tokens" runs into the problem of interacting with Trade Route, but that aside, would get a different type if it happened.
Same question for Landmarks.
Landmarks are intentionally tied to VP.
You could just make cards that modify the rules. I considered it way back when; it's a thing I've done in many games. I didn't do it because Dominion has kingdom cards filling that rule; they change the rules plenty. Dominion doesn't need other rules-changing cards. I considered it again later and still didn't want them.
But I do have Events and now Landmarks. Events can change the rules, but only via the Event-buying mechanism, which is like buying a card without the card; it felt like a reasonable extension. Landmarks can change the rules, but only in these VP-making ways. While they are each a step towards just having randomizer cards that change the rules, they still both try hard to stay within limits, to only affect the game in a way best done via these mechanisms. In general the best way to change the rules in Dominion is still to have kingdom cards that do different things.
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When you play tested Catapult how many people threw their cards across the table?
No-one. You could be the first.
Sign me up for projectile Dominion.
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What is your favorite expansion to date?
It's like you're asking me to pick my favorite North Korean dictator!
So none of them?
Also, real question: In what ways did you consider 'breaking dominion rules' for specific cards?
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Is Jessi J a new name for Jessica Cox, or are they a new artist for Empires?
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My mind tried to come up with an explanation for why Royal Blacksmith is out of order. I thought maybe it had a different name until very late and then just replaced the name but not the layout. Is there anything to this, or is it just a weird thing?
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My mind tried to come up with an explanation for why Royal Blacksmith is out of order. I thought maybe it had a different name until very late and then just replaced the name but not the layout. Is there anything to this, or is it just a weird thing?
My question is, if all the cards are listed in alphabetical order, then why is Royal Blacksmith found where it is?
Probably so that no card notes would span two pages.
But then why is it in the wrong place on the inlay?
We didn't think that art looked "Old."
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Have there been any other instances of the card name changing to reflect the artwork?
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Also, real question: In what ways did you consider 'breaking dominion rules' for specific cards?
I'm not sure I understand the question.
I intentionally break any rule that I can get a good card out of breaking. The main set breaks "you can only play one Action card a turn" and so on.
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Is Jessi J a new name for Jessica Cox, or are they a new artist for Empires?
Jessi J is a different person.
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Also, real question: In what ways did you consider 'breaking dominion rules' for specific cards?
I'm not sure I understand the question.
I intentionally break any rule that I can get a good card out of breaking. The main set breaks "you can only play one Action card a turn" and so on.
Okay, and +buy breaks the 1 buy a turn, and so on. What else was there that you considered but ultimately rejected?
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Have there been any other instances of the card name changing to reflect the artwork?
Not quite like that, but:
The art for Goons was submitted for Pawn; one of the things that resulted in me typing up artist notes for each set after that (also the Steward image was a guy with a serving dish). I came up with a name for the art and then abilities for the name (then tried other things until I had a card that worked, which did not end up as Goons-like but what can you do).
The art for Storeroom was submitted for Vault. I think there the artist offered multiple directions. The art sat around for a while, waiting for a card.
The art for Bazaar was submitted for Market; there there were just accidentally two people doing the art. I had a card called Bazaar in Seaside and said, we can use that art there.
City was called Boomtown until art was being made. I said "make sure it's not Wild-West-y" and Jay was all, uh maybe we should change that name. Then he used the same art for City and for a Carcassonne product.
Names for Alchemy were locked in before the cards were done. Alchemist and Golem were new cards trying to fit the names of outtakes; then Scrying Pool got an attack because it was the most attack-like sounding name other than Golem which I didn't want to change when that time came.
Governor has cropped art from an edition of Puerto Rico, and was designed to relate to Puerto Rico.
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Also, real question: In what ways did you consider 'breaking dominion rules' for specific cards?
I'm not sure I understand the question.
I intentionally break any rule that I can get a good card out of breaking. The main set breaks "you can only play one Action card a turn" and so on.
Okay, and +buy breaks the 1 buy a turn, and so on. What else was there that you considered but ultimately rejected?
That is just too broad. Any given basic rule probably had a card trying to break it at some point. To make an exhaustive list of things that sound like rule-breaking that ended up as outtakes, I would have to go through the Secret Histories, which you could do instead.
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Have there been any other instances of the card name changing to reflect the artwork?
Not quite like that, but:
Actually this exact thing did happen with two cards in Temporum, also done by Alayna. It was supposed to be Late Cretaceous but she showed Jurassic dinosaurs; it was Anubis Figurine but she drew a larger object, so Anubis Statuette.
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The Empires rule book mentions that first editions of Intrigue include the base cards. We also know that Possession has errata. Also, the template for cards has changed with Empires with many of them having nicer bigger fonts, and I'm pretty sure I read last year around the time Adventures came out that the Basic Game of Dominion was planned to switch over to the artwork versions for treasures and victory cards.
So, with all of that, is it safe to assume that 2nd editions are coming out for all expansions? If so, will the new cards have the new Empires layout.
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The Empires rule book mentions that first editions of Intrigue include the base cards. We also know that Possession has errata. Also, the template for cards has changed with Empires with many of them having nicer bigger fonts, and I'm pretty sure I read last year around the time Adventures came out that the Basic Game of Dominion was planned to switch over to the artwork versions for treasures and victory cards.
So, with all of that, is it safe to assume that 2nd editions are coming out for all expansions? If so, will the new cards have the new Empires layout.
The text in the Empires rulebook does imply that Intrigue may at some point not have base cards in it. It doesn't go further and no announcement has been made that would clarify things.
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Landmarks are intentionally tied to VP.
But couldn't you conceivably do more "When scoring" Landmarks without the need for VP tokens?
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Landmarks are intentionally tied to VP.
But couldn't you conceivably do more "When scoring" Landmarks without the need for VP tokens?
Yes. However if you look through the ones in Empires, and then the ones in the outtakes section of the Secret History, and then try to think of some, I think you will find that the outlook is not great there.
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So, people always ask what was your biggest Dominion failure. But I don't remember if anyone asked the opposite question: In your entire time making Dominion, what do you think has been your biggest accomplishment?
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In terms of catching other peoples' mistakes, there was not realizing that the guy saying his Intrigue cards were thinner was reporting something real that just wasn't that.
Uh? What is this about?
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Is Jessi J a new name for Jessica Cox, or are they a new artist for Empires?
Jessi J is a different person.
My mistake, further research indicates that they are the same person.
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So, people always ask what was your biggest Dominion failure. But I don't remember if anyone asked the opposite question: In your entire time making Dominion, what do you think has been your biggest accomplishment?
A big trick that Dominion does is, it lets you have a more complex game, a greater number of card interactions without getting to be too much, via the magic of hiding your cards in a deck. It's like building a tableau, but without the impossibility of making sure everything happens that's supposed to.
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In terms of catching other peoples' mistakes, there was not realizing that the guy saying his Intrigue cards were thinner was reporting something real that just wasn't that.
Uh? What is this about?
Someone posted on BGG, "hey I think my copy of Intrigue is fake." One of the symptoms was the cards being "thinner."
Jay halted printing immediately. He got the card thickness measured. They were not thinner. Card printing resumed.
If we had realized that thinness was a symptom rather than the disease - that it indicated a real problem, just not thinness - we might have avoided having bendy Adventures cards.
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So, people always ask what was your biggest Dominion failure. But I don't remember if anyone asked the opposite question: In your entire time making Dominion, what do you think has been your biggest accomplishment?
A big trick that Dominion does is, it lets you have a more complex game, a greater number of card interactions without getting to be too much, via the magic of hiding your cards in a deck. It's like building a tableau, but without the impossibility of making sure everything happens that's supposed to.
Ah, so you mean, as opposed to, say, Cosmic Encounter, where all the rule-bending effects and their interactions are always present? Yes um I guess that's great but many games had it before, not only card games like M:tG but also games where effects are bound to, say, creatures on a map and interactions only happen on encounters between creatures.
Or did you mean something else?
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So, people always ask what was your biggest Dominion failure. But I don't remember if anyone asked the opposite question: In your entire time making Dominion, what do you think has been your biggest accomplishment?
A big trick that Dominion does is, it lets you have a more complex game, a greater number of card interactions without getting to be too much, via the magic of hiding your cards in a deck. It's like building a tableau, but without the impossibility of making sure everything happens that's supposed to.
Ah, so you mean, as opposed to, say, Cosmic Encounter, where all the rule-bending effects and their interactions are always present? Yes um I guess that's great but many games had it before, not only card games like M:tG but also games where effects are bound to, say, creatures on a map and interactions only happen on encounters between creatures.
Or did you mean something else?
It's a "please boast" question so it's not a point I want to belabor. Does Dominion accomplish anything really? Man. Basically it's just War with a special deck.
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It's a "please boast" question so it's not a point I want to belabor.
I could have designed Dominion blindfolded and with one arm tied behind my back.
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Probably it has been done by others (?), but I really like the "only use some of the things" aspect of Dominion and the other Donald X. games I've played (Kingdom Builder/Temporum). It really deadens the "I've done this before" feeling that creeps in after playing a game a few times. I think it is one of the biggest accomplishments of Dominion regardless of whether it is or isn't a repeat or variation of something that had been done before.
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It's a "please boast" question so it's not a point I want to belabor.
I could have designed Dominion blindfolded and with one arm tied behind my back.
Well I could have designed it blindfolded, with one arm tired behind my back, and hungover!
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It's a "please boast" question so it's not a point I want to belabor.
I could have designed Dominion blindfolded and with one arm tied behind my back.
I could have designed it if you were blindfolded with one arm tied behind your back, too.
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How much effort do you really put into the recommended sets? With all the millions of combinations how do you know what to aim for? Do you think you'll continue to do recommended sets since they take up more room in the rulebook with each expansion?
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How much effort do you really put into the recommended sets? With all the millions of combinations how do you know what to aim for? Do you think you'll continue to do recommended sets since they take up more room in the rulebook with each expansion?
They take a while but not due to being cleverly worked out. I try to use the new cards about equally often, and to do the obvious themes. I look at the visual spoilers for the other sets, also the wiki should have those somewhere (you know, a page with all Seaside images, no hovering or mixing them into recommended sets, they're just there). There will be a list of 6 cards I've picked so far for one and I will go on to another one and then come back to it.
The game is made to try to work with randomly picked cards. I think it does a good job there and so do not worry too much about the recommended sets. First Game was important; the others less so. The one key thing is to have some $5's (except at least once I decided, let's make one with no $5's).
I try to play them once each, and offer them up for other people to play. Sometimes they get tweaked as a result.
People like the recommended sets so I expect to keep doing them. If rulebook space were ever an issue I would cut down on how many there were but have at least one per expansion.
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also the wiki should have those somewhere (you know, a page with all Seaside images, no hovering or mixing them into recommended sets, they're just there).
Your wish is my command.
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Is Jessi J a new name for Jessica Cox, or are they a new artist for Empires?
Jessi J is a different person.
My mistake, further research indicates that they are the same person.
Where on the list of mistakes would you rank this one?
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Is Jessi J a new name for Jessica Cox, or are they a new artist for Empires?
Jessi J is a different person.
My mistake, further research indicates that they are the same person.
Where on the list of mistakes would you rank this one?
It's worse than when I got addicted to self-referential posts, but not as bad as that time I felt obligated to answer someone's joke question.
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What's your favorite Adventures card(s)? What about Empires?
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Are you sure that's not like asking him what his favorite North Korean dictator is?
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Are you sure that's not like asking him what his favorite North Korean dictator is?
Well, he at least has a favorite overall card....
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Are you sure that's not like asking him what his favorite North Korean dictator is?
Well, he at least has a favorite overall card....
Yes. Rats.
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What's your favorite question that can be equated to 'Who is your favorite North Korean dictator?'
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What's your favorite question that can be equated to 'Who is your favorite North Korean dictator?'
Kim Un, do you really expect him to answer that?
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If you had to do a licensed property retheme of Dominion (I know you've said in the past that this doesn't interest you, but let's say you HAD to), which one would you most like to see?
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What's your favorite Adventures card(s)? What about Empires?
Base: Throne Room
Intrigue: Pawn
Seaside: Smugglers
Alchemy: Apprentice; for cards with P in the cost, Golem
Prosperity: Peddler
Cornucopia: Menagerie, though Tournament is close, Tournament-haters
Hinterlands: Develop
Dark Ages: Rats
Guilds: Herald
Promos: Black Market
Base Cards: Copper
Adventures: It seems unfair to pick Page/Peasant, since they're each 5 cards, but man I pick those. I'll give Peasant the edge because I don't have to think "maybe people hate this because Warrior could kill their Warrior." Aside from those, Transmogrify. For Events, Inheritance.
Empires: It's a harder call here due to the lack of any kind of test of time. For regular cards, just trying to think, what will I be happy to see on a board today, I am picking Enchantress and Catapult, though that's not exactly fair for Enchantress because it's one of the last cards added and so has some new-card love affair going on there. Villa, Temple, and Settlers are all stand-outs too. For Events, Banquet. For Landmarks, uh man. Wolf Den, Arena, Battlefield, Fountain.
For the expansion question, if I group them into tiers and just consider the big expansions (it's harder to fairly compare the small ones), the low tier is Dominion and Intrigue, next is Seaside, next is Prosperity and Hinterlands, top is Dark Ages, Adventures, Empires. That's unfair too because the last three are all extra large in some sense. The thing is though, that if you are in a Business, and interact with people in what might be considered a Promotional way, then the only acceptable answer is, that the most recent thing is the best thing. Now as it happens the later stuff tends to be better for some kinds of things, because you get better as you go along. And that has certainly happened with Dominion (insufficiently countered by worsening due to complexity or using up good ideas). But I don't want my answer to be suspect, is he just pushing the product or what. And I don't want to be that awful guy, from a publisher's perspective, that guy letting you down on promotion; man the Ascora Games guy was Not Pleased when someone in a BGG thread asked me to pick which was best from a subset of my games, and the answer wasn't Nefarious (I put Nefarious pretty high up, but I prefer Dominion, and don't feel like that's unreasonable).
So anyway I mean. When you (not you mail-mi) ask a question that to me amounts to "which publisher do you want to be happiest" or "do you prefer being honest to your fans vs. having publishers want to publish your games," well you know, I prefer being honest, but I think I can just not answer some of those questions, I think that's the move there. Which expansions do the fans like the best, that's a way better question.
It is also tricky between the three because Empires is newer and so fresher which raises it, while Dark Ages is much older but gets some nostalgia boosting it there, and Adventures has the negative association with people being pissed about the bendier cards.
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If you had to do a licensed property retheme of Dominion (I know you've said in the past that this doesn't interest you, but let's say you HAD to), which one would you most like to see?
There are licensed property Dominion rethemes, in Japanese. I'm not too familiar with those properties. Hmmm, if you were looking for stuff to add to the wiki... An example: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/89383/touhou-shisouroku-touhou-koumakyou-hen
We've been approached a couple times for English ones; it might happen someday. I feel no pressure there, it will need to be both un-embarrassing and a decent deal.
There's no special attraction to me to tying any particular licensed property to Dominion; I mean uh, it's not like there's something where I think "that would sure resonate." It would just be a retheme of Dominion. However much I like the property, it's not super exciting. If fans thought it was a good fit though, that would be fine; I wouldn't need to shoot it down for lack of resonance.
For new non-Dominion games, Adventure Time seems like a fun property to work with. That is getting used up fast though, at some point it will not even seem good anymore, because you would just have yet another Adventure Time game. There probably isn't a good one yet though so there's that.
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(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1006988_md.jpg)(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1006987_md.jpg)
Wow, I am shocked this exists. Oversexualized Dominion. Like, are there even any dudes? It's like the opposite problem in Japan from here. That's kind of funny.
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Wow, I am shocked this exists. Oversexualized Dominion. Like, are there even any dudes? It's like the opposite problem in Japan from here. That's kind of funny.
Rule 34 man. Also... Japan. Do you even need to ask. Anime girls over there are like Disney merchandise here.
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(2hu Dominion)
Wow, I am shocked this exists. Oversexualized Dominion. Like, are there even any dudes? It's like the opposite problem in Japan from here. That's kind of funny.
As far as I know there are no dudes in Touhou. There are just a bunch of witches with universe-warping powers.
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Wow, I am shocked this exists. Oversexualized Dominion. Like, are there even any dudes? It's like the opposite problem in Japan from here. That's kind of funny.
So you didn't know about the doll, huh? http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12578.0
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Have you ever played Dominion in a house with pets, and if so have they ever messed up a game?
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Have you ever played Dominion in a house with children, and if so have they ever messed up a game?
FYP (from personal experience :)
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Have you ever played Dominion in a house with pets, and if so have they ever messed up a game?
Dominion cards are his pets. And yes, some of them have messed up games he's played before, because they were broken.
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Were there any cards that seemed fine but combined with just one existing card became so broken, that you got rid of them? What were they like?
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Have you ever played Dominion in a house with pets, and if so have they ever messed up a game?
Cats, and no; they've caused very minor damage to puzzles.
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Were there any cards that seemed fine but combined with just one existing card became so broken, that you got rid of them? What were they like?
I don't think so. Mountain Pass and Donate both dance around Possession, but there they are, they made it out with dancing clauses. I've danced around Fortress with something that didn't make it out, but that dance was possible too, it wasn't the issue.
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Do you ever get mad when people beat you at your own games? Is there a sense of entitlement to victory as the creator? Have you ever changed the rules of a game during gameplay so you could win?
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Do you ever get mad when people beat you at your own games? Is there a sense of entitlement to victory as the creator? Have you ever changed the rules of a game during gameplay so you could win?
I'm not the monster you think I am, jsh357.
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The only head basketball coach in University of Kansas history who had an overall career losing record is the man who invented basketball.
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Have you ever played Dominion in a house with pets, and if so have they ever messed up a game?
Cats, and no; they've caused very minor damage to puzzles.
Cats and puzzles don't mix. Once one of my cats pulled a piece out of the middle of a recently-finished puzzle. But I've had to remove cats from the supply in Dominion many a time.
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Have you ever played Dominion in a house with pets, and if so have they ever messed up a game?
Cats, and no; they've caused very minor damage to puzzles.
Cats and puzzles don't mix. Once one of my cats pulled a piece out of the middle of a recently-finished puzzle. But I've had to remove cats from the supply in Dominion many a time.
There is a really easy joke to make here about rats but I am not going to bother making it because it wouldn't be very rewarding to make that easy a joke.
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There is a really easy joke to make here about rats but I am not going to bother making it because it wouldn't be very rewarding to make that easy a joke.
Truly, you are the hero we deserve.
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But I've had to remove cats from the supply in Dominion many a time.
You can trash them with Rats!
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Have you ever played Dominion in a house with pets, and if so have they ever messed up a game?
Cats, and no; they've caused very minor damage to puzzles.
Cats and puzzles don't mix. Once one of my cats pulled a piece out of the middle of a recently-finished puzzle. But I've had to remove cats from the supply in Dominion many a time.
There is a really easy joke to make here about rats but I am not going to bother making it because it wouldn't be very rewarding to make that easy a joke.
You mean something like...
Hey, that makes me think Donald missed a great opportunity for another Dark Ages card.
Cat
Action
$3
+1 Buy
Lick yourself inappropriately. If you do, trash all Rats from the game.
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(2hu Dominion)
Wow, I am shocked this exists. Oversexualized Dominion. Like, are there even any dudes? It's like the opposite problem in Japan from here. That's kind of funny.
As far as I know there are no dudes in Touhou. There are just a bunch of witches with universe-warping powers.
Wow, Touhou-themed expansion of Dominion of all things? I wasn't expecting that.
I remember having a really hard time finding English versions of any of those games back when I wanted to try them out.
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there are male characters in touhou! my former roommate (the person who introduced me to dominion, actually) was deep into that ish so i happen to know some of ~the lore~ just from being around her
EDIT: also, the general shift toward little girls ("lolis") in anime & manga seems to be a post-90s thing from what i can tell, resulting from the need to cater more to the core nerd audience.
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there are male characters in touhou! my former roommate (the person who introduced me to dominion, actually) was deep into that ish so i happen to know some of ~the lore~ just from being around her
EDIT: also, the general shift toward little girls ("lolis") in anime & manga seems to be a post-90s thing from what i can tell, resulting from the need to cater more to the core nerd audience.
There are male Touhou characters, but none of them are depicted in the official game series. (Except Rinnosuke in Hopeless Masquerade, as a background character.) They do, however, show up in the side stories.
Edit: Cirno as Chancellor is actually perfect. I'm disappointed Marisa is Village instead of Thief though.
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Why is it that Young Witch gives a special name to its pile, but Obelisk doesn't?
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Why is it that Young Witch gives a special name to its pile, but Obelisk doesn't?
It's just a matter of trying to find good wordings for the individual cards at the times that they needed wordings.
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Why is it that Young Witch gives a special name to its pile, but Obelisk doesn't?
I think "Chosen" is a pretty evocative name.
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Clearly the chosen pile is the "Obelisk". That is what I would have assumed.
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Clearly the chosen pile is the "Obelisk". That is what I would have assumed.
Obelisks originally most of the time came in pairs of two, though...
"Triumphal Arch" is another thing. I like how an arch (like the corresponding deck you build) is carried by 2 pillars. Is that intentional or just me overthinking it?
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Obelisks originally most of the time came in pairs of two, though...
"Triumphal Arch" is another thing. I like how an arch (like the corresponding deck you build) is carried by 2 pillars. Is that intentional or just me overthinking it?
It's Triumphal Arch because there are the two cards, the legs of the arch.
Obelisks are just random and mysterious. The Romans took some from Egypt and scattered them around; they did not get used in pairs of two.
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Obelisks originally most of the time came in pairs of two, though...
"Triumphal Arch" is another thing. I like how an arch (like the corresponding deck you build) is carried by 2 pillars. Is that intentional or just me overthinking it?
It's Triumphal Arch because there are the two cards, the legs of the arch.
Obelisks are just random and mysterious. The Romans took some from Egypt and scattered them around; they did not get used in pairs of two.
Ha! So i got it right!
I can vividly imagine ancient egyptians shake their heads in disbelief over the roman idiocy to abuse obelisks like that. It's a nice thought that misunderstanding something and still finding it totally awesome was a thing long before Britney S. got herself some chinese tattoos. Also, how didn't Roadrunner start a thread about Scoutelisks, yet? (This is a rhetorical question)
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Any older cards you would debtify now you have the mechanic?
Edit: or is that too much a fan card question? If so, ignore it. :x
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Any older cards you would debtify now you have the mechanic?
I had the mechanic back when; it was on the list before the game was published. I just didn't try it earlier.
If I had tried debt earlier, or made 10 expansions before any were published, I could have given some other things debt. Debt is tricky so probably very few cards would make the leap. It would be more about "let's have a few more debt cards" than "this card would be better with debt." Nothing stands out as an obvious good fit.
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Did you discover any combos like Hermit/Market Square or Counting House/Travelling Fair before the community did? Are there other two card strategies you are surprised nobody found out about yet?
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Did you discover any combos like Hermit/Market Square or Counting House/Travelling Fair before the community did? Are there other two card strategies you are surprised nobody found out about yet?
There necessarily have been both combos we knew about and combos we didn't. I mean of course we find some, and of course the community finds more.
Most combos are pretty blatant; if thinking about the card doesn't do the trick, seeing the combo on the table will. In general I wouldn't notice "oh now people have spotted this combo." Man sometimes they spot them after the preview. For any given two-card combo I thought of, my guess would be that someone has spotted it, but I wouldn't know for sure.
In the early days one exotic thing you could do was build a 5-card Throne / Remodel deck. I knew about it from when it was easier to spot, because 5-card Throne / Witch had been a thing (with more Curses, and various other differences). That Remodel deck isn't that good. But eventually someone who posted on BGG spotted it and talked about it.
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Have you ever tried making a 'pure' Reserve card? No Action - Reserve, just Reserve?
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Have you ever tried making a 'pure' Reserve card? No Action - Reserve, just Reserve?
It would need a when-gain clause to put it on the mat. And then how would it ever get back on your mat?
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Have you ever tried making a 'pure' Reserve card? No Action - Reserve, just Reserve?
It would need a when-gain clause to put it on the mat. And then how would it ever get back on your mat?
I think Hireling was first one of those
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Have you ever tried making a 'pure' Reserve card? No Action - Reserve, just Reserve?
It would need a when-gain clause to put it on the mat. And then how would it ever get back on your mat?
There are ways around that. It's really not as big an issue as you'd first think.
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Have you ever tried making a 'pure' Reserve card? No Action - Reserve, just Reserve?
It would need a when-gain clause to put it on the mat. And then how would it ever get back on your mat?
I think Hireling was first one of those
No, Hireling was an Action-Reserve that needed to be played in order to get onto your mat.
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Have you ever tried making a 'pure' Reserve card? No Action - Reserve, just Reserve?
No.
Mark Rosewater says "don't design something just to prove you can," and well I think he has that one wrong. Restrictions breed creativity, Mark! It's a fine thing to design something with some weird limit just to see how it goes. Maybe it will go great. But if it doesn't go well then you shouldn't, you know, publish it. So e.g. it was great to try to make a 2-mana planeswalker, in case it turned out great; they didn't need to publish it just because they'd made it. "Don't publish something just because you proved you could design it," that's how it should go.
Anyway I did not have any particular reason to try a pure Reserve card so I didn't. There was no special attraction there. I had plenty of good things to do with Reserve cards and focused on those.
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Pure Reserve that was put on the mat, pulled off and used once, clogged your hand the rest of the game sounds awesome. Mainly because I want to see what a card offers that would make me want to buy it.
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Pure Reserve that was put on the mat, pulled off and used once, clogged your hand the rest of the game sounds awesome. Mainly because I want to see what a card offers that would make me want to buy it.
Doesn't sound that much different from pure Victory cards and weak cards with strong on-gain effects. The main difference would of course be the bonus effect can be delayed, but that flexibility means that it would have less raw power than the on-gain card.
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I wouldn't tie it to victory points. Maybe you have to call two to activate.
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Plain-jane vanilla cards have stood the test of time as being correctly priced, well-balanced, and used as benchmarks when comparing other cards of equal cost. But other than Ruins, we haven't had one since Prosperity's Worker's Village. (This depends on what you define as vanilla -- if discarding is vanilla, then Oasis; if trashing is, Junk Dealer; if coin tokens are, Candlestick Maker; etc.) Do you think we will ever see a straight vanilla card again? What would be needed to make such a card relevant in a new set? Would it be a promo?
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Plain-jane vanilla cards have stood the test of time as being correctly priced, well-balanced, and used as benchmarks when comparing other cards of equal cost. But other than Ruins, we haven't had one since Prosperity's Worker's Village. (This depends on what you define as vanilla -- if discarding is vanilla, then Oasis; if trashing is, Junk Dealer; if coin tokens are, Candlestick Maker; etc.) Do you think we will ever see a straight vanilla card again? What would be needed to make such a card relevant in a new set? Would it be a promo?
If you count things like Candlestick Maker then maybe there could be another one; it would take me making another set with something that could use the +1 notation, and then having a reasonable vanilla-if-that-counts card to do, but those things are possible. If you count discarding and trashing somehow, sure, maybe there's another thing there that somehow hasn't happened. If you count Ruinses and Necropolis then maybe.
A pure original +'s vanilla kingdom card, probably not happening. The one chance it would have is "secretly the cost is a mechanic but we somehow aren't counting that," like debt (which did have vanilla cards for a bit). The problem is picking a set of things that aren't just redundant with or strictly better/worse than existing cards. The smaller numbers are covered; the bigger numbers are normally too expensive.
If "worth VP" counts then Empires had "double Harem" for a bit. As the bottom card of a split pile, another invisible complication.
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Plain-jane vanilla cards have stood the test of time as being correctly priced, well-balanced, and used as benchmarks when comparing other cards of equal cost.
I mean, it's because new cards are always compared to old vanilla cards beforehand, so I think you've got this backwards? If the original vanilla cards had been priced differently, then all the cards coming after them would have been different too.
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A pure original +'s vanilla kingdom card, probably not happening. The one chance it would have is "secretly the cost is a mechanic but we somehow aren't counting that," like debt (which did have vanilla cards for a bit). The problem is picking a set of things that aren't just redundant with or strictly better/worse than existing cards. The smaller numbers are covered; the bigger numbers are normally too expensive.
Lost City can fit this category, and that's only the second latest expansion.
Edit: Or you mean like literally no card text besides vanilla bonuses, which excludes cards like Peddler.
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Plain-jane vanilla cards have stood the test of time as being correctly priced, well-balanced, and used as benchmarks when comparing other cards of equal cost.
I mean, it's because new cards are always compared to old vanilla cards beforehand, so I think you've got this backwards? If the original vanilla cards had been priced differently, then all the cards coming after them would have been different too.
Well, everything is tied to the basic cards. Copper / Silver / Gold were always like that (except for names); the vanilla cards were tweaked to work with them.
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A pure original +'s vanilla kingdom card, probably not happening. The one chance it would have is "secretly the cost is a mechanic but we somehow aren't counting that," like debt (which did have vanilla cards for a bit). The problem is picking a set of things that aren't just redundant with or strictly better/worse than existing cards. The smaller numbers are covered; the bigger numbers are normally too expensive.
Lost City can fit this category, and that's only the second latest expansion.
Edit: Or you mean like literally no card text besides vanilla bonuses, which excludes cards like Peddler.
I meant no card text, noting that you can cheat with symbols e.g. the debt hexagon. I don't know what counts for Dingan.
Stuff like Lost City can be done as long as you can do anything.
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It seems to me that some older cards would have worked better as events, e. g. Chancellor, Feast, Navigator (which already has an equivalent in Scouting Party) or Saboteur. If you had included events in every Dominion set starting with Base, would you have used their effects in events instead of cards?
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Plain-jane vanilla cards have stood the test of time as being correctly priced, well-balanced, and used as benchmarks when comparing other cards of equal cost. But other than Ruins, we haven't had one since Prosperity's Worker's Village. (This depends on what you define as vanilla -- if discarding is vanilla, then Oasis; if trashing is, Junk Dealer; if coin tokens are, Candlestick Maker; etc.) Do you think we will ever see a straight vanilla card again? What would be needed to make such a card relevant in a new set? Would it be a promo?
Well, think about it - Villa existing means that a card with just +2 Actions, +1 Buy, +(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) would be kind of anticlimactic now. There are a few cards with vanilla bonuses being their main schtick, just with some penalty or other snag on them - Lost City and Encampment you get purely for the +2 Cards/+2 Actions, the rest of the card is to make that harder to get, whereas Junk Dealer, though it's mainly vanilla bonuses, is bought purely for the trashing effect - and they kind of inch out the design space for a pure vanilla card with their stats. And isn't it better that way? Aren't Hunting Grounds and Royal Blacksmith cooler to have than just vanilla +4/+5 cards? And having just a pure vanilla card means you can't put a bonus on a card like that and have it cost the same - basically the Village problem. Since Vanillage costs (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png), Farming Village has to cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png). If Vanillage were never made (not that I'm suggesting it shouldn't have been, it's clearly an important card to have), maybe Farming Village could have cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png).
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It seems to me that some older cards would have worked better as events, e. g. Chancellor, Feast, Navigator (which already has an equivalent in Scouting Party) or Saboteur. If you had included events in every Dominion set starting with Base, would you have used their effects in events instead of cards?
In this alternate universe, do I also know how things turn out? I mean uh. I wouldn't make Feast today, but I did back then, and was happy with it. I wouldn't have been thinking, "oh man maybe there's some different way to do this." In fact a lot of questions along the lines of "why did this early card do things this way" are answered "that was what I started with and I never felt a need to change it." If I'd had Events early maybe I would have saved them for one set's thing; if I decided to put them in every set, they'd be whatever other effects, they wouldn't replace existing cards, which as far as I knew were already doing good work I had no reason to throw away.
Instead we can consider, what would I do now, knowing how things turned out. Here though one thing is that I don't have any special need for a particular card to exist; I don't need Event-style Feast, I can just not do Feast. Maybe some bad cards work well as somewhat-related Events; it would be a case-by-case thing that I sure don't need to work out in this thread, if I ever want to do them.
And there's that: if Event-style Feast is cool then it's still on the table now, nothing's stopping me.
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Isn't advance similar to event style feast?
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And there was a Chancellor-style Event outtake in Adventures, as stated in the secret history. Chancellor existing sure isn't what killed it.
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And there was a Chancellor-style Event outtake in Adventures, as stated in the secret history. Chancellor existing sure isn't what killed it.
That just sounds terrible unless it gave another bonus along with it.
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And there was a Chancellor-style Event outtake in Adventures, as stated in the secret history. Chancellor existing sure isn't what killed it.
That just sounds terrible unless it gave another bonus along with it.
That sounds great for two and it gives you a buy. Trigger all the shuffles and don't care.
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And there was a Chancellor-style Event outtake in Adventures, as stated in the secret history. Chancellor existing sure isn't what killed it.
That just sounds terrible unless it gave another bonus along with it.
That sounds great for two and it gives you a buy. Trigger all the shuffles and don't care.
It cost $1 and (I think) gave +1 Buy. But it didn't really add enough gameplay. It was mostly just: do you have a spare $1? If so, buy it.
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And there was a Chancellor-style Event outtake in Adventures, as stated in the secret history. Chancellor existing sure isn't what killed it.
That just sounds terrible unless it gave another bonus along with it.
That sounds great for two and it gives you a buy. Trigger all the shuffles and don't care.
It cost $1 and (I think?) gave +1 Buy. But it didn't really add enough gameplay. It was mostly just: do you have a spare $1? If so, buy it.
Confirmed.
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And there was a Chancellor-style Event outtake in Adventures, as stated in the secret history. Chancellor existing sure isn't what killed it.
That just sounds terrible unless it gave another bonus along with it.
That sounds great for two and it gives you a buy. Trigger all the shuffles and don't care.
It cost $1 and (I think?) gave +1 Buy. But it didn't really add enough gameplay. It was mostly just: do you have a spare $1? If so, buy it.
Confirmed.
What are your thoughts about purposely doing something along this line just to make games with this event play out differently? Even if it was a completely mindless decision (which I don't think this example is), having your deck constantly cycling would make the rest of your decisions different than a standard game. Seems like it could be interesting.
I guess Delve sort of falls along these lines with pseudo-redefining the cost of Silver.
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And there was a Chancellor-style Event outtake in Adventures, as stated in the secret history. Chancellor existing sure isn't what killed it.
That just sounds terrible unless it gave another bonus along with it.
That sounds great for two and it gives you a buy. Trigger all the shuffles and don't care.
It cost $1 and (I think?) gave +1 Buy. But it didn't really add enough gameplay. It was mostly just: do you have a spare $1? If so, buy it.
Confirmed.
What are your thoughts about purposely doing something along this line just to make games with this event play out differently? Even if it was a completely mindless decision (which I don't think this example is), having your deck constantly cycling would make the rest of your decisions different than a standard game. Seems like it could be interesting.
I guess Delve sort of falls along these lines with pseudo-redefining the cost of Silver.
The general idea of "this Event makes the game different but is some level of automatic" is good enough, for the right Events, that I did it multiple times. Chancellor was not one of them; we gave it a chance and everything.
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Were there any cards that were meant to be played only by two or only by more than two players? Such as in the rules you say "This card can only be in the supply if there are exactly 2 players"
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Were there any cards that were meant to be played only by two or only by more than two players? Such as in the rules you say "This card can only be in the supply if there are exactly 2 players"
If I had to guess, such a card would cause complaints. People who only play 2 player Dominion would be upset if there's a card that can only be used in 3+ player games. People who only play 3+ player Dominion would be upset if there's a card that can only be used in 2 player games.
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Were there any cards that were meant to be played only by two or only by more than two players? Such as in the rules you say "This card can only be in the supply if there are exactly 2 players"
If I had to guess, such a card would cause complaints. People who only play 2 player Dominion would be upset if there's a card that can only be used in 3+ player games. People who only play 3+ player Dominion would be upset if there's a card that can only be used in 2 player games.
In fact, this is the very reason Castles has 8 different cards rather than 12.
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Were there any cards that were meant to be played only by two or only by more than two players? Such as in the rules you say "This card can only be in the supply if there are exactly 2 players"
No. The game tries hard to be reasonable with 2-5 (not as much with 6). Some cards will vary in power level or good-to-existness (e.g. due to being slow) with the player count, but I don't want anything to be just unplayable or game-ruining.
I can imagine a game where I might think "this thing should be in it and only works with 2 players and can just say that." Dominion does not look like that game to me.
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Was there ever an attack that gave out debt? It seems like a pretty basic idea so I assumed you tried it. I suppose it either ends up boring or dominant like most obvious ideas.
Oh wait - it would be too similar to Bridge Troll?
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Was there ever an attack that gave out debt? It seems like a pretty basic idea so I assumed you tried it. I suppose it either ends up boring or dominant like most obvious ideas.
Oh wait - it would be too similar to Bridge Troll?
If you destroyed all their treasure with Theif or something they couldn't do anything if they had debt.
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Was there ever an attack that gave out debt? It seems like a pretty basic idea so I assumed you tried it. I suppose it either ends up boring or dominant like most obvious ideas.
Oh wait - it would be too similar to Bridge Troll?
If you destroyed all their treasure with Theif or something they couldn't do anything if they had debt.
If you destroyed all their treasures and couldn't do anything with debt they wouldn't be able to do anything without debt anyways. Most of the time.
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Was there ever an attack that gave out debt? It seems like a pretty basic idea so I assumed you tried it. I suppose it either ends up boring or dominant like most obvious ideas.
Oh wait - it would be too similar to Bridge Troll?
If you destroyed all their treasure with Theif or something they couldn't do anything if they had debt.
If you destroyed all their treasures and couldn't do anything with debt they wouldn't be able to do anything without debt anyways. Most of the time.
They can always buy coppers and curses. Unless if those piles are gone too.
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Was there ever an attack that gave out debt? It seems like a pretty basic idea so I assumed you tried it. I suppose it either ends up boring or dominant like most obvious ideas.
Oh wait - it would be too similar to Bridge Troll?
If you destroyed all their treasure with Theif or something they couldn't do anything if they had debt.
If you destroyed all their treasures and couldn't do anything with debt they wouldn't be able to do anything without debt anyways. Most of the time.
They can always buy coppers and curses. Unless if those piles are gone too.
You can't buy anything if you have debt, including Coppers and Curses.
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Was there ever an attack that gave out debt? It seems like a pretty basic idea so I assumed you tried it. I suppose it either ends up boring or dominant like most obvious ideas.
Oh wait - it would be too similar to Bridge Troll?
If you destroyed all their treasure with Theif or something they couldn't do anything if they had debt.
If you destroyed all their treasures and couldn't do anything with debt they wouldn't be able to do anything without debt anyways. Most of the time.
They can always buy coppers and curses. Unless if those piles are gone too.
You can't buy anything if you have debt, including Coppers and Curses.
Exactly. He was explaining why having debt it worse than not having debt in that situation.
Giving out debt as an attack is a terrible idea. It's just Bridge Troll or Cutpurse without the built-in limitations that stop it from being an awful experience. If you can give out debt as an attack, you can create a pin. You would just need to build an engine that gives more debt than the other player can produce in coins each turn.
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'Everyone who does not has debt, gets a debt token.'
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'Everyone who does not has debt, gets a debt token.'
Which is essentially the same thing as "Everyone takes their -$1 token".
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With that difference that it stacks with the token!
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This makes me think of an actual question.
Donald, when determining the mechanics for debt, did you consider making the rule match the $-1 token? Instead of "paying off debt" and "can't buy a card while you have debt"; just say that buying a debt card gives a number of $-1 tokens with the same rule that already existed for those tokens.
The biggest differences would be that you could still buy $0 cards and events.
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Was there ever an attack that gave out debt? It seems like a pretty basic idea so I assumed you tried it. I suppose it either ends up boring or dominant like most obvious ideas.
Oh wait - it would be too similar to Bridge Troll?
I considered such an attack multiple times, but did not ever try one. One issue is making sure it isn't too oppressive; another is, given that, making it not too much like Bridge Troll. I might have managed to make one meeting those needs but had no obligation, and hey there's already Bridge Troll. And I did do Tax.
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Donald, when determining the mechanics for debt, did you consider making the rule match the $-1 token? Instead of "paying off debt" and "can't buy a card while you have debt"; just say that buying a debt card gives a number of $-1 tokens with the same rule that already existed for those tokens.
The biggest differences would be that you could still buy $0 cards and events.
I did not ever consider doing that.
Debt version one was "Debt (You may buy this for $0, but can't buy more cards until paying it off.)" You took 10D when buying a card with Debt that cost $10.
Debt version two was "When you gain this during your turn, take 8D." The cards typically cost $0.
Debt version three was a cost of 8D in the corner, which is how it ended up.
In all cases the Debt tokens themselves worked the same. I did briefly try letting you buy Events while in Debt.
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Was there ever an attack that gave out debt? It seems like a pretty basic idea so I assumed you tried it. I suppose it either ends up boring or dominant like most obvious ideas.
Oh wait - it would be too similar to Bridge Troll?
I considered such an attack multiple times, but did not ever try one. One issue is making sure it isn't too oppressive; another is, given that, making it not too much like Bridge Troll. I might have managed to make one meeting those needs but had no obligation, and hey there's already Bridge Troll. And I did do Tax.
Yeah I think Tax is a much more interesting take on the attack :) Gives bastard like me the joy of dismantling someone's strategy by taxing key cards but doesn't actually bury someone under an impossible amount of debt.
I still think there's something cute about the debt version of bridge troll, where the defensive play is to just already be in debt. But I suppose you still get that interaction with the self-inflicted -1 token.
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I tried a Treasure - Duration. To not be wonky with cards like Counterfeit, it had to have an "if this is in play" clause on the next turn's +$2.
Can you explain this? What makes this any different from Procession with Action-Durations?
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I tried a Treasure - Duration. To not be wonky with cards like Counterfeit, it had to have an "if this is in play" clause on the next turn's +$2.
Can you explain this? What makes this any different from Procession with Action-Durations?
There are more ways to remove Treasures from play than there are to remove Actions from play, and unlike Procession (which stays in play to remind you, or at least used to), Herbalist/Mint/Mandarin don't have any tracking mechanism.
It's not that it couldn't have been done, it just seemed not-great to do. That's my recollection, anyway.
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I tried a Treasure - Duration. To not be wonky with cards like Counterfeit, it had to have an "if this is in play" clause on the next turn's +$2.
Can you explain this? What makes this any different from Procession with Action-Durations?
It's bad that Procession has a tracking-poor interaction with durations. And there was no fix for it (saying "non-duration" doesn't catch Throne Rooms on duration cards). I could do Procession or not. It seemed sufficiently fun to do anyway.
It was bad that that Treasure-Duration had a tracking-poor interaction with various cards. But I could just fix it so I did. Fixing it was better than not fixing it! Then the card wasn't fun enough to make the set, but that's not so related.
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Do you give any thought to the alphabetic distribution of cards in sets? For example, Empires has 7 piles beginning with C, and 2/3 of its cards in the first half of the alphabet. Cornucopia has most of the set beginning with F and H.
(Also, did you have to put Empires in between Dark Ages and Guilds? Those two were sharing a binder page, since small sets take 1.5 pages. Worked well for Alchemy / Cornucopia, too)
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Do you give any thought to the alphabetic distribution of cards in sets? For example, Empires has 7 piles beginning with C, and 2/3 of its cards in the first half of the alphabet. Cornucopia has most of the set beginning with F and H.
I do not give that any thought at all.
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So I taught this to someone recently who really loved it (and she's not a gamer). She wanted to know if there was a Dragon card or something similar. I said that you tend to keep it within reality and not fantasy, but she pointed out Witch. And then there's also Scrying Pool, Transmute, Transmogrify... a few things that are more fantasy than reality. So my question is, would Dragon be the type of thing that could exist on a card, or does that seem outside of the theme for you?
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Do you give any thought to the alphabetic distribution of cards in sets? For example, Empires has 7 piles beginning with C, and 2/3 of its cards in the first half of the alphabet. Cornucopia has most of the set beginning with F and H.
I do not give that any thought at all.
You expect us to believe that it's just a coincidence that no cards start with the letter X? Admit it, you're ex-ist.
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Do you give any thought to the alphabetic distribution of cards in sets? For example, Empires has 7 piles beginning with C, and 2/3 of its cards in the first half of the alphabet. Cornucopia has most of the set beginning with F and H.
I do not give that any thought at all.
You expect us to believe that it's just a coincidence that no cards start with the letter X? Admit it, you're ex-ist.
Yes. That's why he's called Donald Middle-Name-Omitted Vaccarino.
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So I taught this to someone recently who really loved it (and she's not a gamer). She wanted to know if there was a Dragon card or something similar. I said that you tend to keep it within reality and not fantasy, but she pointed out Witch. And then there's also Scrying Pool, Transmute, Transmogrify... a few things that are more fantasy than reality. So my question is, would Dragon be the type of thing that could exist on a card, or does that seem outside of the theme for you?
Donald did Giant. I don't see why Dragon wouldn't be unreasonable.
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So I taught this to someone recently who really loved it (and she's not a gamer). She wanted to know if there was a Dragon card or something similar. I said that you tend to keep it within reality and not fantasy, but she pointed out Witch. And then there's also Scrying Pool, Transmute, Transmogrify... a few things that are more fantasy than reality. So my question is, would Dragon be the type of thing that could exist on a card, or does that seem outside of the theme for you?
Donald did Giant. I don't see why Dragon wouldn't be unreasonable.
Everybody knows that dragons are extinct. Don't believe the rumours of dragons returned!
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Dragon
Action – Attack
Cost: $7
+$2 or gain a Gold.
You may reveal a Gold from your hand. If you do, each other player with 5 or more cards in hand reveals them and discards a card that you choose.
Clearly Dragon should be a $7 because Dragons like Hoards and Hoard is in Prosperity. ;)
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So I taught this to someone recently who really loved it (and she's not a gamer). She wanted to know if there was a Dragon card or something similar. I said that you tend to keep it within reality and not fantasy, but she pointed out Witch. And then there's also Scrying Pool, Transmute, Transmogrify... a few things that are more fantasy than reality. So my question is, would Dragon be the type of thing that could exist on a card, or does that seem outside of the theme for you?
Donald did Giant. I don't see why Dragon wouldn't be unreasonable.
Everybody knows that dragons are extinct. Don't believe the rumours of dragons returned!
That's why Seprix totally intentionally said that he felt Dragons were unreasonable.
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So I taught this to someone recently who really loved it (and she's not a gamer). She wanted to know if there was a Dragon card or something similar. I said that you tend to keep it within reality and not fantasy, but she pointed out Witch. And then there's also Scrying Pool, Transmute, Transmogrify... a few things that are more fantasy than reality. So my question is, would Dragon be the type of thing that could exist on a card, or does that seem outside of the theme for you?
It would need to be in a set that leaned in that direction theme-wise, like Alchemy and Adventures do. For most sets the idea is just to have a hint of fantasy. Adventures would have been a good place, but I still felt like, how far do I want to go here.
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Did you consider a card shaped thingy that was both an event and a landmark?
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Did you consider a card shaped thingy that was both an event and a landmark?
I did not.
I am not really seeing it. I already have Events that give out VP tokens; that seems like the good simple version of combining the concepts. It's not like I wanted to try to cram two words onto that diagonal bar either.
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how much was the starting deck with three estates influenced by the three estates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estates_of_the_realm)
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how much was the starting deck with three estates influenced by the three estates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estates_of_the_realm)
Zero. The starting deck existed before the VP cards had names.
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The question posed backwards ("how much was the choice of name for Estate influenced by the fact that there are three of them") would still hold some validity given your response but as estate as a plot of land and estate as a rank in society are completely different matters it would be a bad pun so I guess the answer would still be "zero".
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The question posed backwards ("how much was the choice of name for Estate influenced by the fact that there are three of them") would still hold some validity given your response but as estate as a plot of land and estate as a rank in society are completely different matters it would be a bad pun so I guess the answer would still be "zero".
It is still zero. A bad pun doesn't rule out a card name though; it's Baron because he's a real estate baron.
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The question posed backwards ("how much was the choice of name for Estate influenced by the fact that there are three of them") would still hold some validity given your response but as estate as a plot of land and estate as a rank in society are completely different matters it would be a bad pun so I guess the answer would still be "zero".
It is still zero. A bad pun doesn't rule out a card name though; it's Baron because he's a real estate baron.
And Bridge Troll was kind of a pun too, right? It's like a Bridge but it trolls your opponent.
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The question posed backwards ("how much was the choice of name for Estate influenced by the fact that there are three of them") would still hold some validity given your response but as estate as a plot of land and estate as a rank in society are completely different matters it would be a bad pun so I guess the answer would still be "zero".
It is still zero. A bad pun doesn't rule out a card name though; it's Baron because he's a real estate baron.
And Bridge Troll was kind of a pun too, right? It's like a Bridge but it trolls your opponent.
"Bridge" there is a reference to Bridge, but "Troll" isn't a reference to trolling (although trolling is a reference to trolls).
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You gotta pay the troll's toll
If you wanna get into that boy's soul
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Actually, trolling is a reference to fishing!
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Also, Duchy must clearly be a foreshadowing of the eventual bad translation into the language of the Netherlands.
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Also, Duchy must clearly be a foreshadowing of the eventual bad translation into the language of the Netherlands.
And how do you call this mysterious language of yonder Netherlands?
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[ˈneːdərlɑnts], of course.
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Arter Adventures, you made a promo event. Enpires is out now. Do you plan to follow a similar pattern and make a promo landmark?
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Also, Duchy must clearly be a foreshadowing of the eventual bad translation into the language of the Netherlands.
What would you say the translation should have been?
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Arter Adventures, you made a promo event. Enpires is out now. Do you plan to follow a similar pattern and make a promo landmark?
That's not the kind of question I answer, unless this counts.
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Would you consider creating a digital expansion that is gradually gainable by going outside to hunt for cards via an augmented reality app?
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Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you do keep making expansions at, say, one per year: how long before I get to see a card called "Squirt"?
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Would you consider creating a digital expansion that is gradually gainable by going outside to hunt for cards via an augmented reality app?
GOminion
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Would you consider creating a digital expansion that is gradually gainable by going outside to hunt for cards via an augmented reality app?
Aren't you the developer?
So Donald, would you ever wear a fedora?
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Would you consider creating a digital expansion that is gradually gainable by going outside to hunt for cards via an augmented reality app?
I would, but - and I can't stress this enough - it would be essential that sometimes it led people to dead bodies instead.
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Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you do keep making expansions at, say, one per year: how long before I get to see a card called "Squirt"?
As I've said recently on BGG, a sex-themed expansion is really unlikely.
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Aren't you the developer?
So Donald, would you ever wear a fedora?
In the right circumstances, yes, yes I would.
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Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you do keep making expansions at, say, one per year: how long before I get to see a card called "Squirt"?
As I've said recently on BGG, a sex-themed expansion is really unlikely.
Can we vote this most disappointing answer as of yet?
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Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you do keep making expansions at, say, one per year: how long before I get to see a card called "Squirt"?
As I've said recently on BGG, a sex-themed expansion is really unlikely.
Can we have religion or politics themed expansions?
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Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you do keep making expansions at, say, one per year: how long before I get to see a card called "Squirt"?
As I've said recently on BGG, a sex-themed expansion is really unlikely.
Can we vote this most disappointing answer as of yet?
You see what I have to work with.
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Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you do keep making expansions at, say, one per year: how long before I get to see a card called "Squirt"?
As I've said recently on BGG, a sex-themed expansion is really unlikely.
Can we have religion or politics themed expansions?
We have a politics themed expansion. It's called "Intrigue".
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Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you do keep making expansions at, say, one per year: how long before I get to see a card called "Squirt"?
As I've said recently on BGG, a sex-themed expansion is really unlikely.
Can we vote this most disappointing answer as of yet?
You see what I have to work with.
Forgive my ignorance, but I am missing the pun/joke/depth of the comment?
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Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you do keep making expansions at, say, one per year: how long before I get to see a card called "Squirt"?
As I've said recently on BGG, a sex-themed expansion is really unlikely.
Can we vote this most disappointing answer as of yet?
You see what I have to work with.
Forgive my ignorance, but I am missing the pun/joke/depth of the comment?
I am just not the kind of guy who forgives ignorance.
Probably when I use that particular stock phrase - "you see what I have to work with" - no-one notices that it's what the doctor says to the Joker in Batman. So you did probably miss that. I say it when it's relevant; I just like the sound of it.
Oh the other thing. When someone asks a joke question, man, I do not generally want to put in a lot of effort there. Possibly spiralstaircase meant Squirtle; the post says Squirt though. I did actually just mention on BGG that a sex-themed expansion was unlikely (someone wanting to know, would Jay just publish anything or what), so I went with that. The soft drink was my runner-up. But I mean, how funny is that.
For an in-depth discussion of just what exactly that term means in a sexual context, well, do you have internet access? My runner-up was "ask your mom."
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I am reasonably aware of what the term meant in the context of sex. I do disagree that 'asking your mom' is good advice, but hey, disagreements happen.
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Aren't you the developer?
So Donald, would you ever wear a fedora?
In the right circumstances, yes, yes I would.
Like, if you were an early 1900s private investigator?
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I mean, all the elements are already there. There's 'Dominion', 'expansion', 'Action phase', 'Harem'. It seems only natural for there to be a Sex Expansion in Dominion. It makes perfect logical sense!
I still can't believe anybody would even ask for such a thing. I apologize on the behalf of humanity, Donald. We have to all take the collective blame for this.
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Oh the other thing. When someone asks a joke question, man, I do not generally want to put in a lot of effort there. Possibly spiralstaircase meant Squirtle; the post says Squirt though.
I meant Squirt. I've been asking Donald to make a card called Squirt since before Adventures. Since apparently I am the kind of person to explain my jokes, it's this: Mine is to Mint as Squire is to...
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Oh the other thing. When someone asks a joke question, man, I do not generally want to put in a lot of effort there. Possibly spiralstaircase meant Squirtle; the post says Squirt though.
I meant Squirt. I've been asking Donald to make a card called Squirt since before Adventures. Since apparently I am the kind of person to explain my jokes, it's this: Mine is to Mint as Squire is to...
A card that destroys attack cards on gain, but can duplicate attack cards when you have them together in your hand?
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ASS Altenburger (the German publisher/distributor of Dominion) is claiming that the German version of empires only being released at the end of the year is a decision by RGG? Is this true? Can you share something about the reasons for this?
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ASS Altenburger (the German publisher/distributor of Dominion) is claiming that the German version of empires only being released at the end of the year is a decision by RGG? Is this true? Can you share something about the reasons for this?
This is the first I've heard of it; I have been expecting it would come out at Essen. I guess I don't know what "end of the year" means there. You could quote them more precisely.
RGG wouldn't just randomly delay the German version; if RGG said they had to wait then it would be for some reason that would make sense, e.g. running out of metal tokens (not that I have any reason to believe there's a shortage of metal tokens).
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Here's what they said (when asked why the German version will be released so much later than the English one)
Nicht nur die deutsche Version lässt sich noch ein wenig Zeit, das sind einfach Verlagsentscheidungen die bei Rio Grande Games liegen. ASS Altenburger selbst ist lediglich für den Vertrieb auf dem deutschen Markt zuständig.
Translation:
Not only the German version is taking some time, these are just publisher decisions made by RGG. Ass Altenburger only does the distribution on the German market.
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The question posed backwards ("how much was the choice of name for Estate influenced by the fact that there are three of them") would still hold some validity given your response but as estate as a plot of land and estate as a rank in society are completely different matters it would be a bad pun so I guess the answer would still be "zero".
It is still zero. A bad pun doesn't rule out a card name though; it's Baron because he's a real estate baron.
Wait. Really?
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Here's what they said (when asked why the German version will be released so much later than the English one)
Nicht nur die deutsche Version lässt sich noch ein wenig Zeit, das sind einfach Verlagsentscheidungen die bei Rio Grande Games liegen. ASS Altenburger selbst ist lediglich für den Vertrieb auf dem deutschen Markt zuständig.
Translation:
Not only the German version is taking some time, these are just publisher decisions made by RGG. Ass Altenburger only does the distribution on the German market.
Well again, I don't know what "so much later" is. Is it Essen? I have been thinking it would come out at Essen. That's some months after the English version but seems okay. I feel like I heard it was coming in September but I guess I'm not sure.
I think RGG does delay other publishers' editions from coming out the same day as the English versions. I think that's because some people leaked stuff when sent it in a timely manner back when. So they get the files when it comes out in English and then it takes them a few months.
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The question posed backwards ("how much was the choice of name for Estate influenced by the fact that there are three of them") would still hold some validity given your response but as estate as a plot of land and estate as a rank in society are completely different matters it would be a bad pun so I guess the answer would still be "zero".
It is still zero. A bad pun doesn't rule out a card name though; it's Baron because he's a real estate baron.
Wait. Really?
I am neither lying, nor in error. If people had a limit of how many questions they could ask, I bet you'd be kicking yourself now.
I had an older card called Baron that attacked Victory cards, so I had the art lying around. I made Baron for Intrigue when the set went from 20 cards up to 25. I initially called it Architect, not expecting to keep that name because it sounded too modern. There wasn't an obvious name, and then I thought of the Baron connection.
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Ah, I see. You used that name because you were barren of other ideas.
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Since apparently I am the kind of person to explain my jokes, it's this: Mine is to Mint as Squire is to...
Moat?
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Since apparently I am the kind of person to explain my jokes, it's this: Mine is to Mint as Squire is to...
Moat?
Nah, you're thinking of Squoat.
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Scout. Mine is to Mint as Squire is to Scout.
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I would, but - and I can't stress this enough - it would be essential that sometimes it led people to dead bodies instead.
Why are you the only developer that cares enough to get kids up off the couch and visiting their grandparents in the local cemetery?
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Did you have to clear the Gathering card type with Wizards?
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Did you have to clear the Gathering card type with Wizards?
The OP is from December 07, 2012. It's taken a while - with an intermission - but maybe people have just run out of questions.
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Did you have to clear the Gathering card type with Wizards?
The OP is from December 07, 2012. It's taken a while - with an intermission - but maybe people have just run out of questions.
I doubt it. but if you don't like this question or think it's not worth answering, go ahead and say so. I can take it. Or don't! I will get the idea from your silence. But I'm not sure what you are trying to say with this comment here. Like, I thought the question was reasonable; companies can get very defensive of their IP. I guess you disagree about its reasonableness. But don't let me ruin it for everyone else.
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Did you have to clear the Gathering card type with Wizards?
The OP is from December 07, 2012. It's taken a while - with an intermission - but maybe people have just run out of questions.
You think so?
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Did you have to clear the Gathering card type with Wizards?
The OP is from December 07, 2012. It's taken a while - with an intermission - but maybe people have just run out of questions.
I doubt it. but if you don't like this question or think it's not worth answering, go ahead and say so. I can take it. Or don't! I will get the idea from your silence. But I'm not sure what you are trying to say with this comment here. Like, I thought the question was reasonable; companies can get very defensive of their IP. I guess you disagree about its reasonableness. But don't let me ruin it for everyone else.
I believe this question has been asked before, but about Dominion as a whole rather than specifically the Gathering cards. I don't remember the answer, but I remember that Richard Garfield himself was involved in some Dominion playtesting. The question may have been included in the collated Interview post that was published to the blog.
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Did you have to clear the Gathering card type with Wizards?
The OP is from December 07, 2012. It's taken a while - with an intermission - but maybe people have just run out of questions.
There will always be questions. However, after 131 pages of questions, I basically know more about you than the NRA. This has massive implications. I can write a program that can perfectly emulate you. In a way, you will be immortal. Long after all of us are gone, that program will continue to compile Dominion cards and the signature dry wit with the slight tinge of sardonicism that you are well known and beloved for. In fact, you might even be replaced before that. You say the 'X' in your name is a variable. I can tell you, you will become a variable when I write my code. Machines are the future, Donald. Humanity will be replaced.
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Did you have to clear the Gathering card type with Wizards?
The OP is from December 07, 2012. It's taken a while - with an intermission - but maybe people have just run out of questions.
I doubt it. but if you don't like this question or think it's not worth answering, go ahead and say so. I can take it. Or don't! I will get the idea from your silence. But I'm not sure what you are trying to say with this comment here. Like, I thought the question was reasonable; companies can get very defensive of their IP. I guess you disagree about its reasonableness. But don't let me ruin it for everyone else.
To me, it would make zero sense for someone to have to "clear the Gathering card type with Wizards." It's reality-defying. Thus I thought you were joking. Thus I thought, man. Seems like nothing but joke questions these days.
I do not believe it is possible, in the free world at least, to control a word in the way you suggest. To control something like that, I think it has to be coined (e.g. Kaladesh, Innistrad, etc.), and possibly then still needs a similar context.
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To me, it would make zero sense for someone to have to "clear the Gathering card type with Wizards." It's reality-defying. Thus I thought you were joking. Thus I thought, man. Seems like nothing but joke questions these days.
Gotcha.
I do not believe it is possible, in the free world at least, to control a word in the way you suggest.
They did so with tap. And Bethesda tried (and partially succeeded) to do the same with scrolls. I don't agree that such a thing should be possible, but sadly it happened.
I think I did not word my original inquiry very well. What I meant was more like, did they have anything to say about it. From what you have said, I suppose not. The lawyers did not come for you, so there was no brave stand to take.
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They did so with tap.
"Tap" has a huge amount of context - it's being used to mean, turn a card 90 degrees. Using "tap" that way somewhere else is not at all like having "Gathering" in a game's title vs. using it to label a group of cards that gather tokens.
And of course what happened with "tap" is just that no-one felt like testing it.
It is popularly thought that WotC patented tapping. In actuality they patented certain kinds of trading card games, and that patent was so specific that it included tapping (games using trading cards predated Magic by ~90 years so this was necessary). The more specific your patent is, the less it covers; WotC mentioning tapping in their patent limited their patent, rather than causing it to cover more ground.
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I do not believe it is possible, in the free world at least, to control a word in the way you suggest. To control something like that, I think it has to be coined (e.g. Kaladesh, Innistrad, etc.), and possibly then still needs a similar context.
Is Apple an exception?
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I do not believe it is possible, in the free world at least, to control a word in the way you suggest. To control something like that, I think it has to be coined (e.g. Kaladesh, Innistrad, etc.), and possibly then still needs a similar context.
Is Apple an exception?
Feel free to consult lawyers and wikipedia; I am a game designer.
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I do not believe it is possible, in the free world at least, to control a word in the way you suggest. To control something like that, I think it has to be coined (e.g. Kaladesh, Innistrad, etc.), and possibly then still needs a similar context.
Is Apple an exception?
Note that your post contajns the letter pronounced 'eye'. You can expect a message from the Apple lawyers shortly.
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I do not believe it is possible, in the free world at least, to control a word in the way you suggest. To control something like that, I think it has to be coined (e.g. Kaladesh, Innistrad, etc.), and possibly then still needs a similar context.
Is Apple an exception?
Note that your post contajns the letter pronounced 'eye'. You can expect a message from the Apple lawyers shortly.
You get a +1 for "contajns". Well played.
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So, are we all just not gonna use that letter through the thread we're currently at? Donald, you okay about all that? My posts feel really odd...
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So, are we all just not gonna use that letter through the thread we're currently at? Donald, you okay about all that? My posts feel really odd...
No, we wjll not.
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I will.
(Suddenly, church bells)
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I will.
(Suddenly, church bells)
(http://www.brh.org.uk/heads2008/images/prayer_book_riot.jpg)
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Aww come on. After all the effort used to not have that letter, 0 respect? You people are terrjble.
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Aww come on. After all the effort used to not have that letter, 0 respect? You people are terrjble.
To change that letter to 'j' garners respect, though to carefully preclude the usage of that letter completely, even though much more of a challenge, does not award such respect.
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They say the novelty wore out pretty fast
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So, are we all just not gonna use that letter through the thread we're currently at? Donald, you okay about all that? My posts feel really odd...
My eyes see what you have done there.
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l for one am pleased that people have apprec¡ated orꙇg¡nal content more than derꙇvat¡ve works.
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So, are we all just not gonna use that letter through the thread we're currently at? Donald, you okay about all that? My posts feel really odd...
My eyes see what you have done there.
Kids dig it, it's hip. I think it will lift spirits whilst irking dimwits.
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Kids dig it, it's hip. I think it will lift spirits whilst irking dimwits.
Nice lipogram one-up. All i's, no e's! Ernest Vincent Wright would approve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsby_%28novel%29
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So, are we all just not gonna use that letter through the thread we're currently at? Donald, you okay about all that? My posts feel really odd...
My eyes see what you have done there.
Kids dig it, it's hip. I think it will lift spirits whilst irking dimwits.
That's a fact. And at any rate, angry aardvarks can attack a man's avatar.
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I'm a lipogram hipster. I write my posts without using any hieroglyphics.
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So, actual question to get this thread back on track:
I noticed Arena could be implemented as an Event to do exactly the same. Is it that you prefer using Landmark over Event whenever possible, or was it just because it felt natural in line with the other Setup-Landmarks?
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I noticed Arena could be implemented as an Event to do exactly the same. Is it that you prefer using Landmark over Event whenever possible, or was it just because it felt natural in line with the other Setup-Landmarks?
It just didn't occur to me; I was trying to come up with Landmarks at the time. If I had noticed, it probably would have stayed as a Landmark, since it fits in with the VP-per-player ones, and as an Event it would have needed +1 Buy and "once per turn."
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Have you ever thought about what might happen if you were to add a uh card shaped thingy to an existing recommended kingdom? If you were to, would you use it to boost an existing strategy or to add new strategic options?
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Have you ever thought about what might happen if you were to add a uh card shaped thingy to an existing recommended kingdom? If you were to, would you use it to boost an existing strategy or to add new strategic options?
I put as little thought into the recommended sets as I can get away with. So no I have not remotely considered it. If I had to do it it would be like, oh man I have to add Landmarks to these 20 recommended sets, okay, here's the list of Landmarks, uh this one here, this one here, etc., bam, done, I wonder if I will ever test these.
I have often marveled at how many hours I have had to put into picking out sets of 10 cards to use in this game that's designed to work with any random 10 cards.
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They say the novelty wore out pretty fast
Indeed, it invited indescribably irritating iokes.
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They say the novelty wore out pretty fast
Indeed, it invited indescribably irritating iokes.
Indeed. Inviting iterant iokes into inner intimate insiders is ideologically invalid.
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So, actual question to get this thread back on track:
lo siento
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Alas, as amusing as alliterations are, absurd accumulations are actually annoying.
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Alas, as amusing as alliterations are, absurd accumulations are actually annoying.
Yeah sorry, I didn't realize there was a page I hadn't read yet.
Temple's trash ability seems like something that could have been thought of long ago, but which needs additional text to really spice it up and not make it worse than Chapel. Did you try the "trash x differently named cards" effect in other places?
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Temple's trash ability seems like something that could have been thought of long ago, but which needs additional text to really spice it up and not make it worse than Chapel. Did you try the "trash x differently named cards" effect in other places?
No, I don't think so. It was just a way to try to make Temple a little new, when the premise was just "some kind of trasher that gives +1 VP." And that seemed fine but then I thought of the when-gain and put it there.
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There isn't a single terminal that has +1 card as part of it* - was that an active design choice? There are plenty of terminal attacks that either have +2 cards or +$2, did you ever consider putting +1 card +$1 on one of those just for the novelty?
*okay technically Pawn can be.
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There isn't a single terminal that has +1 card as part of it*
*Ruined Library.
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There isn't a single terminal that has +1 card as part of it* - was that an active design choice? There are plenty of terminal attacks that either have +2 cards or +$2, did you ever consider putting +1 card +$1 on one of those just for the novelty?
It is intentional.
Drawing cards gives you the risk of drawing a dead card. It feels especially bad when you only drew one card. I tried +1 Card anyway a few times and never liked it.
Also having a mix of +Cards and +$ where one is just +1 (e.g. +2 Cards +$1) feels wonky to me. I would need a good reason to do it; it's not being novel in a good way.
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Another card that can terminally draw exactly one card would be Storeroom. It avoids the problem of drawing something dead with its Secret Chamber part, though.
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There isn't a single terminal that has +1 card as part of it* - was that an active design choice? There are plenty of terminal attacks that either have +2 cards or +$2, did you ever consider putting +1 card +$1 on one of those just for the novelty?
*okay technically Pawn can be.
I'm sure I asked this one before; though not sure if it was in the interview thread or not.
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There isn't a single terminal that has +1 card as part of it* - was that an active design choice? There are plenty of terminal attacks that either have +2 cards or +$2, did you ever consider putting +1 card +$1 on one of those just for the novelty?
*okay technically Pawn can be.
I'm sureDid I asked this one before;? though not sure if it wWas in the interview thread? or not.
Fixed that for you; now you will know.
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If you had to be any villain, which one would you be, and why is the answer Darth Vader?
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If you had to be any villain, which one would you be, and why is the answer Darth Vader?
Well surely a mad scientist. I'd construct a lair on North Sentinel Island; that much is clear. I'm not sure what comes next; maybe make some kind of ray for changing the size of things?
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If you had to be any villain, which one would you be, and why is the answer Darth Vader?
Well surely a mad scientist. I'd construct a lair on North Sentinel Island; that much is clear. I'm not sure what comes next; maybe make some kind of ray for changing the size of things?
You could make everyone's rings/braclets/etc. just slightly larger, so that they are more prone to fall off their persons, and then your minions could grab them off the ground.
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If you had to be any villain, which one would you be, and why is the answer Darth Vader?
Well surely a mad scientist. I'd construct a lair on North Sentinel Island; that much is clear. I'm not sure what comes next; maybe make some kind of ray for changing the size of things?
I can see it now: Donald X in "Honey, I shrunk the uncontacted people group."
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Donald X's Shrink Ray versus David Sirlin's Ego would be a match I'd pay to see.
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Donald, how did you cope with The Great F.DS Outage of August 2016?
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You could make everyone's rings/braclets/etc. just slightly larger, so that they are more prone to fall off their persons, and then your minions could grab them off the ground.
Hello, police? Yeah, I think I've found the most sinister villain ever.
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You could make everyone's rings/braclets/pants/etc. just slightly larger, so that they are more prone to fall off their persons, and then your minions could grab them off the ground.
Hello, police? Yeah, I think I've found the most sinister villain ever.
now even more sinister
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Donald, how did you cope with The Great F.DS Outage of August 2016?
As it happens Stef had just said, so what about the campaigns, and I didn't have lists for a few levels somehow, so I refreshed the wiki many times. And when it finally worked the forums were still down but man I had my lists.
Yes I could have checked the live version, but I'd have needed to download a latest version probably, and what fun is that.
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When the new client comes out, do you think you'll play more / any Dominion online? Or is that like, rereading your own book, why do that?
Will the new client be used internally for new card testing?
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Donald, how did you cope with The Great F.DS Outage of August 2016?
As it happens Stef had just said, so what about the campaigns, and I didn't have lists for a few levels somehow, so I refreshed the wiki many times. And when it finally worked the forums were still down but man I had my lists.
Yes I could have checked the live version, but I'd have needed to download a latest version probably, and what fun is that.
So... there is use in me posting all of those up on the wiki? I've updated Base/Intrigue/Seaside/Cornucopia, and was starting Prosperity next, but I can get up Guilds/Adventures first if you need those for reference.
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When the new client comes out, do you think you'll play more / any Dominion online? Or is that like, rereading your own book, why do that?
I've played tons of online Dominion. It's a question of how much I'm accomplishing and what other games I could be playing.
I will probably play the new client a bunch before it comes out; I will be accomplishing things. After it comes out, it will depend on those factors.
Will the new client be used internally for new card testing?
It's possible.
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So... there is use in me posting all of those up on the wiki? I've updated Base/Intrigue/Seaside/Cornucopia, and was starting Prosperity next, but I can get up Guilds/Adventures first if you need those for reference.
I got all the lists I was missing, thanks.
I am tweaking the campaigns some, and none of the story will survive (I don't know if we will have a story at all, possibly not). So uh. Unless you think you will enjoy having lots of data on no longer existing versions of the campaigns, I would hold off on working on that stuff until January.
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So... there is use in me posting all of those up on the wiki? I've updated Base/Intrigue/Seaside/Cornucopia, and was starting Prosperity next, but I can get up Guilds/Adventures first if you need those for reference.
I got all the lists I was missing, thanks.
I am tweaking the campaigns some, and none of the story will survive (I don't know if we will have a story at all, possibly not). So uh. Unless you think you will enjoy having lots of data on no longer existing versions of the campaigns, I would hold off on working on that stuff until January.
Thanks for the tip.
I would recommend having a story, though - it's nice to have something flavorful to tie together the games. It's far more interesting to wonder if the Prince of Vaccara will find the thief who stole his poodle (or whatever, hopefully better story is come up with), rather than just playing Prosperity Game #13.
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I would recommend having a story, though - it's nice to have something flavorful to tie together the games. It's far more interesting to wonder if the Prince of Vaccara will find the thief who stole his poodle (or whatever, hopefully better story is come up with), rather than just playing Prosperity Game #13.
Well someone would need to write the stories. Not it.
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I would recommend having a story, though - it's nice to have something flavorful to tie together the games. It's far more interesting to wonder if the Prince of Vaccara will find the thief who stole his poodle (or whatever, hopefully better story is come up with), rather than just playing Prosperity Game #13.
Well someone would need to write the stories. Not it.
I mean, I'd be willing to offer my services as a writer. Only got two Kindle e-books on my resume, really, but just putting it out there.
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I would recommend having a story, though - it's nice to have something flavorful to tie together the games. It's far more interesting to wonder if the Prince of Vaccara will find the thief who stole his poodle (or whatever, hopefully better story is come up with), rather than just playing Prosperity Game #13.
Well someone would need to write the stories. Not it.
I mean, I'd be willing to offer my services as a writer. Only got two Kindle e-books on my resume, really, but just putting it out there.
Oooh I'm a writer too, I'd like to write the campaign stories. I usually write middle grade fantasy adventure.
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I would recommend having a story, though - it's nice to have something flavorful to tie together the games. It's far more interesting to wonder if the Prince of Vaccara will find the thief who stole his poodle (or whatever, hopefully better story is come up with), rather than just playing Prosperity Game #13.
Well someone would need to write the stories. Not it.
I mean, I'd be willing to offer my services as a writer. Only got two Kindle e-books on my resume, really, but just putting it out there.
Oooh I'm a writer too, I'd like to write the campaign stories. I usually write middle grade fantasy adventure.
Can somebody make a bracket of potential campaign writers?
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I would recommend having a story, though - it's nice to have something flavorful to tie together the games. It's far more interesting to wonder if the Prince of Vaccara will find the thief who stole his poodle (or whatever, hopefully better story is come up with), rather than just playing Prosperity Game #13.
Well someone would need to write the stories. Not it.
I mean, I'd be willing to offer my services as a writer. Only got two Kindle e-books on my resume, really, but just putting it out there.
Oooh I'm a writer too, I'd like to write the campaign stories. I usually write middle grade fantasy adventure.
Okay, I have made a note of it. Anyone else interested, lemme know.
If people are interested in writing the stories then man, we can have stories. It is not a paying gig, that was probably clear? Your name in lights and the satisfaction of a job well done are about the extent of it.
And I am going to estimate that it's a month off, maybe a bit more; really it makes sense to test the campaigns before writing the stories, so the stories don't refer to something that gets changed.
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If enough people volunteer, then it might be cool for each writer to write the stories for one expansion in the canpaigns. That is, if nobody minds having some different writing styles represented.
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I would recommend having a story, though - it's nice to have something flavorful to tie together the games. It's far more interesting to wonder if the Prince of Vaccara will find the thief who stole his poodle (or whatever, hopefully better story is come up with), rather than just playing Prosperity Game #13.
Well someone would need to write the stories. Not it.
I mean, I'd be willing to offer my services as a writer. Only got two Kindle e-books on my resume, really, but just putting it out there.
Oooh I'm a writer too, I'd like to write the campaign stories. I usually write middle grade fantasy adventure.
Okay, I have made a note of it. Anyone else interested, lemme know.
If people are interested in writing the stories then man, we can have stories. It is not a paying gig, that was probably clear? Your name in lights and the satisfaction of a job well done are about the extent of it.
And I am going to estimate that it's a month off, maybe a bit more; really it makes sense to test the campaigns before writing the stories, so the stories don't refer to something that gets changed.
I could write stuff.
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If enough people volunteer, then it might be cool for each writer to write the stories for one expansion in the canpaigns. That is, if nobody minds that we have some different writing styles represented.
I like this idea. Would probably be a good idea if the writers at least coordinated on characters and whatnot.
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I'm also up for writing a campaign.
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I'm also up for writing a campaign.
As am I, if I haven't become unavailable when it needs to happen.
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This is going to end badly...
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This is going to end badly...
Like when you had to fight Overlord Hogan IV, Lady Marigold, and Gentleman Walter all at once, to save your dog?
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I'm also up for writing a campaign.
As am I, if I haven't become unavailable when it needs to happen.
Same. I'm a good writer. Just read any of my posts :).
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I would recommend having a story, though - it's nice to have something flavorful to tie together the games. It's far more interesting to wonder if the Prince of Vaccara will find the thief who stole his poodle (or whatever, hopefully better story is come up with), rather than just playing Prosperity Game #13.
Well someone would need to write the stories. Not it.
I mean, I'd be willing to offer my services as a writer. Only got two Kindle e-books on my resume, really, but just putting it out there.
Oooh I'm a writer too, I'd like to write the campaign stories. I usually write middle grade fantasy adventure.
It is not a paying gig, that was probably clear? Your name in lights and the satisfaction of a job well done are about the extent of it.
Maybe a card created with our name on it. Like more Knights? ;)
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This is going to end badly...
Like when you had to fight Overlord Hogan IV, Lady Marigold, and Gentleman Walter all at once, to save your dog?
It's not the writing I am worried about.
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I would recommend having a story, though - it's nice to have something flavorful to tie together the games. It's far more interesting to wonder if the Prince of Vaccara will find the thief who stole his poodle (or whatever, hopefully better story is come up with), rather than just playing Prosperity Game #13.
Well someone would need to write the stories. Not it.
I mean, I'd be willing to offer my services as a writer. Only got two Kindle e-books on my resume, really, but just putting it out there.
Oooh I'm a writer too, I'd like to write the campaign stories. I usually write middle grade fantasy adventure.
It is not a paying gig, that was probably clear? Your name in lights and the satisfaction of a job well done are about the extent of it.
Maybe a card created with our name on it. Like more Knights? ;)
"Will write story for looking at my fan cards."
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If ADK is not doing at least one of these, I will be very disappointed.
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If ADK is not doing at least one of these, I will be very disappointed.
I mean, if Donald is interested in recruiting someone whose only credential is having written a stupid piece of fanfiction once, sure, I'll have a go.
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If ADK is not doing at least one of these, I will be very disappointed.
I mean, if Donald is interested in recruiting someone whose only credential is having written a stupidthe most respected piece of fanfiction once, sure, I'll have a go.
Fixed that for you.
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Come on, guys. If anybody is going to be doing writing, they must be prepared to set aside any personal ambitions. The writing should be for the betterment of Dominion. No strings attached, no rewards, no special Knights, nothing. I wouldn't even ask for a name in the credits. I only want the new app to be great, and I think I could help with that goal. If other people can write even better than I (which wouldn't be hard), then I would gladly give up my 'slot', if I even had one, to ensure the product is the best it can be.
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Come on, guys. If anybody is going to be doing writing, they must be prepared to set aside any personal ambitions. The writing should be for the betterment of Dominion. No strings attached, no rewards, no special Knights, nothing. I wouldn't even ask for a name in the credits. I only want the new app to be great, and I think I could help with that goal. If other people can write even better than I (which wouldn't be hard), then I would gladly give up my 'slot', if I even had one, to ensure the product is the best it can be.
Who is this aimed at? McGarnacle is the only comment I see which appears to be requesting any kind of recompense, and it's pretty clear that it's a joke.
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Come on, guys. If anybody is going to be doing writing, they must be prepared to set aside any personal ambitions. The writing should be for the betterment of Dominion. No strings attached, no rewards, no special Knights, nothing. I wouldn't even ask for a name in the credits. I only want the new app to be great, and I think I could help with that goal. If other people can write even better than I (which wouldn't be hard), then I would gladly give up my 'slot', if I even had one, to ensure the product is the best it can be.
Who is this aimed at? McGarnacle is the only comment I see which appears to be requesting any kind of recompense, and it's pretty clear that it's a joke.
Yeah, I guess it was a joke.
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I would recommend having a story, though - it's nice to have something flavorful to tie together the games. It's far more interesting to wonder if the Prince of Vaccara will find the thief who stole his poodle (or whatever, hopefully better story is come up with), rather than just playing Prosperity Game #13.
Well someone would need to write the stories. Not it.
I mean, I'd be willing to offer my services as a writer. Only got two Kindle e-books on my resume, really, but just putting it out there.
Oooh I'm a writer too, I'd like to write the campaign stories. I usually write middle grade fantasy adventure.
It is not a paying gig, that was probably clear? Your name in lights and the satisfaction of a job well done are about the extent of it.
Maybe a card created with our name on it. Like more Knights? ;)
No amount of winking faces are sufficient for me not to have to say, no, nothing like that will possibly happen. "Name in lights" meaning "name in tiny unreadable print on some page of the site that no-one ever looks at, that says who wrote the campaign stories."
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Note that the above statement does not exclude bribes in currency other than winking faces.
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Come on, guys. If anybody is going to be doing writing, they must be prepared to set aside any personal ambitions. The writing should be for the betterment of Dominion. No strings attached, no rewards, no special Knights, nothing. I wouldn't even ask for a name in the credits. I only want the new app to be great, and I think I could help with that goal. If other people can write even better than I (which wouldn't be hard), then I would gladly give up my 'slot', if I even had one, to ensure the product is the best it can be.
Ugh. So anyway.
People who care to may "get the chance, as if" to write text for campaign stories that almost no-one will ever care about, possibly not even them.
The original stories were written by Wei-Hwa's girlfriend. I think as many as zero other people checked to see if they were satisfied with them, and up they went.
It's possible Stef will say "what, we don't want stories" but I mean if someone is just handing over text it's probably easy enough to stick it on the screen.
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Note that the above statement does not exclude bribes in currency other than winking faces.
When you buy Stonemason, can you overpay with winking faces?
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Note that the above statement does not exclude bribes in currency other than winking faces.
When you buy Stonemason, can you overpay with winking faces?
Yes, you just can't go into winking-face debt.
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Come on, guys. If anybody is going to be doing writing, they must be prepared to set aside any personal ambitions. The writing should be for the betterment of Dominion. No strings attached, no rewards, no special Knights, nothing. I wouldn't even ask for a name in the credits. I only want the new app to be great, and I think I could help with that goal.
I think my name on a Knight would do much for the betterment of Dominion :).
Seriously though, I think this is a good idea, I would love to help!
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If you had a Dominion time machine, would you change all "if you do" on cards to "to", similarly to how effects are done on Reserves? Or is the clarity worth the extra words?
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If you had a Dominion time machine, would you change all "if you do" on cards to "to", similarly to how effects are done on Reserves? Or is the clarity worth the extra words?
I think the meaning is subtly different. "Call this card, to" is describing what calling this card actually results in. Think of if every action said "You may play this, to" before their effects.
"If you do" more clearly establishes the effect is conditional. There is a thing that happens if this other thing you're trying to do happens. Calling isn't really a thing you can fail to do and still expect anything to happen.
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If you had a Dominion time machine, would you change all "if you do" on cards to "to", similarly to how effects are done on Reserves? Or is the clarity worth the extra words?
Some cards would be really unclear with that change.
How would you do Soothsayer for instance?
I don't think
"Each other player takes a curse to draw a card."
is particularly good.
Maybe that's an edge case. But I think in general it's probably a change that only really works for optional effects:
"You may do X to get Y" is fine, but it's less clear just exactly how
"Do X to get Y" should be interpreted. Is that a command? Is it a long running effect that means you have to do X whenever you want to get Y?
Enough staring would get you to the right place I'm sure but I really think there's a big drop in clarity.
PPE. Welp. Ninjad.
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Note that the above statement does not exclude bribes in currency other than winking faces.
When you buy Stonemason, can you overpay with winking faces?
Yes, you just can't go into winking-face debt.
Actually, you would get two cards costing the amount of winking faces you overpaid.
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If you had a Dominion time machine, would you change all "if you do" on cards to "to", similarly to how effects are done on Reserves? Or is the clarity worth the extra words?
I think the meaning is subtly different. "Call this card, to" is describing what calling this card actually results in. Think of if every action said "You may play this, to" before their effects.
"If you do" more clearly establishes the effect is conditional. There is a thing that happens if this other thing you're trying to do happens. Calling isn't really a thing you can fail to do and still expect anything to happen.
Interesting. I never thought about it, but that you can't fail to call a card is true. Good point.
If you had a Dominion time machine, would you change all "if you do" on cards to "to", similarly to how effects are done on Reserves? Or is the clarity worth the extra words?
Some cards would be really unclear with that change.
How would you do Soothsayer for instance?
I don't think
"Each other player takes a curse to draw a card."
is particularly good.
Maybe that's an edge case. But I think in general it's probably a change that only really works for optional effects:
"You may do X to get Y" is fine, but it's less clear just exactly how
"Do X to get Y" should be interpreted. Is that a command? Is it a long running effect that means you have to do X whenever you want to get Y?
Enough staring would get you to the right place I'm sure but I really think there's a big drop in clarity.
PPE. Welp. Ninjad.
I guess asking about "all" occurences was dumb. It would look a bit weird on Soothsayer, but that's a rather unusual card, and it would work fine on choices. Then again, why introduce two variants without a distinct difference (like Reserves are)? I guess it does more harm than it helps. Edit: By that i mean it makes more sense to use "If you do" everywhere instead of having both.
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If you had a Dominion time machine, would you change all "if you do" on cards to "to", similarly to how effects are done on Reserves? Or is the clarity worth the extra words?
Not all, but some. I like it on "you may pay cost to get effect." Sometimes it's not as good, e.g. on "You may do thing. If you do, first thing happens, otherwise second thing happens."
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Especially with older cards, but have you ever seen the general F.DS (or otherwhere) come to a conclusion of a card's power and just think "man, they're way off"? Bonus points for cards the community eventually did indeed decided were much stronger or weaker than initially thought.
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Especially with older cards, but have you ever seen the general F.DS (or otherwhere) come to a conclusion of a card's power and just think "man, they're way off"? Bonus points for cards the community eventually did indeed decided were much stronger or weaker than initially thought.
Well it depends on what you mean as to how many people and for how long. There are always people disagreeing with whatever popular stance. The smaller a community is, the more likely they'll get stuck on "Pirate Ship is broken" or whatever it is. And the longer you have, the more likely you'll figure out, hmm maybe Chapel isn't just for Curses.
Lots of cards produce an initial reaction that is way off. It's hard to keep secrets though when you have a large group of people immediately playing endless online games.
Jack of All Trades stands out as a card that people initially were unimpressed by, then thought was broken. Make up your minds guys. In the early days, plenty of people stood up to say that Village was broken.
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Wait, Curses are bad? But in the Base Cards edition, people are Raven about them. Now I guess I'll have to eat crow before people give me the bird.
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Village is totally broken. It only costs $3, and if you buy all of them, then you could play 10 whole action cards and draw 10 more cards all on the same turn!
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Wait, Curses are bad? But in the Base Cards edition, people are Raven about them. Now I guess I'll have to eat crow before people give me the bird.
You're gonna get some ill-gotten groans for this post.
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Wait, Curses are bad? But in the Base Cards edition, people are Raven about them. Now I guess I'll have to eat crow before people give me the bird.
You're gonna get some ill-gotten groans for this post.
(https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/LDrY-ccymAuBfPn8e9w1ZXniZhizuFfg7NZwxyfKnOA.png)
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Wait, Curses are bad? But in the Base Cards edition, people are Raven about them. Now I guess I'll have to eat crow before people give me the bird.
You're gonna get some ill-gotten groans for this post.
That made my day. Thank you Donald!
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Wait, Curses are bad? But in the Base Cards edition, people are Raven about them. Now I guess I'll have to eat crow before people give me the bird.
You're gonna get some ill-gotten groans for this post.
Witch post? I can't sooth-see any posts, you hag.
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Wait, Curses are bad? But in the Base Cards edition, people are Raven about them. Now I guess I'll have to eat crow before people give me the bird.
You're gonna get some ill-gotten groans for this post.
Witch post? I can't sooth-see any posts, you hag.
I swear, the witch pun was hextremely predictable.
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Wait, Curses are bad? But in the Base Cards edition, people are Raven about them. Now I guess I'll have to eat crow before people give me the bird.
You're gonna get some ill-gotten groans for this post.
Witch post? I can't sooth-see any posts, you hag.
I swear, the witch pun was hextremely predictable.
Curses! I wanted to make that joke.
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Wait, Curses are bad? But in the Base Cards edition, people are Raven about them. Now I guess I'll have to eat crow before people give me the bird.
You're gonna get some ill-gotten groans for this post.
Witch post? I can't sooth-see any posts, you hag.
I swear, the witch pun was hextremely predictable.
Curses! I wanted to make that joke.
Then why is your post so much later? You must be a Swindler!
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We sure have a lot of Jesters here...
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We sure have a lot of Jesters here...
Questions aren't being answered anymore. All that happens are the same old jokes being flipped and copied over and over again.
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We sure have a lot of Jesters here...
Questions aren't being answered anymore. All that happens are the same old jokes being flipped and copied over and over again.
Some Swindler turned this Forum of questions into a Catacomb.
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Wait, Curses are bad? But in the Base Cards edition, people are Raven about them. Now I guess I'll have to eat crow before people give me the bird.
You're gonna get some ill-gotten groans for this post.
Witch post? I can't sooth-see any posts, you hag.
I swear, the witch pun was hextremely predictable.
Curses! I wanted to make that joke.
Then why is your post so much later? You must be a Swindler!
I didn't see it continued on the next page. Let me (e)state the obvious: This has been a p(l)easant experience.
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Let's try a question.
You've said that Scrying Pool would be a better card without the Attack part. Would it still Spy yourself to set up, or just live with the luck of the draw?
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You've said that Scrying Pool would be a better card without the Attack part. Would it still Spy yourself to set up, or just live with the luck of the draw?
You would just live with the luck of the draw, though of course you have a lot of other control over that luck.
Scrying Pool was that card, it did not Spy on anyone including yourself, and then I added the Spy part because I wanted the set to have another attack and the names were locked in and Scrying Pool sounded plausible as an attack. Golem was more plausible but I did not want to ruin Golem.
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You've said that Scrying Pool would be a better card without the Attack part. Would it still Spy yourself to set up, or just live with the luck of the draw?
You would just live with the luck of the draw, though of course you have a lot of other control over that luck.
Scrying Pool was that card, it did not Spy on anyone including yourself, and then I added the Spy part because I wanted the set to have another attack and the names were locked in and Scrying Pool sounded plausible as an attack. Golem was more plausible but I did not want to ruin Golem.
Thinking about it, golem could feasibly have had the fortune teller effect. It fits with the card theme.
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You've said that Scrying Pool would be a better card without the Attack part. Would it still Spy yourself to set up, or just live with the luck of the draw?
You would just live with the luck of the draw, though of course you have a lot of other control over that luck.
Scrying Pool was that card, it did not Spy on anyone including yourself, and then I added the Spy part because I wanted the set to have another attack and the names were locked in and Scrying Pool sounded plausible as an attack. Golem was more plausible but I did not want to ruin Golem.
Thinking about it, golem could feasibly have had the fortune teller effect. It fits with the card theme.
But does it fit on the card?
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Transmute could have cursed opponents when you trash a Potion and/or when you trash a copy of itself.
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You've said that Scrying Pool would be a better card without the Attack part. Would it still Spy yourself to set up, or just live with the luck of the draw?
You would just live with the luck of the draw, though of course you have a lot of other control over that luck.
Scrying Pool was that card, it did not Spy on anyone including yourself, and then I added the Spy part because I wanted the set to have another attack and the names were locked in and Scrying Pool sounded plausible as an attack. Golem was more plausible but I did not want to ruin Golem.
Thinking about it, golem could feasibly have had the fortune teller effect. It fits with the card theme.
But does it fit on the card?
i dunno, maybe.
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Did you ever consider not having thresholds on the variable VP cards? You could get rid of most by rounding at the end instead of per card (so 4 gardens at 46 cards is 18 points), or just have fractional VP (18.4 points).
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Did you ever consider not having thresholds on the variable VP cards? You could get rid of most by rounding at the end instead of per card (so 4 gardens at 46 cards is 18 points), or just have fractional VP (18.4 points).
Seems like that would be an hassle. I do wonder though, how come Alt-VP "round down" instead of "round up" for scoring purposes?
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Did you ever consider not having thresholds on the variable VP cards? You could get rid of most by rounding at the end instead of per card (so 4 gardens at 46 cards is 18 points), or just have fractional VP (18.4 points).
Seems like that would be an hassle. I do wonder though, how come Alt-VP "round down" instead of "round up" for scoring purposes?
Don't be greedy!
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Did you ever consider not having thresholds on the variable VP cards? You could get rid of most by rounding at the end instead of per card (so 4 gardens at 46 cards is 18 points), or just have fractional VP (18.4 points).
No, fractional points were not considered. If getting smaller amounts had been important, the move of course would be to multiply VP by some amount and then use whole numbers again. I didn't consider doing that either though. I had Vineyard early on and it was never an issue doing the math and rounding down.
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Did you ever consider not having thresholds on the variable VP cards? You could get rid of most by rounding at the end instead of per card (so 4 gardens at 46 cards is 18 points), or just have fractional VP (18.4 points).
No, fractional points were not considered. If getting smaller amounts had been important, the move of course would be to multiply VP by some amount and then use whole numbers again. I didn't consider doing that either though. I had Vineyard early on and it was never an issue doing the math and rounding down.
I also like the mechanic of having the different thresholds to try to get to. It makes deck tracking more important. "Should I get a Rats?" is much more of an interesting question if Vineyards is every 3, instead of every 1. Etc.
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What made you want to redo Intruige and Base? Are Seaside and Alchemy on the table for later?
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I can answer question two for you, Sigma. He won't answer that, as it pertains to the future. However, I do hope along with you that he does do more with Alchemy. It could be the solution to reusing Potion, who knows.
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I can answer question two for you, Sigma. He won't answer that, as it pertains to the future. However, I do hope along with you that he does do more with Alchemy. It could be the solution to reusing Potion, who knows.
I think an Alchemy sequel is more likely than an Alchemy "second edition" in Base/Intrigue style, and that's pretty unlikely itself.
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What made you want to redo Intruige and Base? Are Seaside and Alchemy on the table for later?
I will post a Secret History soon.
There are no plans to replace cards in other expansions. However all expansions prior to Empires will get improved wordings.
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What made you want to redo Intruige and Base? Are Seaside and Alchemy on the table for later?
I will post a Secret History soon.
There are no plans to replace cards in other expansions. However all expansions prior to Empires will get improved wordings.
Every card gets they pronouns! YOU get a they pronoun, and YOU get a they pronoun, and YOU get a they pronoun...
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What made you want to redo Intruige and Base? Are Seaside and Alchemy on the table for later?
I will post a Secret History soon.
There are no plans to replace cards in other expansions. However all expansions prior to Empires will get improved wordings.
Every card gets they pronouns! YOU get a they pronoun, and YOU get a they pronoun, and YOU get a they pronoun...
The replacement:
Tribute - $5 Action
The bastard to this bastard's left reveals the top 2 cards of that bastard's deck, then puts those bastards back in an order that bastard chooses.
This bastard gets 1VP per victory card revealed per other bastard sitting at the table.
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Will any of the cards in the update involve frobbing the snatz or jerping the hantry?
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Were "strictly better" considerations a concern for the new cards in Base and Intrigue? As in, did you avoid doing SomeCard+X because it would be strictly better than the removed SomeCard?
Edit: You'll probably not answer to this, anyhow. Never mind.
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Will you update the secret history of the Promos to include Sauna and Avanto?
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Will you update the secret history of the Promos to include Sauna and Avanto?
I'm guessing that'll happen once English speakers are able to acquire them.
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Will you update the secret history of the Promos to include Sauna and Avanto?
I'm guessing that'll happen once English speakers are able to acquire them.
Ice hole just sounds so funny I couldn't resist saying it.
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Will you update the secret history of the Promos to include Sauna and Avanto?
I'm guessing that'll happen once English speakers are able to acquire them.
Ice hole just sounds so funny I couldn't resist saying it.
Is Ice Hole actually going to be the translation?
I'd think at least something like "Ice Bath" would be better.
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Will you update the secret history of the Promos to include Sauna and Avanto?
I'm guessing that'll happen once English speakers are able to acquire them.
Ice hole just sounds so funny I couldn't resist saying it.
Is Ice Hole actually going to be the translation?
I'd think at least something like "Ice Bath" would be better.
Don't be an ice hole about it.
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Will Sauna/Avanto ship with a FAQ, or will one be provided later, like with Summon?
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Were "strictly better" considerations a concern for the new cards in Base and Intrigue? As in, did you avoid doing SomeCard+X because it would be strictly better than the removed SomeCard?
We tested a strictly better card that didn't make it; being strictly better than a removed card did feel like a point against it, though I don't know if that would have been enough to kill it by itself. None of the new cards are strictly better than another Dominion card (I use the term in the way most Magic players do, e.g. including cost).
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Will you update the secret history of the Promos to include Sauna and Avanto?
Sure I can write something up.
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Will you update the secret history of the Promos to include Sauna and Avanto?
I'm guessing that'll happen once English speakers are able to acquire them.
Ice hole just sounds so funny I couldn't resist saying it.
Is Ice Hole actually going to be the translation?
I'd think at least something like "Ice Bath" would be better.
The English cards are called Sauna and Avanto (and the randomizer Sauna / Avanto).
I don't actually know what the Finnish versions will be called. That's up to them, though I feel like I went the extra mile for them here.
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Will Sauna/Avanto ship with a FAQ, or will one be provided later, like with Summon?
I haven't written a FAQ, so I don't think it will be provided with one.
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I don't actually know what the Finnish versions will be called. That's up to them, though I feel like I went the extra mile for them here.
Finland will become Fanland. All according to plan.
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Why did Mine get a "you may", but not Remodel?
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Why did Mine get a "you may", but not Remodel?
Presumably because the old Mine is cheatable, but Remodel is not. Specifically, you can play the old Mine and say "I don't actually have any treasure in hand"; there's no "or reveal a hand with no Treasure" clause to prove you right or wrong. With Remodel, it's public knowledge that you do (or don't) have an additional card in your hand, so there's no way to cheat its play. (I know you know this, but for newer players, this matters for things like Conspirator and Peddler that care about the number of actions/action cards played in a turn.)
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Yeah, Magic does the same sort of thing with which deck searches are optional + revealed ("a creature") and which are hidden + mandatory "any card".
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Why did Mine get a "you may", but not Remodel?
Presumably because the old Mine is cheatable, but Remodel is not. Specifically, you can play the old Mine and say "I don't actually have any treasure in hand"; there's no "or reveal a hand with no Treasure" clause to prove you right or wrong. With Remodel, it's public knowledge that you do (or don't) have an additional card in your hand, so there's no way to cheat its play. (I know you know this, but for newer players, this matters for things like Conspirator and Peddler that care about the number of actions/action cards played in a turn.)
Correct. The entire point to the Mine change was to remove the potential to cheat (that in practice would never come up, but still).
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For cards that were removed from Dominion/Intrigue and didn't get an obvious analogue (e.g. Coppersmith), is it now more likely for those concepts to reappear sometime in the future?
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For cards that were removed from Dominion/Intrigue and didn't get an obvious analogue (e.g. Coppersmith), is it now more likely for those concepts to reappear sometime in the future?
Not really. They're not off the table, but it's not like I'm specifically trying to do them.
I did test new Coppersmiths for Intrigue. They did not work out.
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Dominion products used to say 8+ but now say 14+, including the base game. Why the change?
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Legal reasons I think. "Toys" need to be certified to not contain lead or something if they are supposed to be sold to kids I believe.
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Will the updated versions of later expansions be marked as such in any way?
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If the original Dominion is New York City and the last Dominion expansion you do is Los Angeles, where are we on the map?
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Dominion products used to say 8+ but now say 14+, including the base game. Why the change?
As I understand it, Mattel had some made-in-China toys that had lead in them. Congress sprang into action and got behind requiring lead testing in children's products, including ones that had never been suspected of lead and would have no reason to have lead, such as books. Your choices on a board game are to say 13+ or get lead testing on every batch. Hasbro or ELM however didn't want to risk that number (I don't know the precise phrasing of the laws) and required 14+.
And so where does Mattel get their lead testing done? In China of course, it's cheaper.
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Will the updated versions of later expansions be marked as such in any way?
Not with a big "second edition," but I think there will at least tend to be a way to distinguish them from the back covers.
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If the original Dominion is New York City and the last Dominion expansion you do is Los Angeles, where are we on the map?
My time machine appears to be broken.
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If the original Dominion is New York City and the last Dominion expansion you do is Los Angeles, where are we on the map?
My time machine appears to be broken.
I'd say we're currently kayaking across the Pacific ocean.
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If the original Dominion is New York City and the last Dominion expansion you do is Los Angeles, where are we on the map?
My time machine appears to be broken.
I'd say we're currently kayaking across the Pacific ocean.
*Pearl Diving
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And so where does Mattel get their lead testing done? In China of course, it's cheaper.
LOL
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Dominion products used to say 8+ but now say 14+, including the base game. Why the change?
Base, Intrigue, and Seaside are 8+. The US lead-testing requirements were strengthened in 2010, between the release of Seaside and Prosperity, after cadmium was found in toys imported from China in 2010. Since Prosperity, Dominion has been 13 or 14+.
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Dominion products used to say 8+ but now say 14+, including the base game. Why the change?
Base, Intrigue, and Seaside are 8+. The US lead-testing requirements were strengthened in 2010, between the release of Seaside and Prosperity, after cadmium was found in toys imported from China in 2010. Since Prosperity, Dominion has been 13 or 14+.
The 2nd editions say 14+. I'm assuming future printings of all expansions say the same.
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Does the second edition of Dominion still have the concept of the four "pillars," presumably with Bandit as the replacement for Thief? Or do the changes make that no longer a thing?
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If you had a Dominion time machine, would you change all "if you do" on cards to "to", similarly to how effects are done on Reserves? Or is the clarity worth the extra words?
Woah, predicted the future.
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If you had a Dominion time machine, would you change all "if you do" on cards to "to", similarly to how effects are done on Reserves? Or is the clarity worth the extra words?
Not all, but some. I like it on "you may pay cost to get effect." Sometimes it's not as good, e.g. on "You may do thing. If you do, first thing happens, otherwise second thing happens."
New Baron seems to differ from this post.
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Why didn't Trading Post get the new "to" wording?
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If you had a Dominion time machine, would you change all "if you do" on cards to "to", similarly to how effects are done on Reserves? Or is the clarity worth the extra words?
Woah, predicted the future.
I knew you would say that.
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Does the second edition of Dominion still have the concept of the four "pillars," presumably with Bandit as the replacement for Thief? Or do the changes make that no longer a thing?
Well it's more like 26 pillars, if you see what I mean. There are certainly still cards that shake things up more than other cards, but every card tries to contribute there.
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Why didn't Trading Post get the new "to" wording?
It's a feel thing. Maybe when the 5th edition comes out in 24 years I will manage to be more consistent. On a few cards I felt that saying "if you do" helped; here it's because you might only have one card and yet still want to trash it.
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Remodel (2nd ed) says: "Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $2 more than it."
Doesn't this, uh, cause issues with blue dogs and possession?
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Remodel (2nd ed) says: "Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $2 more than it."
Doesn't this, uh, cause issues with blue dogs and possession?
How would it?
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Remodel (2nd ed) says: "Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $2 more than it."
Doesn't this, uh, cause issues with blue dogs and possession?
It's exactly the same functionality. "It" is shorthand for "the trashed card". No difference at all.
The blue dog issue was a result of the "it" on Ironworks being interpreted as "the card you chose to gain" instead of "the card you gained". It was ruled eventually that it referred to "the card you gained". Note that Upgrade has always said "it" instead of "the trashed card".
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It was ruled eventually that it referred to "the card you gained".
Oh, I must have missed that ruling. So, if I ironworks a woodcutter and reveal a Trader to change gain, do I get 1 coin?
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It was ruled eventually that it referred to "the card you gained".
Oh, I must have missed that ruling. So, if I ironworks a woodcutter and reveal a Trader to change gain, do I get 1 coin?
No, you get nothing. If you want to read up on this, probably the wiki links to the thread.
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It was ruled eventually that it referred to "the card you gained".
Oh, I must have missed that ruling. So, if I ironworks a woodcutter and reveal a Trader to change gain, do I get 1 coin?
No, you get nothing. If you want to read up on this, probably the wiki links to the thread.
I see, it's as I remembered it, thank you.
I misunderstood Gendo's post as "the card that you eventually gained, no matter what made you gain it".
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It was ruled eventually that it referred to "the card you gained".
Oh, I must have missed that ruling. So, if I ironworks a woodcutter and reveal a Trader to change gain, do I get 1 coin?
No, you get nothing.
(https://media.tenor.co/images/9892f701ba7a30e78540b9e4f555aebe/tenor.gif)
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It was ruled eventually that it referred to "the card you gained".
Oh, I must have missed that ruling. So, if I ironworks a woodcutter and reveal a Trader to change gain, do I get 1 coin?
No, you get nothing. If you want to read up on this, probably the wiki links to the thread.
I see, it's as I remembered it, thank you.
I misunderstood Gendo's post as "the card that you eventually gained, no matter what made you gain it".
Yeah sorry. By "the card you gained" I meant "the card you gained as a result of the 'gain a card' instruction on Ironworks". The fact that Trader makes you gain a card instead of gaining a card is coincidence, it plays the same as if Trader said "when you would gain a card, reveal this. If you do, +1 card instead".
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This has probably already been answered like, (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/0/02/Coin14.png/16px-Coin14.png) times, but will there be a Secret History of the 2nd Editions?
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I will post a Secret History when the cards are available, going over all of the changes and the new cards.
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What was the thought process behind the changes made to the recommended sets for 2nd edition? I guess I was expecting more 1-to-1 replacement relationships, but aside from Thief -> Bandit that didn't really happen.
(I am particularly curious about Mining Village -> Diplomat in the Intrigue/Dark Ages set "Invasion". Is there a story there?)
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What was the thought process behind the changes made to the recommended sets for 2nd edition? I guess I was expecting more 1-to-1 replacement relationships, but aside from Thief -> Bandit that didn't really happen.
(I am particularly curious about Mining Village -> Diplomat in the Intrigue/Dark Ages set "Invasion". Is there a story there?)
The core thought process was "oh man I have to get this done, ugh." I have spent so much time picking sets of 10 cards for a game that's supposed to work with any random 10.
For everything except the main set and Intrigue by themselves and together (e.g. main set plus Prosperity) (oh except also the missing ones, I forget what set combinations but you know, not every set combination existed)... I just tried to use the new cards about equally while replacing the old cards. It couldn't be one-to-one because there were 7 cards replacing 6. Bandit was such a direct replacement of Thief that I just swapped it in, and then for the rest I gave myself short lists of options.
For the main set and Intrigue pure and combined, I needed to revise things enough that some of them are just new, and some are way different. And we played those.
There's no story to Invasion. I was never replacing Mining Village the card. Either I just mistakingly marked it as needing changing in that set of 10, or I was trying to up the usage of Diplomat.
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Hi Donald!
What games do you consider your personal "primordial ooze"? Magic: The Gathering is an obvious influence that you've talked about, are there others?
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What games do you consider your personal "primordial ooze"? Magic: The Gathering is an obvious influence that you've talked about, are there others?
Primordial Ooze, that's that uncommon in Legends for R that gets bigger but has upkeep. The main thing to do with it was to give it to your opponent with Gauntlets of Chaos.
In my youth I played D&D. I played other games here and there but mostly didn't see much until post-Magic. Magic got me interested in seriously designing games, and also introduced me to other gamers who were playing German games.
There is also the computer game angle - the early Ultima games, Heroes of Might and Magic II & III.
In the late 90s I played a lot of Knizia games.
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There is also the computer game angle - the early Ultima games, Heroes of Might and Magic II & III.
Ah, Heroes of Might and Magic III. I still play that to this day. I've never played II, though. Is it good?
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There is also the computer game angle - the early Ultima games, Heroes of Might and Magic II & III.
Ah, Heroes of Might and Magic III. I still play that to this day. I've never played II, though. Is it good?
Sure it's great.
I also highly recommend Dudes of Stuff and Things, which is somewhere in this thread.
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Why is Mint's treasure trashing on-buy rather than on-gain?
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Why is Mint's treasure trashing on-buy rather than on-gain?
While I don't mean to suggest this is the intended rationale for the card being the way it is, one consequence is that there's no schenanigans if you use Trader to instead gain a Silver.
It is also less confusing if you use Watchtower to Trash it; it's more clear that you trash the Treasures anyway.
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You're also more likely to actually have Treasures in play when you buy it. It also gives you an out if you don't want to trash.
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In your recent secret history, you talked about a treasure card stating "name a card, worth $1 per copy of it you have in play". You mentioned this as a possible Coppersmith replacement, but it also reminds me of a (flexible and stackable) card version of Training.
I can see this card not being great in a lot of slog type decks, but it seems like it would be amazing payload after setting up any sort of draw-your-deck engine. Depending on the action card splits, each of these would easily be worth $4-6.
Can you elaborate a bit on why this card "just wasn't worth it"?
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In your recent secret history, you talked about a treasure card stating "name a card, worth $1 per copy of it you have in play". You mentioned this as a possible Coppersmith replacement, but it also reminds me of a (flexible and stackable) card version of Training.
I can see this card not being great in a lot of slog type decks, but it seems like it would be amazing payload after setting up any sort of draw-your-deck engine. Depending on the action card splits, each of these would easily be worth $4-6.
Please take note that in a game with more than two players, your "share" of any given pile is significantly smaller.
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In your recent secret history, you talked about a treasure card stating "name a card, worth $1 per copy of it you have in play". You mentioned this as a possible Coppersmith replacement, but it also reminds me of a (flexible and stackable) card version of Training.
I can see this card not being great in a lot of slog type decks, but it seems like it would be amazing payload after setting up any sort of draw-your-deck engine. Depending on the action card splits, each of these would easily be worth $4-6.
Please take note that in a game with more than two players, your "share" of any given pile is significantly smaller.
But hey at the very least it's a nonterminal Coppersmith. ;D
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Why is Mint's treasure trashing on-buy rather than on-gain?
Probably because it started that way and then didn't change. It wasn't a secret that it was buy rather than gain; I had Hinterlands already, and had to FAQ the Royal Seal interaction. Later with (more focused work on) Hinterlands it became a thing, I tried to make everything when-gain but couldn't. But with Mint I think it was just like that and it worked fine so so much for that.
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In your recent secret history, you talked about a treasure card stating "name a card, worth $1 per copy of it you have in play". You mentioned this as a possible Coppersmith replacement, but it also reminds me of a (flexible and stackable) card version of Training.
I can see this card not being great in a lot of slog type decks, but it seems like it would be amazing payload after setting up any sort of draw-your-deck engine. Depending on the action card splits, each of these would easily be worth $4-6.
Can you elaborate a bit on why this card "just wasn't worth it"?
The main test was of course, there it was, we bought it and it sucked, then we stopped buying it.
Yes you can compare it to Training, and that was clear, that comparison. They are so very different though. Let's consider an example.
1A. I draw two Villages and have Trained them. I get +$2. And I didn't have to draw Training; it's like I drew two Peddlers (on top of the two Villages).
1B. I draw two Villages and Treasure Name-a-card Coppersmith. I name Village. The card was a Silver. Silver: not as good as two Peddlers.
2A. I draw three Villages and have Trained them. Now I get +$3, it was like three Peddlers.
2B. I draw three Villages. I don't draw Treasure Name-a-card Coppersmith; I drew it on the two Villages turn. Nothing at all: not as good as three Peddlers.
Yes if everything goes your way, you draw your deck every turn in a game with no way to trash Coppers, and this card is a Treasure worth $7, yeeha. You don't start out with everything going your way, don't get there first by buying bad cards, and everything going your way is already awesome without this card. I mean, Coppersmith: also worth $7 if you draw your deck every turn and didn't trash your Coppers.
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This card seems like really good payload.
If i draw my deck with 5 of these I have like 30 coins in that alone. No way this is underpowered. The first one is less powerful than training but training doesn't stack. Reminds me of a game I played today where I played a whole bunch of lost arted rabbles then 5 soldiers. I wish that this situation was more common.
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This card seems like really good payload.
If i draw my deck with 5 of these I have like 30 coins in that alone. No way this is underpowered. The first one is less powerful than training but training doesn't stack. Reminds me of a game I played today where I played a whole bunch of lost arted rabbles then 5 soldiers. I wish that this situation was more common.
Feel free to do your own playtesting! We did ours, and the card didn't make it. No regrets there.
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This card seems like really good payload.
If i draw my deck with 5 of these I have like 30 coins in that alone. No way this is underpowered. The first one is less powerful than training but training doesn't stack. Reminds me of a game I played today where I played a whole bunch of lost arted rabbles then 5 soldiers. I wish that this situation was more common.
Playing 5 Soldiers seems pretty rare
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Playing 5 Soldiers seems pretty rare
Standing by for a game log...
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Soldier is world greatest payload. I mean, it's kotnrate that I have at least 3 in play during a teacher game. Often times more.
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In your recent secret history, you talked about a treasure card stating "name a card, worth $1 per copy of it you have in play". You mentioned this as a possible Coppersmith replacement, but it also reminds me of a (flexible and stackable) card version of Training.
I can see this card not being great in a lot of slog type decks, but it seems like it would be amazing payload after setting up any sort of draw-your-deck engine. Depending on the action card splits, each of these would easily be worth $4-6.
Can you elaborate a bit on why this card "just wasn't worth it"?
The main test was of course, there it was, we bought it and it sucked, then we stopped buying it.
Yes you can compare it to Training, and that was clear, that comparison. They are so very different though. Let's consider an example.
1A. I draw two Villages and have Trained them. I get +$2. And I didn't have to draw Training; it's like I drew two Peddlers (on top of the two Villages).
1B. I draw two Villages and Treasure Name-a-card Coppersmith. I name Village. The card was a Silver. Silver: not as good as two Peddlers.
2A. I draw three Villages and have Trained them. Now I get +$3, it was like three Peddlers.
2B. I draw three Villages. I don't draw Treasure Name-a-card Coppersmith; I drew it on the two Villages turn. Nothing at all: not as good as three Peddlers.
Yes if everything goes your way, you draw your deck every turn in a game with no way to trash Coppers, and this card is a Treasure worth $7, yeeha. You don't start out with everything going your way, don't get there first by buying bad cards, and everything going your way is already awesome without this card. I mean, Coppersmith: also worth $7 if you draw your deck every turn and didn't trash your Coppers.
I don't doubt you had your reasons to drop the card (probably not mainly strength), but for completeness sake, in your comparison you left out the cases where Training is worse:
3A. I play three Markets. I trained Village. I get nothing.
3B. I play three Markets. I draw Treasure Name-A-Card Coppersmith. The card is a Gold.
Gold as a good-case outcome is still not much value for a card which would have to cost $5 (unless you consider doing straight upgrades and cost it $4) but things like adding a buy or some effect on gain (like Border Village) seem plausible options to boost it.
To repeat, these are just arguments about strength - i have no idea how much fun playing with the card was, which might be enough reason to give up on it either way. Actually, i'd be kind of surprised if you had felt the card was fun and dropped it because you couldn't make it strong enough. There's enough room for that.
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3A. I play three Markets. I trained Village. I get nothing.
3B. I play three Markets. I draw Treasure Name-A-Card Coppersmith. The card is a Gold.
what this example illustrates, though, is that training gives you money if you can play a lot of one certain card. [new thing] is good uh if you draw it with a bunch of cards that are the same
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So yeah, in the non-draw-your-deck scenario, "Name-A-Coppersmith" can often whiff or end up as just a silver. I was thinking more of the instances where you've trashed all your coppers & estates, and then won the Hunting Party split 6-4. Or won the Magpie/Peddler/etc split 7-3.
To simplify the examples/scenarios:
1. You are able to play most of your deck every turn -- including at least one card you can play 4+ of. "Name-A-Coppersmith" is anything from just a good payload to a megaturn enabler.
2. You aren't able to play most of your deck every turn. If you're lucky, you might line something up, but you should probably just skip this card.
Seems perfect -- a super powerful (best case) card that is often skippable depending on the board. But you're right...you've played with it, and I haven't. Maybe I'm just missing something.
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Playing 5 Soldiers seems pretty rare
Standing by for a game log...
http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20161005/log.0.1475707173326.txt
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To repeat, these are just arguments about strength - i have no idea how much fun playing with the card was, which might be enough reason to give up on it either way. Actually, i'd be kind of surprised if you had felt the card was fun and dropped it because you couldn't make it strong enough. There's enough room for that.
Dominion and Intrigue especially did not want to add a second concept to a card to make it good enough (yes Diplomat has two concepts, but something had to be a Reaction). Some other set could do that, a when-gain or something, but these sets wanted sleek cards. I think the only thing acceptable would have been +1 Buy, and Intrigue has plenty of +Buy, and I don't want to make very many +Buy Treasures, and then Empires had Charm (the other set this card tried out for). Costing $4 wasn't an option (without a penalty that would have been a second concept).
It's hard to separate "it sucked" from "it was no fun" but well it sucked and was no fun. It looked nice on paper.
A card that's only good when you're drawing your deck, and is strong then, is just not something I am ever in need of.
And I mean, if there's a way to fix it up maybe I will hit on it someday, and in the meantime y'all can talk about that in the variants forum.
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what this example illustrates, though, is that training gives you money if you can play a lot of one certain card. [new thing] is good uh if you draw it with a bunch of cards that are the same
Or as I like to put, they are different all the ways they are different.
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To repeat, these are just arguments about strength - i have no idea how much fun playing with the card was, which might be enough reason to give up on it either way. Actually, i'd be kind of surprised if you had felt the card was fun and dropped it because you couldn't make it strong enough. There's enough room for that.
Dominion and Intrigue especially did not want to add a second concept to a card to make it good enough (yes Diplomat has two concepts, but something had to be a Reaction). Some other set could do that, a when-gain or something, but these sets wanted sleek cards. I think the only thing acceptable would have been +1 Buy, and Intrigue has plenty of +Buy, and I don't want to make very many +Buy Treasures, and then Empires had Charm (the other set this card tried out for). Costing $4 wasn't an option (without a penalty that would have been a second concept).
Oh, right, when i suggested these two I forgot you worked with the restrictions of Base and Intrigue. It's great what you did to the sets with this re-visit.
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So, sooner or later all the promos will get a reprint, cool.
This made me wonder about a few pointless things: Will the 2nd edition promos all use the Summon/Sauna banner as their expansion symbol or will they keep their original symbols? Will Stash' back change now that Dominion's box lost the SdJ pawn? Will Black Market's setup procedure change? (I suppose not)
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So, sooner or later all the promos will get a reprint, cool.
This made me wonder about a few pointless things: Will the 2nd edition promos all use the Summon/Sauna banner as their expansion symbol or will they keep their original symbols? Will Stash' back change now that Dominion's box lost the SdJ pawn? Will Black Market's setup procedure change? (I suppose not)
Someday, we will know these things; then we will be as gods.
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Then, a question from the past:
I see that Conspirator stayed the same with the second edition, despite the "peddler" wording being generally less confusing (counting actions in play vs actions you played).
Is there a specific reason for this? Was this change even considered?
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Then, a question from the past:
I see that Conspirator stayed the same with the second edition, despite the "peddler" wording being generally less confusing (counting actions in play vs actions you played).
Is there a specific reason for this? Was this change even considered?
As a whole, cards did not receive functional changes except for the reason that the original had an actual problem; not just for having an inferior option. Throne Room, etc, had accountability issues. Masquerade had an unintended side effect of stealing cards. Conspirator, while it would be easier to track the other way, doesn't have an actual problem.
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Then, a question from the past:
I see that Conspirator stayed the same with the second edition, despite the "peddler" wording being generally less confusing (counting actions in play vs actions you played).
Is there a specific reason for this? Was this change even considered?
As a whole, cards did not receive functional changes except for the reason that the original had an actual problem; not just for having an inferior option. Throne Room, etc, had accountability issues. Masquerade had an unintended side effect of stealing cards. Conspirator, while it would be easier to track the other way, doesn't have an actual problem.
Most of these are the way you'll play them, either way. This also applies for Masquerade - it only locks out one very specific and very absusive use case, but doesn't change the way it play when you don't abuse it.
By the way, does this equal there being an errata for Masquerade in the sense that even first edition Masquerade works the way the new one is printed now? I certainly hope so.
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By the way, does this equal there being an errata for Masquerade in the sense that even first edition Masquerade works the way the new one is printed now? I certainly hope so.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16263.msg638886#msg638886
canonically, will the errata on mine, throne room, and moneylender apply retroactively? will the police come if i tell my friend that she has to play an action if she has one when she plays throne room
I recommend doing what you most want, unless it's stopping someone from doing what they want, unless what they want is also stopping someone from doing what they want, uh okay I think an even number of stoppings means it's okay, an odd number is bad.
For tournaments it will be up to the people running the tournament. If I were running a tournament I'd use the new cards and also go by the wordings on them.
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Then, a question from the past:
I see that Conspirator stayed the same with the second edition, despite the "peddler" wording being generally less confusing (counting actions in play vs actions you played).
Is there a specific reason for this? Was this change even considered?
I did consider that change, plus changing Mining Village somehow to get rid of Throne / Mining Village confusion. [And those were the only other changes really considered.]
Changing Conspirator would have mattered constantly, rather than rarely; the idea was not to really change cards. The situations that make the other changes matter are rare to essentially nonexistent; Conspirator would have been different in game after game, due to duration cards and reserve cards.
Also I didn't get to it in a timely fashion; I remembered it one day and LF said, well we'd have to test that, and he was right, it was enough of a buff to need testing, and that testing wasn't happening.
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Did you even have to play test Landmarks?
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Did you even have to play test Landmarks?
Yeah, and it's a good thing we did. Originally they barely ever mattered.
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Did you even have to play test Landmarks?
They of course got a lot of testing. They were a bottleneck - as with Events we were only playing with two and so it takes a while to get them all into games, and then they distort testing of other elements so you can't use them when you really want to closely evaluate something else.
As with kingdom cards - which everyone can buy so why balance those either? - you still want them to matter enough, to not matter too much, and to be fun.
The Secret History of course lists lots of outtakes, as well as changes made to the published Landmarks. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15660.0
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Can you tell us a bit more about that extra turn debt card that you mentioned in the secret history of the empires cards? Eg. did it have a restriction or was it just very expensive?
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Can you tell us a bit more about that extra turn debt card that you mentioned in the secret history of the empires cards? Eg. did it have a restriction or was it just very expensive?
"If the previous turn wasn't yours, take another turn after this one." At 10 debt though that doesn't mean much given how quickly the card was dropped.
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Who chose the size for Dominion cards, and why?
Were other sizes ever tested?
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Who chose the size for Dominion cards, and why?
Were other sizes ever tested?
No sizes were "tested." Jay picked an existing standard size of cards used in European card games. I think the idea was "this is a normal size I've used before."
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Do you use art for the prototypes of your new cards like you did back in the day? If so would you ever consider posting them?
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Do you use art for the prototypes of your new cards like you did back in the day? If so would you ever consider posting them?
Most of the art ended up on isotropic, and is viewable on the wiki, up to Prince. At one point, jsh was going to hook me up with the Adventures iso art, but that never ended up happening. Some of it can be found in the enormous outtakes article Donald X wrote after Guilds, if you look hard enough. For example, Royal Carriage is in there somewhere.
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Do you use art for the prototypes of your new cards like you did back in the day? If so would you ever consider posting them?
I still use google'd art, yes. For most cards in most games, although sometimes a particular kind of card doesn't get art for some reason, and in an early test of a game I may leave the art blank in case the game ends up changed a lot right away, or abandoned.
I don't really like posting the art as it's not mine. Technically someone could complain about me posting their copyrighted image. I went for it and posted the outtakes article anyway but I'm not looking to do more of that.
As wero notes most of the art was used on isotropic. A few prototype cards had the actual art (e.g. Goons was made to have something for that art) and so isotropic doesn't have that.
I am looking through Adventures and Empires for anything recognizable.
- Miser shows Scrooge McDuck.
- Transmogrify shows Calvin getting under the box.
- Groundskeeper is Hagrid.
- Labyrinth is from the movie.
A few cards must show up in the outtakes article as different cards:
- Dungeon, Artificer, Swamp Hag, Treasure Trove, Royal Blacksmith (the Old Blacksmith mouse), Farmers' Market, Engineer, Forum, Settlers.
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Why isn't Donate named Decimate?
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Hey Donald, I hear you won the US Presidency! What are your policies moving forward now that you have won the most prestigious job in all of the world?
Donald X. Trump: Make Dominion Great Again!
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Why isn't Donate named Decimate?
...because I had a better name, no surprise there?
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Hey Donald, I hear you won the US Presidency! What are your policies moving forward now that you have won the most prestigious job in all of the world?
It does super suck when your name reminds people of a famous person they hate. Thanks for mentioning it.
Are we done with this thread? It's another one of those times when the thread feels done.
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Hey Donald, I hear you won the US Presidency! What are your policies moving forward now that you have won the most prestigious job in all of the world?
It does super suck when your name reminds people of a famous person they hate. Thanks for mentioning it.
Are we done with this thread? It's another one of those times when the thread feels done.
Dude, I always have tons of questions to ask at any given moment. Like, what is your favorite ice cream flavor?
And, more importantly, does it change over time? If yes, how has it changed?
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Dude, I always have tons of questions to ask at any given moment. Like, what is your favorite ice cream flavor?
It's just, it doesn't seem fair to let you, by yourself, kill this thread. So I mean, maybe give it a rest?
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Hey Donald, I hear you won the US Presidency! What are your policies moving forward now that you have won the most prestigious job in all of the world?
It does super suck when your name reminds people of a famous person they hate. Thanks for mentioning it.
Are we done with this thread? It's another one of those times when the thread feels done.
Dude, I always have tons of questions to ask at any given moment. Like, what is your favorite ice cream flavor?
And, more importantly, does it change over time? If yes, how has it changed?
The secret history of Donald X's favorite ice cream flavors.
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I think the most important question to ask is, if you could go back in time, which of your favorite ice cream flavors would you change and why?
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1.) A lot of the Landmarks are basically "do this specific thing, get 2VP for it six times". Did you every try those with 1 or 3VP?
2.) Messenger seems like the perfect replacement for Woodcutter and Chancellor, yet you said that you started working on the second edition after Adventures was released. Did the card infuence your decision to get rid of the old ones?
3.) There hasn't been a draw to X card in quite a while, what's up with that? Do you consider that mechanic more of an exotic variant to regular draw instead of a basic game mechanic? It saddens me a little that draw to X engines are pretty rare, they're so much fun.
4.) Do you consider Travellers to have an Adventures flavour or could they fit into any expansion?
5.) The japanese community found out about forum/trader/goons/cost reduction. This is a lot less complicated than the last infinite loop people were presenting, so it may actually come up in a game. If you had time machine, would you have worded anything differently to avoid that or is it too unimportant?
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3.) There hasn't been a draw to X card in quite a while, what's up with that? Do you consider that mechanic more of an exotic variant to regular draw instead of a basic game mechanic? It saddens me a little that draw to X engines are pretty rare, they're so much fun.
Diplomat is draw to X, except it's not completely busted in the situations that Library would be busted in and not completely useless in the situations were Library would be that. So that is one fairly recently released draw to X card. Apart from that, Empires couldn't have one because of Villa, Adventures couldn't have one because of Artificer (maybe not so bad) and Guilds was a small set and as such didn't have a lot of things. And before then half the sets did have draw to X.
1.) A lot of the Landmarks are basically "do this specific thing, get 2VP for it six times". Did you every try those with 1 or 3VP?
From The Secret History:
Colonnade: It was 1 VP when buying an Action you had in play, then 2 VP, then 2 VP with a limited supply of VP.
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1.) A lot of the Landmarks are basically "do this specific thing, get 2VP for it six times". Did you every try those with 1 or 3VP?
The ones that take the VP from the card were always 2 VP (some gave different amounts not-from-the-card, like the Colonnade example or Tomb). Being consistent like that helps you learn the cards. It ends up easy on the components too, we included 2 VP tokens and you just put those on the card and don't make change as often.
2.) Messenger seems like the perfect replacement for Woodcutter and Chancellor, yet you said that you started working on the second edition after Adventures was released. Did the card infuence your decision to get rid of the old ones?
No. It had been clear for some years that Chancellor was too confusing and weak, and I had already one-upped it with Scavenger. And Woodcutter only left because I could put something more interesting in.
3.) There hasn't been a draw to X card in quite a while, what's up with that? Do you consider that mechanic more of an exotic variant to regular draw instead of a basic game mechanic? It saddens me a little that draw to X engines are pretty rare, they're so much fun.
There's nothing up. I think "draw up to X" is fine, and try it sometimes. There was one in Adventures; it didn't survive because it wasn't good enough, Artificer had nothing to do with it (sorawotobu), and Villa wouldn't have stopped one from being in Empires, there just wasn't one.
4.) Do you consider Travellers to have an Adventures flavour or could they fit into any expansion?
The mechanic could reappear, but it takes a lot of cards, and most sets wouldn't be happy giving up the slots.
5.) The japanese community found out about forum/trader/goons/cost reduction. This is a lot less complicated than the last infinite loop people were presenting, so it may actually come up in a game. If you had time machine, would you have worded anything differently to avoid that or is it too unimportant?
I don't know that I would change Trader just to kill the super-rare combo (your 4-item list leaves out "more copies of the cost reduction card" and for some of them "way to play the cost reduction card a bunch of times" and "way to draw enough cards to do this"). But I do think Trader is a mistake, and fixing it as it happens would kill the combo. I would either have no reaction at all (a sweet simple card that people would still use), or the reaction would be something like "When you gain a card other than Silver, you may reveal this from your hand, to trash that card. If you do, gain a Silver." The "would" part is super-confusing and bad. And as it happens creates an infinite combo.
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Why did Trader get the wording it has in the first place? Was there a specific reason, like uh, cursers or Prizes or Ironworks, or did it just happen? :)
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I got Adventures the other day and noticed that the events have the same background as kingdom cards, not the one used for randomizers. Why is that? Wasn't the idea for choosing which events to play with "shuffle them into the randomizer pile, flip over cards until you have ten kingdom cards, ignore events past the first two"? There doesn't seem to be any upside to events looking like cards (in the rules sense) from behind since you're never shuffling them into your deck or looking at the backside at all during gameplay.
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I got Adventures the other day and noticed that the events have the same background as kingdom cards, not the one used for randomizers. Why is that? Wasn't the idea for choosing which events to play with "shuffle them into the randomizer pile, flip over cards until you have ten kingdom cards, ignore events past the first two"? There doesn't seem to be any upside to events looking like cards (in the rules sense) from behind since you're never shuffling them into your deck or looking at the backside at all during gameplay.
It was originally an error; they were meant to have the randomizer back. But now it's canon because otherwise Rio Grande would seem obliged to replace them out of pocket.
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Why did Trader get the wording it has in the first place? Was there a specific reason, like uh, cursers or Prizes or Ironworks, or did it just happen? :)
That ability - mostly with different other halves - tried on different wordings. One issue with the non-would wordings was that, at the time, I didn't say "to" and so it ends up with two if-you-do's. "When you gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, trash that card. If you do, gain a Silver."
But I mean, there's no interesting story here. I tried to get a good wording for the ability, that made interactions clear. I ended up with what you see in Hinterlands. It was a mistake but I didn't realize that in time.
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Earlier you said Temporum: Alternate Realities might be released in November. Is that still on schedule?
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Do you see Dominion as something you work on, a hobby you happen to be paid to develop, or as a legacy of sorts?
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Earlier you said Temporum: Alternate Realities might be released in November. Is that still on schedule?
Now my best guess is early next year.
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Do you see Dominion as something you work on, a hobby you happen to be paid to develop, or as a legacy of sorts?
I don't know what you mean by "legacy" in contrast to those other options.
There is work-like work that is definitely a job and not a hobby (e.g. proofreading). And uh it pays. And like, my computer programming career, I liked computer programming, that's how I got into it. It's more fun to do your own thing than to program dialysis machines, but there was fun to be had on the dialysis machines too. So it's not like I am comparing "play this game for a living" with "do this awful job." There were things I hated about the programming jobs, but still.
Really, like, there is the classic bit about how easy ideas are, the work is the hard part. Thinking of a game is just good times, but there is endless centering of text and so on in your future if you want to try it out. It's not something you would confuse with goofing off.
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The "legacy" part was meant to say, when you are working on it, how much are you influenced by the thought that the product is going to impact your standing in the boardgame World, or whether people respect you, or you are going to win a Spiel des Jahres or what have you. I don't know what sort of longevity euro games have, but yeah, basically, do you ever wonder how people will remember you/your work after you stop publishing, and does that impact your work process.
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The "legacy" part was meant to say, when you are working on it, how much are you influenced by the thought that the product is going to impact your standing in the boardgame World, or whether people respect you, or you are going to win a Spiel des Jahres or what have you. I don't know what sort of longevity euro games have, but yeah, basically, do you ever wonder how people will remember you/your work after you stop publishing, and does that impact your work process.
Working on Dominion expansions I have mostly thought "this is awesome." I expected Dominion players to love Empires. I didn't think of it in terms of any kind of impact on me as a designer, I mean I think it has no impact, it's just another Dominion expansion, people already knew I could make those.
For other games I mostly think, "this is great but people will hate it." I don't know why they will but I do expect them to, based on how things have gone. I just try to make the game good though; I don't think, how do I make this more of an SdJ contender, or should I do something different because of future generations. I do worry about like what I think the audience for this kind of game might like, though I haven't always. You know, at first you just do what you can to make a good game, whatever it turns out to be, but if it's going great and you're polishing it, you want to slant it further towards the fans it might actually get. Like how Dominion expansions started going lighter on attacks.
I imagine I will have to do some kind of thing where they remember your name, if I want my name to be remembered.
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Do people ever walk up to you on the street and be like "OMG! You're that Dominion guy!"?
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I imagine I will have to do some kind of thing where they remember your name, if I want my name to be remembered.
You mean something like:
Statue - Action
Name the designer of this game. If you did, +5 coins.
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Do people ever walk up to you on the street and be like "OMG! You're that Dominion guy!"?
They do not. At best they walk up to me at a game store and say, "Someone said the Dominion guy was here. Uh. Is it you?"
A story I always tell: I have had someone be introduced to me as Donald X., be standing there holding Dominion, and say, "so we were going to play Dominion. Have you played it?"
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Do people ever walk up to you on the street and be like "OMG! You're that Dominion guy!"?
They do not. At best they walk up to me at a game store and say, "Someone said the Dominion guy was here. Uh. Is it you?"
A story I always tell: I have had someone be introduced to me as Donald X., be standing there holding Dominion, and say, "so we were going to play Dominion. Have you played it?"
Did you set them straight or let them have a go at teaching you the game?
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I imagine I will have to do some kind of thing where they remember your name, if I want my name to be remembered.
You mean something like:
Statue - Action
Name the designer of this game. If you did, +5 coins.
The online interface would be interesting, having to list every game designer in history, plus the ace of spades.
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but there was fun to be had on the dialysis machines too.
I'll remember this quote as consolation if I ever come down with renal failure.
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Do people ever walk up to you on the street and be like "OMG! You're that Dominion guy!"?
They do not. At best they walk up to me at a game store and say, "Someone said the Dominion guy was here. Uh. Is it you?"
A story I always tell: I have had someone be introduced to me as Donald X., be standing there holding Dominion, and say, "so we were going to play Dominion. Have you played it?"
Clearly you have to print your face on the cover.
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Did you set them straight or let them have a go at teaching you the game?
Neither; something like, "I have played that a lot actually, but I have other stuff to do tonight."
For a while I preferred not to advertise that I was that guy. Someone would say, oh it's your own homemade Dominion expansion, and I would say, yes, yes it is. And someone at the table would laugh, and maybe the person would find out the deal, maybe they wouldn't. Certainly other people would sometimes helplessly blurt it out, or point me out if someone brought up Dominion at another table.
But then one evening a couple that was leaving said "huh you made your own homemade copy of Kingdom Builder," and seemed disgusted as they left. So now I just say I'm the guy. I don't lead with it but when it comes up, yes, this is my own homemade Dominion expansion, pause for chuckles, but we are playtesting it for publication, I am the Dominion guy.
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But then one evening a couple that was leaving said "huh you made your own homemade copy of Kingdom Builder," and seemed disgusted as they left.
Well what do you expect making home made copies of people's games? Shameful that the guy who made Dominion would go and rip off the poor designer that made Kingdom Builder.
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Do you plan on playing the new Dominion Online for pleasure when it launches next year? If so, will you be incognito?
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Do you plan on playing the new Dominion Online for pleasure when it launches next year? If so, will you be incognito?
It will depend on how much fun I'm having and on what other games I could be playing. Probably I will not be incognito.
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/me goes to reserve username "incognito"
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/me goes to reserve username "incognito"
/me goes to reserve username "Donald X."
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So does this mean that DROP {DATABASE | SCHEMA} [IF EXISTS] is already taken?
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So does this mean that DROP {DATABASE | SCHEMA} [IF EXISTS] is already taken?
SQL> DROP TABLE DONALD X.;
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Do you think you'd ever make a card with a double divinding line? Or if you can't answer that, would a doube line ever stop a card from existing? Or at least be a significant point against it?
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If you hosted an outlandishly expensive and baroque Dominion tournament, such as the tournaments in Yu-Gi-Oh! where various millionaires host hundreds of teenagers on an island or in the streets of a city, using advanced hologram technology, what body part would you replace with an ancient Egyptian artifact and why?
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If you hosted an outlandishly expensive and baroque Dominion tournament, such as the tournaments in Yu-Gi-Oh! where various millionaires host hundreds of teenagers on an island or in the streets of a city, using advanced hologram technology, what body part would you replace with an ancient Egyptian artifact and why?
This is where Bill Simmons, back in his mailbag column days, would write "Yep, these are my readers," and end the column.
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Do you think you'd ever make a card with a double divinding line? Or if you can't answer that, would a doube line ever stop a card from existing? Or at least be a significant point against it?
HiG put a double dividing line on the German Lighthouse.
I decided against doing it because it would be extra complex. It's killed concept arrangements in the past; I don't have an example offhand, but like, if Highway had wanted a when-gain ability, I would have done Highway differently, or put the when-gain elsewhere, you know. None of the ideas necessarily die, but the combination does.
There are cases where a card is cheaty on the dividing line; Noble Brigand says "when you buy this or play it," which are two different times but there's no line. So that's a way three timings could sneak onto a card.
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If you hosted an outlandishly expensive and baroque Dominion tournament, such as the tournaments in Yu-Gi-Oh! where various millionaires host hundreds of teenagers on an island or in the streets of a city, using advanced hologram technology, what body part would you replace with an ancient Egyptian artifact and why?
The Sunboat of Ra, as if you couldn't guess, probably late in the afternoon.
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There are cases where a card is cheaty on the dividing line; Noble Brigand says "when you buy this or play it," which are two different times but there's no line. So that's a way three timings could sneak onto a card.
We also have Rocks and Crumbling Castle now with "when you gain or trash this".
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Perhaps this has already been answered somewhere, but, what's the schedule for the rest of the 2nd editions? Also, would you ever consider replacing cards in Alchemy or even revamping it into a full size expansion?
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https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1648227/secret-history-dominion-2nd-editions (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1648227/secret-history-dominion-2nd-editions)
I can't predict everything, but as things stand I have no plans to replace cards in the later sets.
Seaside came closest but there were issues with replacing a few of the cards I might have, and overall it just didn't compare to fixing up Dominion and Intrigue.
Okay Alchemy actually has plenty to fix, but it doesn't make sense to take on that project. Alchemy has some vocal fans who want to see more potion stuff, but there are enough people that just don't like the potion premise (separate from the other issues, mainly being too slow of a set) that it would just never make sense to work on fixing Alchemy rather than any other project I might work on.
Instead there could have been 1-2 new cards in each of 4-6 expansions, with a single upgrade pack with all of the new cards. That's not perfect - maybe you bought a mix of new and old sets and the upgrade pack is half redundant for you. But uh it's an idea to toss around. And well I didn't end up doing it. We're revising all the sets from Seaside to Adventures (as described in the OP), but without new cards.
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Why doesn't Crumbing Castle just give 2(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png) on trash?
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Perhaps this has already been answered somewhere, but, what's the schedule for the rest of the 2nd editions? Also, would you ever consider replacing cards in Alchemy or even revamping it into a full size expansion?
If by that you mean, what's the schedule for the revised versions of the sets with larger font, etc., there isn't one. They will get updated as they go out of print, and they will not be announced beforehand.
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Perhaps this has already been answered somewhere, but, what's the schedule for the rest of the 2nd editions? Also, would you ever consider replacing cards in Alchemy or even revamping it into a full size expansion?
Each expansion (besides Intrigue and Empires) will get re-released with bigger text, more centering, "they," etc., but no new cards. They are not labelled as 2nd editions but you will always be able to distinguish them, if nothing else then by the back cover text referring to 1st editions of Intrigue (where can you get the base cards). There is no precise schedule; they will come out based on running out of stock and printer availability.
Alchemy is not getting revamped or enlarged. I do not expect to ever be in a position where that's the best project I could work on; there will always be something better.
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Why doesn't Crumbing Castle just give 2(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png) on trash?
Because I liked the idea of what it actually is, and it all worked out.
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Why doesn't Crumbing Castle just give 2(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png) on trash?
Because I liked the idea of what it actually is, and it all worked out.
Oh.
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Dominion: Bigger, Badder, and More Centered.
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Alchemy is not getting revamped or enlarged. I do not expect to ever be in a position where that's the best project I could work on; there will always be something better.
Hmm. Has Alchemy ever gone out of stock, i.e. requiring a reprint or second printing?
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Alchemy is not getting revamped or enlarged. I do not expect to ever be in a position where that's the best project I could work on; there will always be something better.
Hmm. Has Alchemy ever gone out of stock, i.e. requiring a reprint or second printing?
Probably. I think it's one of the most purchased expansions, owing to how early it was released.
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Hmm. Has Alchemy ever gone out of stock, i.e. requiring a reprint or second printing?
I have no information there, but logically it must have. And it continues to sell at whatever slow rate I can't report.
Maybe it wasn't clear that of course Alchemy will get bigger text and "they" and all that. It just won't get more cards etc., as people never tire of requesting.
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I just redid my storage box and there's room for about two more expansions in there. I do not at all mind finding a new solution; please do make >2 more expansions.
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What is your definition of art, if you have one? It's a tricky question.
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What is your definition of art, if you have one?
Art is what's in the frame. Frank Zappa's definition.
Guy drinking carrot juice - not art
My piece is this guy drinking carrot juice - it's art
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What is your definition of art, if you have one?
Art is what's in the frame. Frank Zappa's definition.
Guy drinking carrot juice - not art
My piece is this guy drinking carrot juice - it's art
What about Maria Abramovic sitting in a museum, drinking carrot juice?
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What about Maria Abramovic sitting in a museum, drinking carrot juice?
I'm working on a found art piece that collects rhetorical questions. I don't think that one will make it though.
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So, do you consider (board)game design a form of art?
Or to put it another way, are a title and a game box a valid frame?
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So, do you consider (board)game design a form of art?
Or to put it another way, are a title and a game box a valid frame?
What's relevant is what other people think there, not me. Other people in general do not think of games as art. So, if you want your game to be art, you have to say that. And then it is.
An interview where I was asked about board games as art and gave a longer answer; if you want to jump to that part, search for Zappa. https://opinionatedgamers.com/2012/05/11/the-art-of-design-interviews-to-game-designers-19-donald-x-vaccarino/
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What does the X in Donald X. Vaccarino stand for?
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What does the X in Donald X. Vaccarino stand for?
It's a variable. The unknown.
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What does the X in Donald X. Vaccarino stand for?
It's a variable.
What is its current value?
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What does the X in Donald X. Vaccarino stand for?
It's a variable.
What is its current value?
Obviously around 10 milliamps. Enough to shock you, but not enough to cause any harm.
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What does the X in Donald X. Vaccarino stand for?
It's a variable.
What is its current value?
Obviously around 10 milliamps. Enough to shock you, but not enough to cause any harm.
Of course this depends completely on the voltage.
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There is a tension joke in here, but I just can't make it work.
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What does the X in Donald X. Vaccarino stand for?
It's a variable. The unknown.
While I don't expect to get a real answer on that question; there's a chance we might get one here: Is the X your actual middle initial, or a chosen nickname?
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There is a tension joke in here, but I just can't make it work.
You obviously just can't cut it.
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There is a tension joke in here, but I just can't make it work.
You obviously just can't cut it.
I would say "Ohm my", but I know that in this case resistance is futile.
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I don't know watt any of you are talking about.
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I can't believe the way you all are conducting yourselves.
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I can't believe the way you all are conducting yourselves.
Why not? It's Faraday today.
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Why does this always seem to devolve into a bad puns thread?
I can't believe the way you all are conducting yourselves.
Why not? It's Faraday today.
That's pretty cagey, I don't get what you mean.
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I can't believe the way you all are conducting yourselves.
Why not? It's Faraday today.
That's pretty cagey, I don't get what you mean.
This thread had lots of potential, but now it’s come full circuit and run aground.
At the current rate, some live wire is going to get charged with assault and battery.
Let’s crank some AC/DC, keep it positive, and let Donald field some questions.
Got any good leads?
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Sooooo... Do you like puns?
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Sooooo... Do you like puns?
I can quietly appreciate an unfunny pun that's clever enough, but mostly I only like them when they're also jokes.
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Have you ever constructed a crossword?
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Have you ever constructed a crossword?
No, or none that would really count. I've made some pencil puzzles, but only easier-to-make things.
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While I don't expect to get a real answer on that question; there's a chance we might get one here: Is the X your actual middle initial, or a chosen nickname?
Those aren't mutually exclusive, so I don't think that's precisely the question you meant to ask. I'll answer the question you meant to ask though: the ship of Theseus in the fable. Only instead of replacing planks, they just keep adding new ones, until the harbor is full of boat.
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What's your policy on commenting about the current state of the 2017 client? Are you going to post on the ShuffleIt forums at all? The "Features" forum, in particular, has a lot of requests to bring the client up to par with the MF features.
Overall I think the new client looks promising, but it's still clearly inferior to the MF implementation. I know it'll get better -- I'm just hoping it happens fast enough not to turn away players.
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What's your policy on commenting about the current state of the 2017 client? Are you going to post on the ShuffleIt forums at all? The "Features" forum, in particular, has a lot of requests to bring the client up to par with the MF features.
Right now I have 19 posts on the Shuffle iT forums.
I'm not sure what your first question is asking. If you mean, how much will I be commenting on it, probably not much; I don't want to be viewed as promising things or being able to provide things, on this project that isn't mine. And after having accomplished that, I don't want to be unfriendly towards them. I have a contract with RGG that lets RGG sub-license digital rights; they have a contract with Shuffle iT; Shuffle iT is making the program. Any involvement I have with the online version is just me being friendly or stupid or both, same as before.
If you mean, how much do I think you should be commenting on it, man that's between you and them. That stream thing was public, so surely they expect people to talk about it in public?
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What's your policy on commenting about the current state of the 2017 client? Are you going to post on the ShuffleIt forums at all? The "Features" forum, in particular, has a lot of requests to bring the client up to par with the MF features.
Right now I have 19 posts on the Shuffle iT forums.
I'm not sure what your first question is asking. If you mean, how much will I be commenting on it, probably not much; I don't want to be viewed as promising things or being able to provide things, on this project that isn't mine. And after having accomplished that, I don't want to be unfriendly towards them. I have a contract with RGG that lets RGG sub-license digital rights; they have a contract with Shuffle iT; Shuffle iT is making the program. Any involvement I have with the online version is just me being friendly or stupid or both, same as before.
If you mean, how much do I think you should be commenting on it, man that's between you and them. That stream thing was public, so surely they expect people to talk about it in public?
I keep on getting a kick out of seeing
Donald X.
Newbie
[] Offline
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What's your policy on commenting about the current state of the 2017 client? Are you going to post on the ShuffleIt forums at all? The "Features" forum, in particular, has a lot of requests to bring the client up to par with the MF features.
Right now I have 19 posts on the Shuffle iT forums.
I'm not sure what your first question is asking. If you mean, how much will I be commenting on it, probably not much; I don't want to be viewed as promising things or being able to provide things, on this project that isn't mine. And after having accomplished that, I don't want to be unfriendly towards them. I have a contract with RGG that lets RGG sub-license digital rights; they have a contract with Shuffle iT; Shuffle iT is making the program. Any involvement I have with the online version is just me being friendly or stupid or both, same as before.
If you mean, how much do I think you should be commenting on it, man that's between you and them. That stream thing was public, so surely they expect people to talk about it in public?
Oh, you're posting on secret boards that I don't have access to. :) I just checked your post list, and it's empty from my perspective.
I guess my first question is mostly along the lines of are you going to say things like "I don't like how this specific thing is implemented -- personally I'd prefer it to work like this." Obviously, they can implement it however they want, but you do have a lot of clout. Sounds like your answer is "probably not much" though.
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I guess my first question is mostly along the lines of are you going to say things like "I don't like how this specific thing is implemented -- personally I'd prefer it to work like this." Obviously, they can implement it however they want, but you do have a lot of clout. Sounds like your answer is "probably not much" though.
I have said some things like that. Mostly I feel like, there must be so many people complaining about these things; that job is covered.
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Right now I have 19 posts on the Shuffle iT forums.
Where are these forums? I realize there are probably various levels of access. Is there a part of them for the public, and what's the link?
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Where are these forums? I realize there are probably various levels of access. Is there a part of them for the public, and what's the link?
If part of them is public, you should be able to find that part easily on google.
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Is it accidental that the 2nd edition Base set has nine 5-cost cards, which makes a kingdom with Artisan?
Have you played this kingdom, and even if not, what are your thoughts on it?
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Is it accidental that the 2nd edition Base set has nine 5-cost cards, which makes a kingdom with Artisan?
Have you played this kingdom, and even if not, what are your thoughts on it?
The main set intentionally has more $5's, but it doesn't intentionally have exactly the number for a board with Artisan and all of them.
I have not played it. Uh I dunno. Probably open Silver/Silver? Maybe get an Artisan. I don't discuss strategy much.
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Is it accidental that the 2nd edition Base set has nine 5-cost cards, which makes a kingdom with Artisan?
Have you played this kingdom, and even if not, what are your thoughts on it?
The main set intentionally has more $5's, but it doesn't intentionally have exactly the number for a board with Artisan and all of them.
I have not played it. Uh I dunno. Probably open Silver/Silver? Maybe get an Artisan. I don't discuss strategy much.
He doesn't want to leak the scout pin.
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How much/what information do the artists get other than card names? How much of the art concept is up to them? Was Wild Hunt supposed to have green spirits and a surprised moon for example?
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How much/what information do the artists get other than card names? How much of the art concept is up to them? Was Wild Hunt supposed to have green spirits and a surprised moon for example?
Originally there was just the name, and maybe like "it's a medieval game or something."
Some Intrigue cards showed the wrong things. The original art for Pawn for example ended up on Goons. Steward showed a guy with a serving tray. So, after that, I typed up terse descriptions of what the card flavor was - nothing like your example, but a little for them to go on.
Guilds has mostly art by female artists. It still has mostly male characters though. For Adventures I started also specifying male/female on appropriate cards. For Empires I went further because I knew that "a crowd of people" would easily become "a crowd of only men." In fact there's an example in Empires of "a crowd of people including both men and women" drawn with all men anyway.
Wild Hunt is a European folklore thing - not so Roman but in the set anyway. I didn't go into that in the artist notes though.
Wild Hunt: A group of ghostly hunters, on horses and with hounds, in the sky, chasing prey.
The longest one for Empires is Enchantress.
Enchantress: A character like Circe in Homer's Odyssey; an enchantress who has apparently turned someone into a pig (but not shown doing magic).
And a few are very short.
Conquest: Visigoths attacking Rome.
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I bet you specifically asked for "arthritic knee in the tent on the snow" for one of the earlier cards (forgot it's name).
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Was a reverse order Patrol playtested? (Scout, then +3 Cards)? It seems like a better card, as even at worst it's draw "Best 3 of 4", so you'd never feel like you "got nothing" (above and beyond Smithy) from playing it.
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In future revised editions, would you ever consider replacing Cards with functionally similar Events (eg Masterpiece, Cache, Ill Gotten Gains) to free up space for new card shaped things?
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In future revised editions, would you ever consider replacing Cards with functionally similar Events (eg Masterpiece, Cache, Ill Gotten Gains) to free up space for new card shaped things?
Masterpiece already has that in Delve.
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Was a reverse order Patrol playtested? (Scout, then +3 Cards)? It seems like a better card, as even at worst it's draw "Best 3 of 4", so you'd never feel like you "got nothing" (above and beyond Smithy) from playing it.
I tested a variety of Patrols, but not that specifically.
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In future revised editions, would you ever consider replacing Cards with functionally similar Events (eg Masterpiece, Cache, Ill Gotten Gains) to free up space for new card shaped things?
There are no plans to replace any cards in any of the other expansions. The not-labelled-as-such second editions will just have improved layout and wordings.
In both Adventures and Empires, cards were replaced with Events, during work on the set. For example Banquet started out as a treasure worth $1 that came with a $5 and a Copper.
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I got the Kingdom Builder Big Box for Christmas and love the game so far. I was reading your comments on BGG about the Caves promo and how Queens left out the part about it coming up with the Tavern. My question is are there any other things Queen Games ignored or outright changed rules-wise? I'm just curious because I would like to play the game as you intended and not as how Queen Games believes is the best way to play the game.
And, I do have one rules-question about the game. Supposed I build a settlement next to a location tile, get the tile, move my settlement and then build a new settlement by the location tile, will I get the second location tile, assuming I have no other touching settlements?
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And, I do have one rules-question about the game. Supposed I build a settlement next to a location tile, get the tile, move my settlement and then build a new settlement by the location tile, will I get the second location tile, assuming I have no other touching settlements?
That's a good question! I'd say the spirit of the rules would suggest you won't - you can't monopolise a location apart from building all the way around it. But since the game state has no way of tracking who had the other tile, I feel like the rules don't actually prohibit you from doing this.
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And, I do have one rules-question about the game. Supposed I build a settlement next to a location tile, get the tile, move my settlement and then build a new settlement by the location tile, will I get the second location tile, assuming I have no other touching settlements?
This one I can answer. No, you don't get the tile. And of course you lose the first tile when you move all your settlements away from the location; it goes back in the box.
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Thanks. :)
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I got the Kingdom Builder Big Box for Christmas and love the game so far. I was reading your comments on BGG about the Caves promo and how Queens left out the part about it coming up with the Tavern. My question is are there any other things Queen Games ignored or outright changed rules-wise? I'm just curious because I would like to play the game as you intended and not as how Queen Games believes is the best way to play the game.
For the base game, they changed it from 50 to 40 pieces, but I think that was a good move. They gave some things poor names (e.g. "Discoverers") but what can you do there.
At the time, I got what I wanted for the lose-an-ability rule (that your post goes on to ask about). Today I would probably do that differently; I would have you return the ability to the hex if you are no longer adjacent, and let you get it back. There's no tracking that way, and it removes e.g. "I take this chit with my ship and immediately lose it, just so you can't have it." I never tested it that way exactly, but for a long time you had abilities by being next to the hex - there were no chits, so conceivably a spot could be shared among 6 players. And of course moving away meant you were no longer there and thus no longer had the ability. I wanted the chits for ease of play, but the way losing them works could have been better.
KB: Crossroads had mistakes in initial printed rulebooks that it was simpler for them not to completely fix, so they didn't fix them all. The big thing was that I had it that you couldn't use movement abilities on the tokens, the wagon and ship and uh barbarian or whatever it is. It's confusing if you can. And the Crossroads ability let you pick any terrain if your two cards matched.
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What is the deal with promos? Are they a money-making venture? Break even? Donation to BGG?
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What is the deal with promos? Are they a money-making venture? Break even? Donation to BGG?
They're promotional!
Me: I give them to RGG. I make no money from them. I might benefit from the promotion though. Hard to say.
RGG: RGG gives them to BGG. It's RGG's (current) way of supporting BGG. RGG loses money on the deal... but might benefit from the promotion. And benefits from BGG being successful.
BGG: Sells them! To BGG they are money-making.
Other publishers: They have been free to do what they wanted with the promos. They have done a variety of things. For example I received a copy of the Japanese Dominion strategy guide (some years ago) and it came with Stash. So, I infer that they used Stash to try to sell that strategy guide. I don't believe other publishers are handed printed promos from RGG - they get them printed. So probably they lose money on them... but gain promotion.
Other entities: In some cases a promo came with a magazine or was at a particular con or something. So those promos had some value to those entities.
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Why was Oracle's wording changed from "+2 Cards" to "Afterwards, you draw 2 cards".
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What are the standard printing sizes available to you for sets? (eg 300 cards for big boxes)
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Why was Oracle's wording changed from "+2 Cards" to "Afterwards, you draw 2 cards".
To make it clearer what the card was supposed to do.
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What are the standard printing sizes available to you for sets? (eg 300 cards for big boxes)
It's not really like that.
Jay always says, just make it as good as you can, I'll worry about the rest. Can he really mean that? Well mostly, but sometimes there are good reasons to nudge something in some direction. The Dominion Update Pack is 77 cards. It's no cheaper to have 77 than 80, so there are 3 blanks. But uh aside from the blanks, it's the exact size it wanted to be. There was no negotiation on the size. OTOH I knew it would be good to have the Intrigue Update Pack be the same size. So it couldn't have two Victory cards - that would have put it at 81, which would probably be some larger number, and then they wouldn't have been the same price or one would have looked like a worse deal.
So anyway, mostly, they can be whatever size, but will end up rounded - further if a bigger number. If there would be a lot of blanks there would be incentive to fill them up with cards that do things. I won't know - and possibly Jay won't either - what size would be ideal for a particular intended size, until trying it. I mean if I said tomorrow, I want to make a 720 card set, maybe that would get to be 720, or would round to 750, or would round to 800. I'm guessing 800, but I haven't asked.
And we know that people like bigger sets more than smaller sets, but also that foreign publishers don't want something super-expensive. So the 300-500 range sounds best. And quite possibly that would translate directly into just 300, 400, 500.
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Why are Victory cards the only ones that scale by player number?
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A few questions on new wording and stuff:
-What's the current thing with commas? Spice merchant doesn't have one before the "to", but other cards do. Baron doesn't have a comma before "for" but Mill does.
-Should numbers be spelled out? I see two is written out in develop, but it's "4" and "5" on Minion.
-Did the coin icons change? It used to be the number was smaller but in the hinterlands cards it seems to be the same size as the cost. Compare Minion and Haggler.
-Why do Treasures have a "When you play this". In other words, why was it necessary?
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Why are Victory cards the only ones that scale by player number?
The pile sizes are different to save on cards. Originally there were 12 cards in every pile. There was some worry that people wouldn't buy a game that was "just cards" for what 500 cards would cost. RGG tried it anyway and that all worked out. But part of having it be "just" 500 cards was shaving those 2 cards off of those 24 piles. Province wanted to stay with 12 because it tended to determine the game length (and arguably it should go to 16 with 4 players). Then I decided that other VP piles would match, because somehow you are going for a something besides Provinces.
Setting aside some copies of Lab in 2-player games seems like extra set-up for nothing. I also felt like it was neat that in 2-player games you could get more copies of cards (it's neat when you normally play 3-4 anyway).
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-What's the current thing with commas? Spice merchant doesn't have one before the "to", but other cards do. Baron doesn't have a comma before "for" but Mill does.
The current thing is to consider every card separately, and do what I like best there, tempered by whatever arguments LastFootnote makes, and randomized by not necessarily considering which cards are matching which other ones. Normally, I think "do X to do Y" doesn't need a comma; for Mill, I worried that people would misinterpret it without that comma (maybe you get $2 per card).
-Should numbers be spelled out? I see two is written out in develop, but it's "4" and "5" on Minion.
At some point numbers tended to be written as numerals in order to make card wordings shorter. I haven't necessarily been consistent there.
-Did the coin icons change? It used to be the number was smaller but in the hinterlands cards it seems to be the same size as the cost. Compare Minion and Haggler.
I'm not sure what you're saying, but the coins did change.
It used to be that the coins were a text number on a blank coin image. For Empires, they finally made a set of images so that the number was on the coin. This was to avoid endlessly saying "the 4 on this card's cost is off-center" (in previous years this was avoided by having numbers be off-center sometimes).
Also for Hinterlands the font on the numbers is different; note the $4 on Fool's Gold. The small coins now have the same font used on larger coins.
-Why do Treasures have a "When you play this". In other words, why was it necessary?
It seemed important back when to make it clear when the amount locked in, on treasures worth varying amounts. If you play two Banks, the second one is worth more. For other cards, it seemed both good to work the same way and thus be phrased the same way, and like it was a potential source of confusion if they didn't spell it out.
These days it feels like they don't need it. The variable amount ones could use +$ rather than "worth." And it would be great to drop it - it's so much text on those cards. But I didn't think of changing it at the perfect time and so everything still has it.
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How long does it take to play test a promo card? What does the process look like?
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How long does it take to play test a promo card? What does the process look like?
Well there are three ways it has played out.
Black Market, Envoy, Walled Village, and Stash were all in sets, dropped for not being good enough (or in Black Market's case, too wonky), then put out as promos. So they got less testing than normal cards - they got some of that testing, then weren't in the set anymore, and they got no extra testing when chosen to be promos.
Governor and Summon were requested while I was working on sets, but with enough time (before the promo was needed) that they didn't have to be existing cards (and Governor was made to commemorate Puerto Rico). They just got thrown into games with whatever else that was being tested, for a period of time that I did not pay attention to, and eventually seemed done.
Prince and Sauna/Avanto were requested while nothing else was happening with Dominion. There were a few months there where I played some Dominion on my game nights and would include the card.
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How is envoy not 'good' enough? It's a pretty strong card, no?
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How is envoy not 'good' enough? It's a pretty strong card, no?
It was also too similar to Smithy.
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How long does it take to play test a promo card? What does the process look like?
Prince and Sauna/Avanto were requested while nothing else was happening with Dominion. There were a few months there where I played some Dominion on my game nights and would include the card.
If you had to put a number on it, how many games would you have played with those 2 promos before releasing them?
Have there been any cards you playtested during "nothing else happening" periods that turned out to be busts? (eg outtakes not from specific sets?)
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How is envoy not 'good' enough? It's a pretty strong card, no?
It was also too similar to Smithy.
Correct. It seemed like an okay idea, but not novel enough for the first expansion. Then I finally made a better-to-have-printed version with Advisor.
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If you had to put a number on it, how many games would you have played with those 2 promos before releasing them?
Don't you mean, if I had to answer the question about if I had to put a number on it? Because I don't.
Have there been any cards you playtested during "nothing else happening" periods that turned out to be busts? (eg outtakes not from specific sets?)
At the very beginning there were no expansions, so any outtakes were not from specific sets. And after RGG had the game but before it came out, I made a batch of cards that weren't for specific sets, then slotted some in while some died. Examples of both are shown in the outtakes article. For Sauna, there were other ideas that didn't end up being the promo but might be good enough for someday.
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If you had to put a number on it, how many games would you have played with those 2 promos before releasing them?
Don't you mean, if I had to answer the question about if I had to put a number on it? Because I don't.
You don't have to answer any question and you're doing a great service by answering as many questions as you have.
I'm assuming that it's a low number (10 games?) which is exciting as it would be easy to play test cards to at least the same standard in an afternoon of Dominion Online/Isotropic and that's before anything rigorous like simulators come into the picture. Looking forward to a future of many more high quality cards.
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If you had to put a number on it, how many games would you have played with those 2 promos before releasing them?
Don't you mean, if I had to answer the question about if I had to put a number on it? Because I don't.
You don't have to answer any question and you're doing a great service by answering as many questions as you have.
I'm assuming that it's a low number (10 games?) which is exciting as it would be easy to play test cards to at least the same standard in an afternoon of Dominion Online/Isotropic and that's before anything rigorous like simulators come into the picture. Looking forward to a future of many more high quality cards.
Summon was on isotropic, and for that reason alone it got way more than 10 games.
I'm sure I had more than 10 real-life test games with Summon, but not necessarily all with the final, published version. My original version was like, cost $2, you may buy an Action card, set it aside, and play it at the start of your next turn. More like Travelling Fair than Ball.
So with my games and Donald's games and other playtesters' games, I think Summon got quite a bit more than 10 IRL games before being finalized. Though again, not necessarily all with the final version.
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You don't have to answer any question and you're doing a great service by answering as many questions as you have.
Thank you, thank you.
I'm assuming that it's a low number (10 games?) which is exciting as it would be easy to play test cards to at least the same standard in an afternoon of Dominion Online/Isotropic and that's before anything rigorous like simulators come into the picture. Looking forward to a future of many more high quality cards.
It's just too much work to estimate. I don't want to go digging through the reports thread for the games with it. I'm not the only playtester; multiple groups got a chance with Summon, and LF was also playtesting Prince. I wouldn't assume it was low; for Prince in particular, it was like, what is there to do, I guess I could playtest Prince some more. And as LF notes, Summon was on isotropic.
The cards also change as they go; Prince for example changed a bunch of times. So a lot of the testing was not the final version. Some cards require more testing than others, and for different reasons. Sometimes the wording has issues; sometimes the card is too weak or too dull or too strong, and those take varying amounts of work to attack.
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You've said Intrigue was originally going to have several one shot cards but too many people didn't like them. Where they going to be one shots like Feast or sudo one shots like Mining Village?
Thanks for making such an awesome game! :D
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You've said Intrigue was originally going to have several one shot cards but too many people didn't like them. Where they going to be one shots like Feast or sudo one shots like Mining Village?
Thanks for making such an awesome game! :D
I'm there for you!
Mostly like Feast. A couple cards did get in the semi-one-shot thing; Minion once had a 3rd option that traded it for 2 Estates, and there was an Explorer that you lost if your top card was Silver. But mostly one-shots. You can see examples in the outtakes article, the Early Days and Intrigue sections: https://dominionstrategy.com/2013/06/24/dominion-outtakes/
One-shots that at one point or another were in Intrigue included:
- Feast
- a trashing attack
- a Cursing attack, in various forms: give them Curse and Confusion; +2 Cards and Curse them; +$2 and Curse them
- +3 Cards +2 Actions, then Madman (as a buyable card)
- a thing that looked through your deck and played all the Attacks
- +$1 per card played that turn
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- a thing that looked through your deck and played all the Attacks
Oh god...
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Knowing very well your position on talking about stuff that a publisher would want to talk about before they get a chance to talk about it, I'm going to ask this in a way that's hopefully possible and interesting to answer:
Are you playing new games of yours lately with your group? Or old games of yours that might be new to us someday? Is there stuff you're excited about on your table?
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Knowing very well your position on talking about stuff that a publisher would want to talk about before they get a chance to talk about it, I'm going to ask this in a way that's hopefully possible and interesting to answer:
Are you playing new games of yours lately with your group? Or old games of yours that might be new to us someday? Is there stuff you're excited about on your table?
Whether or not I answer that question conveys information I don't wish to convey. So, I can't ever answer that question.
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Aww okay.
Whose creative output do you wait on tenterhooks for news of?
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Whose creative output do you wait on tenterhooks for news of?
In the past I have eagerly awaited the next book or movie or video game from various people; these days almost everything I'm looking forward to is music. It's not that music has gained ground, just that everything else has lost ground.
The songwriter I most look forward to new things from currently is someone who doesn't even have an album to her name: Rebecca Sugar. She's written songs for Adventure Time and her show Steven Universe. Among albums to some degree announced for 2017, I'm most looking forward to the Sparks album. Among things set for Q1, the Magnetic Fields album; among things set for this month, well there's really just the Foxygen album.
For non-music things, I'm looking forward to the new Richard Garfield game Bunny Kingdom. It was supposed to come out at Essen but was pushed back. I'm looking forward to the new Nintendo, at least assuming it launches with something I want.
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The songwriter I most look forward to new things from currently is someone who doesn't even have an album to her name: Rebecca Sugar. She's written songs for Adventure Time and her show Steven Universe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3K3UjoTe4
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What are your thoughts on the Standard Bannings in Magic.
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What are your thoughts on the Standard Bannings in Magic.
These days I only play magic on Magic Duels. So my perspective is warped by that.
Smuggler's Copter: I hate this card. And their excuses for it are poor. When they do a block with an artifact theme, of course they will push some artifacts. That doesn't mean they have to make pushed artifacts that go in every deck though, and it's not the case that color is the only fix. When there's e.g. a powerful Millstone, it doesn't go in every deck; you only play it in milling decks. The pushed artifacts should be narrow, like Millstone, and then you will not have this situation where oops every deck has Smuggler's Copters. Smuggler's Copter could have easily had a creature type limitation on crewing it, or whatever other thing making it narrower, and then it would be a strong card in that deck and not everywhere. Anyway if something deserved to be banned it was this. I am just sad the ban is unlikely to apply to Duels.
Emrakul: This isn't on Duels so I don't have any experience with it. Apparently it was strong? It looks funny banning a 13-mana card, but I can believe it was over-the-top.
Reflector Mage: This card is strong but uh. Make a list of all the cards ever banned in Standard. Time Spiral, Memory Jar, Skullclamp, Tolarian Academy, Arcbound Ravager, etc.... Reflector Mage. It's a Man-o'-war with a cute bonus? I mean it's strong. But uh, it really makes it look like, okay now they are going to constantly be banning cards from Standard. There's always going to be something as good as Reflector Mage. And they never banned Collected Company. So well uh how does that sound? It's hard to say, not being affected myself. Even when the card they ban isn't the mythic rare, if they kill a deck, the mythic rare goes with it. So it will make investing in a deck look worse to some people. But at the same time, if the tournament format is more fun, more people are buying cards. So maybe it works out for them. I haven't played serious constructed since the 90s, and could just afford all the cards. I guess one thing is, maybe they will push a cheap deck, a classic white weenie or something, to try to get more people playing.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/arcana/brief-history-standard-banned-list-2015-07-13
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A few of your cards remind me of Magic cards (Courtyard and Brainstorm for example). Are any of your Dominion cards inspired by Magic cards or are these just coincidences?
I'm surprised there has never been a Fact or Fiction like card, would that kind of thing just slow the game down too much?
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A few of your cards remind me of Magic cards (Courtyard and Brainstorm for example). Are any of your Dominion cards inspired by Magic cards or are these just coincidences?
You managed to cite one of the few Dominion cards I didn't design - Courtyard was Sir Bailey's. I did play around with related things.
I don't think there are any. Me being a game designer was significantly inspired by Magic. In Dominion each player has their own deck; I don't know if I would have thought of that without Magic. And I got the idea for having types on cards from Magic, though for all I know other games did it earlier.
But there is not much overlap between what cards can do in the two games. The one basic thing is draw cards, but the relative value of cards is much different. And of course Courtyard is something you draw and play each pass through your deck, while Brainstorm is something you only draw once if you draw it at all; they are not just the same. Dominion's cards are more like tableau cards than cards in a Magic deck. And drawing cards, I bet Wiz-War had that.
I like to think a little has gone the other way, though for all I know nothing has. Of course there are endless games that just copy Dominion in its entirety, I am not lacking there.
I'm surprised there has never been a Fact or Fiction like card, would that kind of thing just slow the game down too much?
I haven't tested one, but it does sound too slow. You could do it as a one-time thing like Pillage or Mountain Pass.
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So Donald, how's that secret dominion expansion you're working on coming along?
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So Donald, how's that secret dominion expansion you're working on coming along?
Another fine candidate for lamest joke ever posted on f.ds. What's special about this one is that it's trying to get me to be done with this thread. That's gonna be hard to top.
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Is there any question you haven't answered yet that you would like someone to ask?
Or anything related to your job as a game designer that you would like to talk about but haven't had the chance to yet?
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Is there such a thing as a stupid question?
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Is there such a thing as a stupid question?
My QFT professor used to day there is no such thing as a stupid question, just stupid people.
...a very approachable man.
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So Donald, how's that secret dominion expansion you're working on coming along?
Another fine candidate for lamest joke ever posted on f.ds. What's special about this one is that it's trying to get me to be done with this thread. That's gonna be hard to top.
What are the other candidates? Man I hope I made the list.
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So Donald, how's that secret dominion expansion you're working on coming along?
Another fine candidate for lamest joke ever posted on f.ds. What's special about this one is that it's trying to get me to be done with this thread. That's gonna be hard to top.
What are the other candidates? Man I hope I made the list.
We need to make a top 30 list.
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Is there any question you haven't answered yet that you would like someone to ask?
Or anything related to your job as a game designer that you would like to talk about but haven't had the chance to yet?
No; I think I have established that I do not have trouble talking endlessly about whatever I feel like talking about. I mean here are some posts: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=14.0
I'm sure there are game design speeches I haven't given, but only ones where I also do not feel compelled to give them.
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Why is the zone in Temporum named "Mere Anarchy" and not just "Anarchy"?
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While we've got you here, any news on when Alternate Realities will release? Also, why is it "Mere Anarchy" and not just "Anarchy"?
My best guess is late February or early March.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem))
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Why is the zone in Temporum named "Mere Anarchy" and not just "Anarchy"?
I think this was answered recently somewhere on f.DS. You could probably search for it. I would if I weren't on mobile.
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Why is the zone in Temporum named "Mere Anarchy" and not just "Anarchy"?
I think this was answered recently somewhere on f.DS. You could probably search for it. I would if I weren't on mobile.
In fact, it was answered directly above your post!
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Have stats from online play figured into the design process? Will they?
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Why is the zone in Temporum named "Mere Anarchy" and not just "Anarchy"?
I think this was answered recently somewhere on f.DS. You could probably search for it. I would if I weren't on mobile.
In fact, it was answered directly above your post!
He answered my first question, not my second question.
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The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
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The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Aha. Interesting. I thought "the second coming" was referencing when the expansion would come out.
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Have stats from online play figured into the design process?
I don't even see how this could happen. Like, I guess I could find out that an effect was stronger than I expected; except, I would already have found that out other ways.
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Aha. Interesting. I thought "the second coming" was referencing when the expansion would come out.
Late February or early March dude. There will be no commemorative blood-dimmed tide.
If you would like to be "cultured," if that's even a thing these days, if that's even a thing anyone could possibly want or which would have any value, then, I dunno, seems to me, there's a poem worth reading.
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Have stats from online play figured into the design process?
I don't even see how this could happen. Like, I guess I could find out that an effect was stronger than I expected; except, I would already have found that out other ways.
Lots of ways, and that's without "rate your game" or "veto mode" features to evaluate enjoyment and popularity respectively.
For example, you could see how many cards Farming Village reveals on average, and whether that draw effect is worth pursuing on another card (eg a card that draws until it reveals an action or treasure, then discard for benefit). See how well an effect actually works, beyond just how strong a card is.
Deconstruct how a card works as a springboard for ideas. An analysis of how remodel is used (ie often less than 2 more) would have easily led to the idea for Butcher (what if you got rewarded for not using the full remodel).
Or you could see how often effects like Vagrant, Merchant etc. actually work to set benchmarks for new conditional cantrips.
Big data is useful in general. Which cards are associated with ragequits? What cards are popular with beginners/intermediate/experts (so you can design a mix to have the right appeal)
And then there's revising expansions (or designing new cards that better achieve the concepts of old cards).
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In Kingdom Builder: Marshlands, Getting both Refuge or Fountain tokens "upgrades" the ability. If I take the second one on my turn before using the first one, is the first ability "upgraded" immediately, effecting my move this turn, or is the "upgrade" not available until the next turn like the tile?
Similarly if I take the second Temple tile before my mandatory action, can I use the ability this turn?
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For example, you could see how many cards Farming Village reveals on average, and whether that draw effect is worth pursuing on another card (eg a card that draws until it reveals an action or treasure, then discard for benefit). See how well an effect actually works, beyond just how strong a card is.
But what I really care about there is how much people like the card. I get an idea as to how useful the effect is from actual games and playtesters playing actual games, and then when it's published people say how good they think it is on forums. Knowing that stuff more precisely doesn't really get me anywhere, for an already published card. If people love Farming Village, then I can say, I should do another one of those. I can learn that from forums but not from game logs.
Deconstruct how a card works as a springboard for ideas. An analysis of how remodel is used (ie often less than 2 more) would have easily led to the idea for Butcher (what if you got rewarded for not using the full remodel).
It is good to have a variety of techniques for coming up with ideas, and I am there, I have ways to come up with ideas. I made it to Butcher and everything.
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In Kingdom Builder: Marshlands, Getting both Refuge or Fountain tokens "upgrades" the ability. If I take the second one on my turn before using the first one, is the first ability "upgraded" immediately, effecting my move this turn, or is the "upgrade" not available until the next turn like the tile?
Similarly if I take the second Temple tile before my mandatory action, can I use the ability this turn?
The upgrade doesn't take effect until next turn, like other abilities from tiles. Same with Temple.
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In Kingdom Builder: Marshlands, Getting both Refuge or Fountain tokens "upgrades" the ability. If I take the second one on my turn before using the first one, is the first ability "upgraded" immediately, effecting my move this turn, or is the "upgrade" not available until the next turn like the tile?
Similarly if I take the second Temple tile before my mandatory action, can I use the ability this turn?
The upgrade doesn't take effect until next turn, like other abilities from tiles. Same with Temple.
And if I recall correctly, Canoe can be used on the next player's turn, but not on the same turn you take the Canoe tile, correct?
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In Kingdom Builder: Marshlands, Getting both Refuge or Fountain tokens "upgrades" the ability. If I take the second one on my turn before using the first one, is the first ability "upgraded" immediately, effecting my move this turn, or is the "upgrade" not available until the next turn like the tile?
Similarly if I take the second Temple tile before my mandatory action, can I use the ability this turn?
The upgrade doesn't take effect until next turn, like other abilities from tiles. Same with Temple.
And if I recall correctly, Canoe can be used on the next player's turn, but not on the same turn you take the Canoe tile, correct?
That is the house rule I recommend, and the way I have always played it. A technical reading of the rulebook suggests that abilities refresh at the start of your turn, which would make Canoe not work until your next turn.
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I have been playing a lot of Kingdom Builder lately. My questions are do you feel it's necessary to have caves tied to the tavern or would rolling a d20 be fine. For the island, you recommend the harbor and the lighthouse if you want to see it more frequently. Do you feel the island should be tied to these two quadrants or do you think it's fine to roll a d20 to see if it comes up and assign it to whatever boards pop up?
And, finally, my last question is about Task cards. Why do they have to be tied to the quadrants from crossroads? Would rolling a d20 to decide if task cards come up alter your vision of how they should be played? Also, why do you play with 0-4 task cards? Why not 0-1? Just asking because when I had two crossroads boards and two task cards, a friend of mine was suffering from AP.
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I have been playing a lot of Kingdom Builder lately. My questions are do you feel it's necessary to have caves tied to the tavern or would rolling a d20 be fine. For the island, you recommend the harbor and the lighthouse if you want to see it more frequently. Do you feel the island should be tied to these two quadrants or do you think it's fine to roll a d20 to see if it comes up and assign it to whatever boards pop up?
As always I encourage people to play whatever variants they prefer.
It's not important that Caves/Island go with certain boards; there just had to be a rule for when to use them, something in-between "always" and "never." At one point it was a deck of cards - when using a board from the 4th expansion, turn over a card, and one added Caves and one added Island.
And, finally, my last question is about Task cards. Why do they have to be tied to the quadrants from crossroads? Would rolling a d20 to decide if task cards come up alter your vision of how they should be played? Also, why do you play with 0-4 task cards? Why not 0-1? Just asking because when I had two crossroads boards and two task cards, a friend of mine was suffering from AP.
Again there just had to be a rule saying when to use the cards. I wanted to sometimes have more than one and went with the boards. I don't mind if you prefer 0-1.
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That is the house rule I recommend, and the way I have always played it. A technical reading of the rulebook suggests that abilities refresh at the start of your turn, which would make Canoe not work until your next turn.
Seems so strange to have a designer recommending house rules. Do you have any you recommend for your other published games?
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Thanks for answering my questions :)
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Seems so strange to have a designer recommending house rules. Do you have any you recommend for your other published games?
In this case, it's because the expansion rulebook is lacking. It doesn't cover the case, and then you look at the main set rulebook and come to a conclusion that is not actually how I played the ability.
Infiltration: They changed the game a lot from how I had it. I recommend playing with all of the optional rules; that at least gets you closer.
Nefarious: I recommend the second edition; the card mix is just slightly different, and a guy on research is free. Fixes due to the wisdom of my years. If you have the Ascora Games edition and aren't planning on getting the expansion, which should be showing up soon, then don't play those two Twists together that make the game unwinnable.
Greed: One card is wrong (a mistake I didn't catch). It's correct in the prototype and I haven't changed it to match. It's going to be hard to fix, I mean I guess you could sharpie it, if I told you what it was. No-one has noticed and well it's a drafting game; this particular mistake does not matter much.
Pina Pirata: The second uh printing is better. They added in the "Adventure mode" (I always play "Cruise mode") and made it less bad in the second printing. And the cards are much more uh readable, distinguishable, due to color, although still not as good as the prototype. And the tile mix is a little less harsh. I'm not sure how to tell the boxes apart. With the first printing, do not play Adventure mode.
Gauntlet of Fools: I think I blew it on Armorer; it's not especially strong, but you can get lucky and end up going through the entire deck of monsters. Uh my temporary fix is, don't play with that one.
Kingdom Builder: I think I basically play by the rules. Where the expansions are off, I play by the prototype; Crossroads-the-ability gets you any terrain if you have two of the same terrain, and this Canoe business. And many things have better names.
Dominion: The prototype doesn't support 6 players. I don't play with the removed cards, or Rebuild.
Temporum: Use the "Play or draw or score" zones sparingly; with new players, don't use them. If I had it to do again they'd be in the expansion, and some expansion stuff would replace them in the main set.
Monster Factory: I think I may actually play this by the rules.
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I have been playing a lot of Kingdom Builder lately. My questions are do you feel it's necessary to have caves tied to the tavern or would rolling a d20 be fine. For the island, you recommend the harbor and the lighthouse if you want to see it more frequently. Do you feel the island should be tied to these two quadrants or do you think it's fine to roll a d20 to see if it comes up and assign it to whatever boards pop up?
And, finally, my last question is about Task cards. Why do they have to be tied to the quadrants from crossroads? Would rolling a d20 to decide if task cards come up alter your vision of how they should be played? Also, why do you play with 0-4 task cards? Why not 0-1? Just asking because when I had two crossroads boards and two task cards, a friend of mine was suffering from AP.
Hey, I'm not Donald, but I've been playing more recently, and thinking more about how to randomize without tying to specific things like you are talking about.
I randomize all these things by throwing them into a randomizer with all the boards.
They select like Dominion events. If you hit one, use it and keep going until you have 4 boards. The things I toss in the randomizer are:
All the boards
4 "task cards" (pick a random one for each one that comes out)
2 Capitals
Caves
The Island (randomly pick a side if it comes out)
I haven't used this too many times yet, but it feels pretty good.
If you think you'd like this method and happen to have everything, I have a rough first pass of my randomizer live:
http://www.makingmorefun.com/kingdombuilder/randomizer/
Being able to remove things you don't own is coming eventually, but I'm not sure when.
Kingdom Builder: ...and this Canoe business...
You probably already did somewhere, but can you explain what you do differently with Canoe?
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Dominion: The prototype doesn't support 6 players. I don't play with the removed cards, or Rebuild.
You've said elsewhere that the remaining expansions won't get 2nd edition cards, just tweaked reprints. Do you think there's a case for replacing just Rebuild in a Dark Ages reprint?
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You probably already did somewhere, but can you explain what you do differently with Canoe?
It starts working after the turn where you get it, instead of after you start a turn with it. You get Canoe, the next player takes the last Oasis, you get to use your Canoe.
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You've said elsewhere that the remaining expansions won't get 2nd edition cards, just tweaked reprints. Do you think there's a case for replacing just Rebuild in a Dark Ages reprint?
We would have to make it possible for everyone who bought an inferior copy to easily get the replacement. We're not making an Update Pack for one card. The promos are given away and not widely available.
The way to replace one card in Dark Ages would have been to have an Update Pack with 7 cards that were spread around among expansions. Some people would probably be mad at that though - I bought the old Cornucopia and new Dark Ages and this card is redundant, thanks for selling me something I already have.
Also the moment has passed! At best it's something I can consider again for 3rd editions.
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Also the moment has passed! At best it's something I can consider again for 3rd editions.
I guess. One alternative would be to say "Hey, here's a promo card, it's the card that I'd replace Rebuild with if I could. And when the current stock of Dark Ages runs out, I will. So if you've already got Dark Ages, maybe pick it up; if you haven't, then either get them both now or wait, it's up to you". And then the promo might encourage people to grab the existing stock, though I doubt it would be a big thing.
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You've said elsewhere that the remaining expansions won't get 2nd edition cards, just tweaked reprints. Do you think there's a case for replacing just Rebuild in a Dark Ages reprint?
We would have to make it possible for everyone who bought an inferior copy to easily get the replacement. We're not making an Update Pack for one card. The promos are given away and not widely available.
The way to replace one card in Dark Ages would have been to have an Update Pack with 7 cards that were spread around among expansions. Some people would probably be mad at that though - I bought the old Cornucopia and new Dark Ages and this card is redundant, thanks for selling me something I already have.
Also the moment has passed! At best it's something I can consider again for 3rd editions.
What about "expansions to expansions", eg a 150 card expansion to Alchemy coinciding with the rerelease of Alchemy as a big box expansion.
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You've said elsewhere that the remaining expansions won't get 2nd edition cards, just tweaked reprints. Do you think there's a case for replacing just Rebuild in a Dark Ages reprint?
We would have to make it possible for everyone who bought an inferior copy to easily get the replacement. We're not making an Update Pack for one card. The promos are given away and not widely available.
The way to replace one card in Dark Ages would have been to have an Update Pack with 7 cards that were spread around among expansions. Some people would probably be mad at that though - I bought the old Cornucopia and new Dark Ages and this card is redundant, thanks for selling me something I already have.
Also the moment has passed! At best it's something I can consider again for 3rd editions.
What about "expansions to expansions", eg a 150 card expansion to Alchemy coinciding with the rerelease of Alchemy as a big box expansion.
This would be cool!
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I think a FAQ of the Interview with Donald X. is in order.
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Also the moment has passed! At best it's something I can consider again for 3rd editions.
I guess. One alternative would be to say "Hey, here's a promo card, it's the card that I'd replace Rebuild with if I could. And when the current stock of Dark Ages runs out, I will. So if you've already got Dark Ages, maybe pick it up; if you haven't, then either get them both now or wait, it's up to you". And then the promo might encourage people to grab the existing stock, though I doubt it would be a big thing.
I do not expect we will ever replace a card in a set without providing a better way than a promo for people to get it.
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What about "expansions to expansions", eg a 150 card expansion to Alchemy coinciding with the rerelease of Alchemy as a big box expansion.
On Blogatog people are always telling Mark Rosewater they need to do a Return to Kamigawa - Kamigawa being their least popular world ever, by like every metric they've measured. There are always more people who just do not see why they are not doing this.
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What was the worst card you actually legit tested, like what ones did you think would be fine then you played them once and it was horrendous?
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What was the worst card you actually legit tested, like what ones did you think would be fine then you played them once and it was horrendous?
It's impossible to find a definitive answer, I mean I'm not endlessly researching it and cards have been tested that don't survive in any files.
On day one, the first game of Dominion, Ruined Market and Necropolis (as "Market" and "Village") both cost $5. So, that's pretty bad.
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Hey man, if $11 is a decent price for herbalist, than $5 is a good price for ruined market.
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Hey man, if $11 is a decent price for herbalist, than $5 is a good price for ruined market.
Hey, make it offer you three choices from the black market deck instead of giving +buy and I would buy it for $5 back when I was a Dominion noob.
I know my group would use a mock-up of Black Market but forgot to include the +2 coin when playing with it.
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I'm not sure where to post this so I hope this is the right spot. I'm just curious why the term "deck" was used to describe the pile of cards you draw your hand from. In my opinion the better term for this pile is "draw pile" and "deck" should only be used to describe all the cards you possess, be they in play, your discard pile, on a mat, or where ever.
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I have been playing a lot of Kingdom Builder lately. My questions are do you feel it's necessary to have caves tied to the tavern or would rolling a d20 be fine. For the island, you recommend the harbor and the lighthouse if you want to see it more frequently. Do you feel the island should be tied to these two quadrants or do you think it's fine to roll a d20 to see if it comes up and assign it to whatever boards pop up?
And, finally, my last question is about Task cards. Why do they have to be tied to the quadrants from crossroads? Would rolling a d20 to decide if task cards come up alter your vision of how they should be played? Also, why do you play with 0-4 task cards? Why not 0-1? Just asking because when I had two crossroads boards and two task cards, a friend of mine was suffering from AP.
Hey, I'm not Donald, but I've been playing more recently, and thinking more about how to randomize without tying to specific things like you are talking about.
I randomize all these things by throwing them into a randomizer with all the boards.
They select like Dominion events. If you hit one, use it and keep going until you have 4 boards. The things I toss in the randomizer are:
All the boards
4 "task cards" (pick a random one for each one that comes out)
2 Capitals
Caves
The Island (randomly pick a side if it comes out)
I haven't used this too many times yet, but it feels pretty good.
If you think you'd like this method and happen to have everything, I have a rough first pass of my randomizer live:
http://www.makingmorefun.com/kingdombuilder/randomizer/
Being able to remove things you don't own is coming eventually, but I'm not sure when.
Kingdom Builder: ...and this Canoe business...
You probably already did somewhere, but can you explain what you do differently with Canoe?
Nice randomizer
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I'm not sure where to post this so I hope this is the right spot. I'm just curious why the term "deck" was used to describe the pile of cards you draw your hand from. In my opinion the better term for this pile is "draw pile" and "deck" should only be used to describe all the cards you possess, be they in play, your discard pile, on a mat, or where ever.
This is the spot, but I don't really have an answer. Some things early on did not involve thinking things through.
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What about "expansions to expansions", eg a 150 card expansion to Alchemy coinciding with the rerelease of Alchemy as a big box expansion.
On Blogatog people are always telling Mark Rosewater they need to do a Return to Kamigawa - Kamigawa being their least popular world ever, by like every metric they've measured. There are always more people who just do not see why they are not doing this.
Obviously you'd have to follow the rules of the market, but do you think yourself that the concept of alternate, non-convertible (in the sense that Debt and Coin can be converted into just fine) currency is not intellectually satisfying enough to expand on? Surely the small expansion did not explore all the routes that came with the new concept. On the other hand bad luck of the draw at turn 3 can hose you in a way that you may want to resign early.
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I'm not sure where to post this so I hope this is the right spot. I'm just curious why the term "deck" was used to describe the pile of cards you draw your hand from. In my opinion the better term for this pile is "draw pile" and "deck" should only be used to describe all the cards you possess, be they in play, your discard pile, on a mat, or where ever.
This is the spot, but I don't really have an answer. Some things early on did not involve thinking things through.
Should have named it R+D.
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Obviously you'd have to follow the rules of the market, but do you think yourself that the concept of alternate, non-convertible (in the sense that Debt and Coin can be converted into just fine) currency is not intellectually satisfying enough to expand on? Surely the small expansion did not explore all the routes that came with the new concept. On the other hand bad luck of the draw at turn 3 can hose you in a way that you may want to resign early.
I think the concept of "alternate currency that you buy in order to use and that's all there is to it" would not benefit from further effort. Too many people didn't like it and more cards wouldn't change that. And a card with +$P wouldn't change that, and a Remodel that got in P wouldn't change that (and Alchemy at one point tried out such cards).
The broader concept of alternate currencies could be fine. Feel free to tackle the problem of how to make a good one in the variants forum.
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Obviously you'd have to follow the rules of the market, but do you think yourself that the concept of alternate, non-convertible (in the sense that Debt and Coin can be converted into just fine) currency is not intellectually satisfying enough to expand on? Surely the small expansion did not explore all the routes that came with the new concept. On the other hand bad luck of the draw at turn 3 can hose you in a way that you may want to resign early.
I think the concept of "alternate currency that you buy in order to use and that's all there is to it" would not benefit from further effort. Too many people didn't like it and more cards wouldn't change that. And a card with +$P wouldn't change that, and a Remodel that got in P wouldn't change that (and Alchemy at one point tried out such cards).
The broader concept of alternate currencies could be fine. Feel free to tackle the problem of how to make a good one in the variants forum.
This concept could be... the bomb.
/me ducks
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Obviously you'd have to follow the rules of the market, but do you think yourself that the concept of alternate, non-convertible (in the sense that Debt and Coin can be converted into just fine) currency is not intellectually satisfying enough to expand on? Surely the small expansion did not explore all the routes that came with the new concept. On the other hand bad luck of the draw at turn 3 can hose you in a way that you may want to resign early.
I think the concept of "alternate currency that you buy in order to use and that's all there is to it" would not benefit from further effort. Too many people didn't like it and more cards wouldn't change that. And a card with +$P wouldn't change that, and a Remodel that got in P wouldn't change that (and Alchemy at one point tried out such cards).
The broader concept of alternate currencies could be fine. Feel free to tackle the problem of how to make a good one in the variants forum.
This concept could be... the bomb.
/me ducks
Come on, now. November was 2 months ago. Save your Gunpowder plots for Guy Fawkes' Day.
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Is it really the Potion mechanic itself that's poorly received? I mean, Alchemy was rushed due to HiG's influence (which shows with e.g. Scrying Pool), contains the least kingdom cards of all expansions, and features one of the most hated cards in all of Dominion. I mean, if I were you I wouldn't take the risk, either, but I feel a lot of the people asking for a second Potion set actually like the mechanic and just don't like Alchemy as much.
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Is it really the Potion mechanic itself that's poorly received? I mean, Alchemy was rushed due to HiG's influence (which shows with e.g. Scrying Pool), contains the least kingdom cards of all expansions, and features one of the most hated cards in all of Dominion. I mean, if I were you I wouldn't take the risk, either, but I feel a lot of the people asking for a second Potion set actually like the mechanic and just don't like Alchemy as much.
Potions aren't the *only* thing people don't like about Alchemy. A big thing is that the set is too slow. This was a consequence of having lots of action chaining in order to make sure $P cards were usable when there was just one of them (and also then to have some kind of functional theme). I could have instead had two treasures, two VP cards, a Remodel, a Vault. A few cards are also just slow (or slow for certain people) separate from that; some of them could have been in other sets or gotten faster.
But Potions, people also don't like Potions. They were already not-loved-by-all when I showed the game to RGG. Sir Bailey, the 2nd person with a copy of Dominion, didn't include Potions in his copy. Most of us liked Potions fine, but it was clearly the least-liked mechanic, so I put Alchemy last (then bumped it up due to needing a half-size expansion fast).
As I endlessly point out: the important thing to realize is that it isn't "Alchemy II vs. nothing," it's "Alchemy II vs. something else." However much Alchemy II might beat out nothing, it is never beating out something else. There are people who would like more Alchemy; there are more people who would prefer something else.
And I'm one of them! I'd prefer something else. So.
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I'm sorry, I felt it was rather clear that I didn't try to persuade you to make "Alchemy II". Your position on the matter and your "X vs something better"-reasoning (which I find compelling) have been made rather clear in the past. My point was solely that I didn't exactly perceive Potions to be the worst thing about Alchemy. That doesn't mean it's good enough to prefer over something fresh.
Tjanks for clearing up the matter.
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An event costing $P that gives +buy is essentially a $4 special treasure that uses 1 card of space instead of 11 (not counting the potions themselves), and it may even be more elegant than "treasure that produces $0".
You can also do more mechanics like Alchemist that use Potion in a special way.
Alchemy will eventually go out of print. I think trying to salvage the Potion mechanic with Alchemy II/Big Box Alchemy is a better solution for the community than abandoning it (ie not releasing a 2nd edition and making it tournament illegal) or reprinting it as is with all the flaws you mentioned. This is especially true if you're going to keep selling Potion with the base cards.
But you're the boss.
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An event costing $P that gives +buy is essentially a $4 special treasure that uses 1 card of space instead of 11 (not counting the potions themselves), and it may even be more elegant than "treasure that produces $0".
You can also do more mechanics like Alchemist that use Potion in a special way.
This isn't the variants forum! Somehow a common mistake.
Alchemy will eventually go out of print. I think trying to salvage the Potion mechanic with Alchemy II/Big Box Alchemy is a better solution for the community than abandoning it (ie not releasing a 2nd edition and making it tournament illegal) or reprinting it as is with all the flaws you mentioned. This is especially true if you're going to keep selling Potion with the base cards.
Let me just, for the zillionth time, pick exactly what portion of my life I want to dedicate to doing more work on the least popular Dominion expansion.
But you're the boss.
The boss says: drop it! Give it up. Kiss it goodbye.
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Have you ever considered outsourcing the majority of the work on a new expansion to other people? You'd get the final say on whether it goes to print or not, but the bulk of the effort (design, playtesting etc.) would be done by a team that reports back to you?
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Have you ever considered outsourcing the majority of the work on a new expansion to someone else? You'd get the final say on whether it goes to print or not, but the bulk of the effort (design, playtesting etc.) would be done by someone else?
Which would still rule out Alchemy II, since their time also could be better spent?
I have given it its due consideration and rejected it. I never get out of playtesting the set, unless I'm willing to just have it be broken and awful - something that doesn't live up to whatever standard I've managed to set. And anything I'm unhappy with, the way to fix it is to put in the work myself. I might as well be putting in that work on my own cards.
A key thing maybe is to understand that making up the cards is the best part. I have no interest in farming that out. Man.
Now it's not completely impossible that someday I will collaborate on a set with another world famous game designer. That would be something I did to be friendly to the other person. As it happens the person with the best chance of getting a yes asked; I said surely we could work on some new game instead; we talked for a bit and then both found other things to do. That other game still sounds good though; maybe I will try to revive that someday.
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Have you ever considered outsourcing the majority of the work on a new expansion to someone else? You'd get the final say on whether it goes to print or not, but the bulk of the effort (design, playtesting etc.) would be done by someone else?
Which would still rule out Alchemy II, since their time also could be better spent?
How do you know what the optimal use of time for every human being on earth is?
I have given it its due consideration and rejected it. I never get out of playtesting the set, unless I'm willing to just have it be broken and awful - something that doesn't live up to whatever standard I've managed to set. And anything I'm unhappy with, the way to fix it is to put in the work myself. I might as well be putting in that work on my own cards.
What about setting benchmarks and standards (eg playtested in at least X number of games, simulator testing when appropriate, etc.)? You'd probably still need to playtest but only a few games instead of being hands on for the entire process. Have you ever been misled by playtesters before in your career?
A key thing maybe is to understand that making up the cards is the best part. I have no interest in farming that out. Man.
So how do you feel about the cards which were designed by other people (Courtyard, Summon, Settlers)? Did that diminish your enjoyment of designing cards? Your pride/sense of ownership of the game?
Now it's not completely impossible that someday I will collaborate on a set with another world famous game designer. That would be something I did to be friendly to the other person. As it happens the person with the best chance of getting a yes asked; I said surely we could work on some new game instead; we talked for a bit and then both found other things to do. That other game still sounds good though; maybe I will try to revive that someday.
Why do you think "world famous" game designers are the best people to collaborate with on dominion sets? What about up and coming/lesser known game designers? High level dominion players? The collective wisdom of multiple Dominion/card game/board game fans with no profile?
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How do you know what the optimal use of time for every human being on earth is?
Are we done with this thread yet?
Why do you think "world famous" game designers are the best people to collaborate with on dominion sets? What about up and coming/lesser known game designers? High level dominion players? The collective wisdom of multiple Dominion/card game/board game fans with no profile?
I said "world famous game designer" in case you, NoMoreFun, thought "oh maybe I could be that co-designer." I totally might agree to co-design with a good friend who was not at all famous.
Now, I am done with your questions for a while.
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I said "world famous game designer" in case you, NoMoreFun, thought "oh maybe I could be that co-designer."
Didn't think that for a second; I was asking the question because it seemed like quite a ridiculous notion and you confirmed it with your "I didn't really mean it" answer.
Up to you what you do next, but if you're going to imteract with the fan community (which you don't have to do), expect criticism (which you can dismiss), good faith suggestions on what people would like to see next (which you can ignore) and follow up questions if the reasoning in the responses doesn't make sense (which you can also ignore).
You took a big risk actually interacting with the community, and I think we're all better off for it.
There are no questions in this post
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How often is the price of a card not just a function of its strength but also something of an interesting "attribute" of the card? Some examples of the kind of thing I'm thinking of:
-Border Village could probably work with identical wording and with almost any price on it
-Poor House is pretty clearly not the weakest kingdom card. Does it really not work at $2? Could other $2s not work at $1? Or is it just that it's a quirky thing to be able to remake copper into something, and you want that to be rare?
-Similarly, why Chapel at $2 and not $3? It's probably the strongest $2, and even at $3 everyone would still be able to buy it turn 1.
-Would Plunder cost $5 if it were its own pile? Or is part of the "cost" the fact that it's buried under cards half a pile that's hard to drain.
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I said "world famous game designer" in case you, NoMoreFun, thought "oh maybe I could be that co-designer."
Didn't think that for a second; I was asking the question because it seemed like quite a ridiculous notion and you confirmed it with your "I didn't really mean it" answer.
Up to you what you do next, but if you're going to imteract with the fan community (which you don't have to do), expect criticism (which you can dismiss), good faith suggestions on what people would like to see next (which you can ignore) and follow up questions if the reasoning in the responses doesn't make sense (which you can also ignore).
You took a big risk actually interacting with the community, and I think we're all better off for it.
There are no questions in this post
At least nobody can claim you don't live up to your username.
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How often is the price of a card not just a function of its strength but also something of an interesting "attribute" of the card? Some examples of the kind of thing I'm thinking of:
-Border Village could probably work with identical wording and with almost any price on it
-Poor House is pretty clearly not the weakest kingdom card. Does it really not work at $2? Could other $2s not work at $1? Or is it just that it's a quirky thing to be able to remake copper into something, and you want that to be rare?
-Similarly, why Chapel at $2 and not $3? It's probably the strongest $2, and even at $3 everyone would still be able to buy it turn 1.
-Would Plunder cost $5 if it were its own pile? Or is part of the "cost" the fact that it's buried under cards half a pile that's hard to drain.
http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Cost
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Just accept it, NoMoreFun: Donald X will never love fan cards. There is nothing down this road.
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When you were initially developing Kingdom Builder, did it have actual Dominion cards for the deck building part, or were you trying out a non-Dominion-compatible deck building component?
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A key thing maybe is to understand that making up the cards is the best part. I have no interest in farming that out. Man.
So how do you feel about the cards which were designed by other people (Courtyard, Summon, Settlers)? Did that diminish your enjoyment of designing cards? Your pride/sense of ownership of the game?
have you tried mafia?
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Up to you what you do next, but if you're going to imteract with the fan community (which you don't have to do), expect criticism (which you can dismiss), good faith suggestions on what people would like to see next (which you can ignore) and follow up questions if the reasoning in the responses doesn't make sense (which you can also ignore).
I certainly expect that when I say "Alchemy II is never happening" someone will say "I don't think you've considered all the angles there, here are more of them to endlessly refute."
The fact that I might hypothetically co-design something with a friend doesn't make it remotely likely. I said "game designer" instead of "person" to try to shut out a poor line of questions, but the most likely co-author is still another full-on game designer.
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How often is the price of a card not just a function of its strength but also something of an interesting "attribute" of the card? Some examples of the kind of thing I'm thinking of:
You start the game making $3.5 a turn, so $2-$4's are much more a function of 1) openings, 2) utility with +Buys, 3) perception. Well except for early ones where I hadn't worked this out.
Obv. some cards care about their own cost specifically, e.g. Band of Misfits, or have a weird cost thing e.g. Peddler. And all Remodels have built in the possibility of Remodel-ing them. I think those are the main cases - refer to cost of itself, refer to cost of cards in general. Being the bottom of a split pile does have the possibility of making a difference.
Cards try not to be too similar to other cards, but sometimes something similar seems worthwhile, and then it's an issue, it can't be strictly better than another card. This may cause it to do more/less so it can have a different cost. Or kill it.
Sometimes there's a good reason for a card to be cheap or a $5 or expensive - a reactive card wants to be cheap, an early-game card prefers to cost less than $5, a slow (but somehow worthwhile) card wants to cost more. But here the card itself is tweaked to get something that's good at the good cost.
-Border Village could probably work with identical wording and with almost any price on it
Actually it cost $5 at one point, and I improved it by making it at $6. And it can't cost $3 because that's strictly better (as Magic players use the term, not as silly people do) than Village. It certainly varies in value at different costs.
-Poor House is pretty clearly not the weakest kingdom card. Does it really not work at $2? Could other $2s not work at $1? Or is it just that it's a quirky thing to be able to remake copper into something, and you want that to be rare?
Lots of $2's would be a problem at $1, because the pile would empty too quickly - it would be "this game is shorter." Poor House is a terminal that's bad if you aren't going for it.
Poor House itself costs $1 as a gimmick. Sir Martin suggested it.
-Similarly, why Chapel at $2 and not $3? It's probably the strongest $2, and even at $3 everyone would still be able to buy it turn 1.
At $2 it's more available for people choking on Curses (not saying it saves them, but they like being able to get it). At $3 you trade "the 5/2 is extra good" for "the 5/2 is extra bad," which is a wash.
-Would Plunder cost $5 if it were its own pile? Or is part of the "cost" the fact that it's buried under cards half a pile that's hard to drain.
It was $6 initially below Encampment, but being buried felt like it meant it could be $5. I think it would be too good as a straight $5 but don't really know, we didn't test that.
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When you were initially developing Kingdom Builder, did it have actual Dominion cards for the deck building part, or were you trying out a non-Dominion-compatible deck building component?
The initial work on Kingdom Builder was all me pacing around in the driveway or the nearby park. Just pacing, thinking about the game, night after night.
Its time as a deckbuilding game was entirely during the pacing. There was a never a physical version of that. When I stopped pacing and made a prototype, it looked a lot like the final game. The big differences besides specific abilities and terrain patterns and scoring cards, were that you had 50 cubes instead of 40, and had an ability just by being next to the spot - no chit to track it. And none of that changed prior to Queen getting it - I just messed with the abilities and boards and cards. And then Queen wanted 40 settlements and I pushed for chits for tracking.
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Just accept it, NoMoreFun: Donald X will never love fan cards. There is nothing down this road.
Settlers used to be known as Clerk when it was in the fan cards forum.
I also remember accepting that Guilds would be the last expansion.
I'm not saying that fan cards should be elevated more often, but I'll speak out against, "out of ideas" rhetoric anywhere, as well as insinuations that only certain people are good enough to contribute.
Donald X you should be happy that you designed such an expandable game that's good enough to have an active fan community.
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Donald X you should be happy that you designed such an expandable game that's good enough to have an active fan community.
It's like you're implying I'm not! That sucks, people implying garbage about me.
Take your conversation with Asper somewhere else dude; this thread is for interviewing Donald X.
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this thread is for interviewing Donald X.
Hey that's you!
The obvious times you're not enjoying yourself aside, do you tend to enjoy answering questions in this thread?
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Are there any Dominion cards you wish you could rename? Not change the text of or rebalance or anything, just change the name.
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The obvious times you're not enjoying yourself aside, do you tend to enjoy answering questions in this thread?
Sure. The repeated questions are sometimes annoying, and sometimes people feel the need to post cards, or say, now, now is it time for Alchemy II? But in general it's fun.
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Are there any Dominion cards you wish you could rename? Not change the text of or rebalance or anything, just change the name.
Sure. The main set didn't have much effort put into the names; some of the names are fine, but I'd rename some. I could have conceivably had basic flavor for "+3 Cards" - not that it would make sense, but it would be something I was more consistent about. And then obv. Harem could be improved on, and probably a few more random ones.
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Are there types of games which you enjoy playing but would not be good at designing?
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Do you think the limited availability of the chits in Kingdom Builder is a good change that was made when adding them for tracking?
Would you have provided chits for each player of it was feasible?
(This would obviously change the strength of canoe now, but that ability obviously post dates the chits.)
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Are there types of games which you enjoy playing but would not be good at designing?
I feel pretty capable game-wise.
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Do you think the limited availability of the chits in Kingdom Builder is a good change that was made when adding them for tracking?
Would you have provided chits for each player of it was feasible?
No (considering only that) and no.
It was much better to have chits then to have to look at the board to see what your abilities were. It's great to be able to flip the chits over as you use them each turn. It was totally worth it to get those things and in exchange only have two chits per spot. But it would be better to have three. I don't think you need four; technically all four players can be by a hex, but it's much less of a thing. The other players aren't looking to share. And you don't always have four players.
I would also change it so that when you move away, you put the chit back (and can get it back again). Then there's no tracking issue (currently you have to remember you lost an ability - not hard and not common but still).
I don't know if the extra chits would make any sense commercially. I mean they'd be in the cost. The game is not cheap as it is.
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this thread is for interviewing Donald X.
The title says "Interview with Donald X" - doesn't have to be about us interviewing you.
Got any questions for us?
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this thread is for interviewing Donald X.
The title says "Interview with Donald X" - doesn't have to be about us interviewing you.
Got any questions for us?
Yeah, I thought that this was going to be an essay by Donald X that was all about interviewing.
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Are there types of games which you enjoy playing but would not be good at designing?
I feel pretty capable game-wise.
I can't wait to see the Donald X.-designed worker placement game. Or maybe that's already Temporum?
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Are there types of games which you enjoy playing but would not be good at designing?
I feel pretty capable game-wise.
I can't wait to see the Donald X.-designed worker placement game. Or maybe that's already Temporum?
I don't think so. To me, worker placement means that other players can prevent you (or at least discourage you) from doing an action by taking it earlier in a turn. Maybe there are some Temporum zones that care if you're alone there? Or maybe I'm just thinking of how Primitive Paradise puts that $2 on each zone that you need to be alone to take. And Balloon Revolution is better if you're not alone there. Anyway it's not the key mechanic of the game.
I tend to find worker placement games much more frustrating than fun.
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I tend to find worker placement games much more frustrating than fun.
You know, I tend to share that sentiment, but I thoroughly enjoyed A Feast for Odin.
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I can't wait to see the Donald X.-designed worker placement game. Or maybe that's already Temporum?
Mostly I am looking to make new games; the more it's an existing thing, the less interested I am. So I wouldn't get too attached to the idea of me making a worker placement game.
I did look at the problem one day, and made a list of twists on the concept.
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The title says "Interview with Donald X" - doesn't have to be about us interviewing you.
Got any questions for us?
I'm not shy about asking questions, so I don't have unanswered ones sitting around. And I don't want to try to think of something just so I can ask it.
So my disappointing answer for you is no, no questions.
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What are your thoughts on games with props (like Carcassonne: Catapult) or "extra dimensions" (like Star Trek chess)?
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What are your thoughts on games with props (like Carcassonne: Catapult) or "extra dimensions" (like Star Trek chess)?
I don't think I understand the general question.
Carcassonne: The Catapult was stepping too far away from the premise, the part Carcassonne fans like. It's fine to make dexterity games, but you don't want to add dexterity elements to non-dexterity games. You just shrink your audience so much.
I don't know the rules to Star Trek chess, but the appearance of it is fine; it's just a different topology for a board. And it's the premise, not an expansion.
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Have you ever considered making a game with a dexterity component? How about a real time game like Galaxy Trucker or Escape?
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Do you ever go to game nights hosted by friends or family for fun? Or do you almost exclusively play to playtest?
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Have you ever considered making a game with a dexterity component? How about a real time game like Galaxy Trucker or Escape?
Well I have made video games with dexterity. I haven't made a board game with dexterity. I haven't given it much thought either.
Galaxy Trucker is cool, the real-time idea was great, but I personally would rather just build my ship in peace. At this point of course other people have made those games; I would need some really novel take to be excited there.
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Do you ever go to game nights hosted by friends or family for fun? Or do you almost exclusively play to playtest?
You have asked this oddly; why does it matter who's hosting?
I play games for non-playtesting fun. How much depends on how busy I am with playtesting.
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board game with dexterity.
Over Christmas, I was a friend's place for dinner, with me, friend, and friend-of-friend. After eating, we decided to play Jenga. Got out the game, set it all up, friend goes and removes a piece; I go and remove a piece. Then friend-of-friend very slowly and very obviously brings the entire tower crashing down on their first move. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. We put the game away and never spoke of it again.
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board game with dexterity.
Over Christmas, I was a friend's place for dinner, with me, friend, and friend-of-friend. After eating, we decided to play Jenga. Got out the game, set it all up, friend goes and removes a piece; I go and remove a piece. Then friend-of-friend very slowly and very obviously brings the entire tower crashing down on their first move. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. We put the game away and never spoke of it again.
Jenga is a great game. It's especially fun to remove the third piece of a layer.
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board game with dexterity.
Over Christmas, I was a friend's place for dinner, with me, friend, and friend-of-friend. After eating, we decided to play Jenga. Got out the game, set it all up, friend goes and removes a piece; I go and remove a piece. Then friend-of-friend very slowly and very obviously brings the entire tower crashing down on their first move. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. We put the game away and never spoke of it again.
Jenga is a great game. It's especially fun to remove the third piece of a layer.
Obligatory:
(http://gif-finder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Jenga-Thug-Life.gif)
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Do you pay attention to the BGG ranking of your games at all? Dominion is currently #52, I think it was in the top 20 and maybe even #9 a few years ago.
Is it in your power to have the second edition entries merged with the first editions? Second editions seem to be leading to a lot of balkanization for many games recently (Dominion, Agricola, Viticulture, etc.)
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Do you pay attention to the BGG ranking of your games at all? Dominion is currently #52, I think it was in the top 20 and maybe even #9 a few years ago.
I'm not keeping tabs on them, but I've checked them. Also Amazon rank. Either Dominion or Intrigue made it to #6 on BGG back in the day.
Is it in your power to have the second edition entries merged with the first editions? Second editions seem to be leading to a lot of balkanization for many games recently (Dominion, Agricola, Viticulture, etc.)
I do not understand this use of "balkanization." I don't have the ability to cause changes at BGG.
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Is it in your power to have the second edition entries merged with the first editions? Second editions seem to be leading to a lot of balkanization for many games recently (Dominion, Agricola, Viticulture, etc.)
I do not understand this use of "balkanization." I don't have the ability to cause changes at BGG.
The communities, forums and such are divided. If I want to look for a rules question for example, I need to search both the original and revised edition forums.
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How come there are no cost-reducers, Remodelers, etc. that deal specifically with Debt in Empires? So like Alchemy had Apprentice, Alchemist, and Apothecary, which care about Potions not during the Buy phase. But Empires doesn't have any sort of mechanics for Debt (at least not one that I can think of).
EDIT: I guess Capital cares about Debt not during the Buy phase, but I think that's it.
It would have been cool if, say, a Landmark penalized you if you were in debt at the end of the game or something.
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A card that referred to debt would most games be referring to nothing, except to the degree that the card itself also provided debt. I mean you deal out 10 random cards and mostly don't get one with debt. Whereas Apothecary knows Potion is in the game, because it put it there. Apprentice, the Potion clause there was a mistake; it was the only card in the set that didn't involve Potions, so I put on that clause, which doubles as answering the rules question that comes up there. But mostly it just makes the card more complex.
There were Remodels that involved debt; they didn't work out. See the Secret History.
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Is it in your power to have the second edition entries merged with the first editions? Second editions seem to be leading to a lot of balkanization for many games recently (Dominion, Agricola, Viticulture, etc.)
I do not understand this use of "balkanization." I don't have the ability to cause changes at BGG.
Because everyone knows that DXV is not a Slav to fashion.
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Because everyone knows that DXV is not a Slav to fashion.
If you're quick there's a Jimmy Page joke waiting to be made in the Sentry thread.
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How come there are no cost-reducers, Remodelers, etc. that deal specifically with Debt in Empires? So like Alchemy had Apprentice, Alchemist, and Apothecary, which care about Potions not during the Buy phase. But Empires doesn't have any sort of mechanics for Debt (at least not one that I can think of).
EDIT: I guess Capital cares about Debt not during the Buy phase, but I think that's it.
It would have been cool if, say, a Landmark penalized you if you were in debt at the end of the game or something.
I think Tax and Mountain Pass would fall into that category.
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Mountain Pass would fall into that category.
Misty Mountain Hop?
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You've stated before that originally you used one copy of each card as randomizers rather than having dedicated randomizers, and that this made Black Market setup quick and easy. Now that those blue-backed randomizers exist, do you use them? Do you pick events/landmarks by shuffling them into the randomizer deck or some other way? How do you do Black Market setup, particularly in regard to split piles?
Also, what is your favorite landmark and why?
I admit that the first paragraph is like 20% interview question and 80% looking for advice, sorry.
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You've stated before that originally you used one copy of each card as randomizers rather than having dedicated randomizers, and that this made Black Market setup quick and easy. Now that those blue-backed randomizers exist, do you use them? Do you pick events/landmarks by shuffling them into the randomizer deck or some other way? How do you do Black Market setup, particularly in regard to split piles?
Also, what is your favorite landmark and why?
I admit that the first paragraph is like 20% interview question and 80% looking for advice, sorry.
IIRC, Donald X. plays with his homemade cards, not the officially printed ones.
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You've stated before that originally you used one copy of each card as randomizers rather than having dedicated randomizers, and that this made Black Market setup quick and easy. Now that those blue-backed randomizers exist, do you use them? Do you pick events/landmarks by shuffling them into the randomizer deck or some other way? How do you do Black Market setup, particularly in regard to split piles?
I still play the prototype; to save on printing I use one card from each pile as a randomizer, add it to the pile to play, take one back out when putting it away.
I usually don't play with promos when not testing them; it has been some years since I have played with Black Market irl. When I did play with it I always used a randomizer deck from an expansion not in use (I usually play with two expansions at once, 5 cards from each). If I had just blindly done that with Empires then I would have played with the top cards of split piles and not the bottom ones. Which would have been fine.
Also, what is your favorite landmark and why?
I dunno. Battlefield? It's classic.
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Was Empires designed with Dark Ages interactions in mind or did that just work out that way? Seems like there are a lot of cute combos/counters when mixing those sets.
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Was Empires designed with Dark Ages interactions in mind or did that just work out that way? Seems like there are a lot of cute combos/counters when mixing those sets.
There was no special attempt to interact with Dark Ages. Cards in general try to give you things to do with them, and Dark Ages is heavier on combo cards, so odds are Dark Ages has lots of interactions with whatever other expansion.
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Hey, it's that guy that thinks this is the Kingdom Builder forums or something again.
I stumbled across another rule question recently.
You made a ruling (here (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1645986/how-do-extra-mandatory-action-settlements-interact)) about playing with Families and Temple that says when you have 4 or 5 mandatory action placements due to using Temple on the previous turn only the 'non-Temple' 3 placements are required to be in a straight line to score Families.
I was wondering about the situation where you choose the Swamp terrain type from Marshlands, and have an extra Settlement (or 2) from Temple. I'm uncertain if this should be allowed to score points with Families.
Your first comment is a pretty clear 'no':
Families doesn't care about the extra settlement, doesn't look at it.
But your second makes me want to ask just to be sure (emphasis mine):
The rulebook .pdf I am looking at says "all 3," so it has to be 3 for you to get the points.
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I was wondering about the situation where you choose the Swamp terrain type from Marshlands, and have an extra Settlement (or 2) from Temple. I'm uncertain if this should be allowed to score points with Families.
If you pick Marsh, you don't score for Families.
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Is Rats still your favorite child, or has something from one of the newer sets replaced it?
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(Apologies if this has been asked before)
It seems like the wording and template of cards is becoming more standardized both in print and in online Dominion. An example is the use of the coin symbol instead of the word "coins".
While coins, debt and VP chips have icons, other resources (notably cards/actions/buys) do not.
Did you ever consider using icons for them?
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Is Rats still your favorite child, or has something from one of the newer sets replaced it?
Rats is my favorite Dominion card.
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It seems like the wording and template of cards is becoming more standardized both in print and in online Dominion. An example is the use of the coin symbol instead of the word "coins".
While coins, debt and VP chips have icons, other resources (notably cards/actions/buys) do not.
Did you ever consider using icons for them?
I routinely use a card symbol for +Cards in other games; you can see this in Nefarious. So I considered symbols early on, like I always did. I didn't have good symbols for +Actions and +Buys, so I used words.
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In the new Prosperity rules, it looks like Grand Market has an asterisk in its cost now? Or is that just a smudge?
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It seems like the wording and template of cards is becoming more standardized both in print and in online Dominion. An example is the use of the coin symbol instead of the word "coins".
While coins, debt and VP chips have icons, other resources (notably cards/actions/buys) do not.
Did you ever consider using icons for them?
I routinely use a card symbol for +Cards in other games; you can see this in Nefarious. So I considered symbols early on, like I always did. I didn't have good symbols for +Actions and +Buys, so I used words.
Thanks for answering.
I don't think I ever felt like this would be helpful until playing Dominion online. It seems like the Adventures tokens and "decision cards" like Pawn would really benefit from icons, but I recognize that's not a given, especially with more abstract concepts like Actions and Buys.
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In the new Prosperity rules, it looks like Grand Market has an asterisk in its cost now? Or is that just a smudge?
It has an asterisk now, yes. In line with other cards you can't just buy, or maybe can't.
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Is it the only card in the Supply to have an asterisk?
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Is it the only card in the Supply to have an asterisk?
Peddler
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Is it the only card in the Supply to have an asterisk?
Depends on the Kingdom.
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So, uh, what the heck is the point behind changing the shuffling rules in the second editions? I find the new shuffling rules to be a bit confusing, and they have a tendency to cause more rules questions than they answer.
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Have you listened to any of the tracks that have been released for 50 Song Memoir yet? He's been releasing one a day as a countdown. I had listened to half a dozen online a few months ago, but decided to wait to listen to the entire album at once.
From what I remember, I liked the tracks I listened to.
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So, uh, what the heck is the point behind changing the shuffling rules in the second editions? I find the new shuffling rules to be a bit confusing, and they have a tendency to cause more rules questions than they answer.
The point was to reduce confusion, and cut down on rules questions.
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Have you listened to any of the tracks that have been released for 50 Song Memoir yet? He's been releasing one a day as a countdown.
This does not appear to be accurate. There were five three months ago and have been two more since then.
I have listened to those seven. I liked '83: Foxx and I, so I've heard that one more times than the rest. My expectations for the album are suitably low; there will be songs I like, but it's not going to be 69 Love Songs II.
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Have you listened to any of the tracks that have been released for 50 Song Memoir yet? He's been releasing one a day as a countdown.
This does not appear to be accurate. There were five three months ago and have been two more since then.
I have listened to those seven. I liked '83: Foxx and I, so I've heard that one more times than the rest. My expectations for the album are suitably low; there will be songs I like, but it's not going to be 69 Love Songs II.
Oh, I may have been mistaken. I thought there were audio links on the countdown. (I'm just seeing things on Facebook feed but was holding back looking into it.) I did listen to the initial five.
I'm not sure I'd expect anything to be as impactful as 69 Love Songs. I think regardless of any kind of objective comparison (which I don't know if there is), there is a psychological bias.. you can't have that experience of discovering for the first time again.
What I'd really like is for him to do another 6ths album.
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Have you listened to any of the tracks that have been released for 50 Song Memoir yet? He's been releasing one a day as a countdown.
This does not appear to be accurate. There were five three months ago and have been two more since then.
I have listened to those seven. I liked '83: Foxx and I, so I've heard that one more times than the rest. My expectations for the album are suitably low; there will be songs I like, but it's not going to be 69 Love Songs II.
Oh, I may have been mistaken. I thought there were audio links on the countdown. (I'm just seeing things on Facebook feed but was holding back looking into it.) I did listen to the initial five.
I'm not sure I'd expect anything to be as impactful as 69 Love Songs. I think regardless of any kind of objective comparison (which I don't know if there is), there is a psychological bias.. you can't have that experience of discovering for the first time again.
What I'd really like is for him to do another 6ths album.
Have either of you listened to the Magnetic Fields Song Exploder episode? It's a fascinating glimpse into his songwriting process.
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I haven't heard of Song Exploder. I did watch the documentary on him (Strange Powers).
Edit: I looked it up; really cool. There is also one with the guys that did the Bojack Horseman intro.
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I haven't heard of Song Exploder. I did watch the documentary on him (Strange Powers).
Edit: I looked it up; really cool. There is also one with the guys that did the Bojack Horseman intro.
Also GoT, Bob's Burgers, and Legend of Korra. And a lot of other good stuff.
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Is the Temporum expansion still on track to release this month? If so, will you do previews for it?
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Have either of you listened to the Magnetic Fields Song Exploder episode? It's a fascinating glimpse into his songwriting process.
I haven't heard it. I did see the NPR thing where he writes a song.
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Is the Temporum expansion still on track to release this month? If so, will you do previews for it?
I don't have any new news, so, to the best of my knowledge it's on track. As usual the big sign for me will be when my copies show up, and before that, an email from the shippers. I haven't gotten it.
Previews uh. Possibly one combination preview / secret history article. That has been my plan, as I didn't have a lot to say for a secret history, and it sure doesn't need multiple previews.
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Since you have revised Intrigue with the 2nd edition release, how does it fit into your suggested order of expansions? Also, does it shake up your ordering of expansions in terms of quality? For example, has it surpassed Seaside?
I found the base Dominion set to be much, much more interesting since the 2nd edition release, so I was wondering how much better Intrigue has become.
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Since you have revised Intrigue with the 2nd edition release, how does it fit into your suggested order of expansions? Also, does it shake up your ordering of expansions in terms of quality? For example, has it surpassed Seaside?
I found the base Dominion set to be much, much more interesting since the 2nd edition release, so I was wondering how much better Intrigue has become.
It's better than it was! That's not a question for me but for players, but I mean, I certainly think I fixed it up, when I was trying to fix it up. Well done Donald X.!
What order to get the expansions in depends on what kind of a gamer you are. I like Dark Ages, Adventures, and Empires the best, in some order, and some gamers will be ready to go straight there, but some will not. If you are not, I'd get Intrigue first, then probably Prosperity; casual players like Prosperity a lot, and hey you get Platinum/Colony. Then Cornucopia / Guilds, which will be more complex but uh with the main set and two expansions you are probably getting the hang of things.
Seaside is now the lowest quality large expansion (one of them had to be), because it's the oldest and didn't get a new-cards 2nd edition.
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So, I know that Courtyard, Summon and Settlers were designed by people other than Donald X. I'm very, very sorry to ask this here, as I bet Donald has answered this a lot of times before... But are there any other cards by other people I forgot? It's okay if someone else remembers, I don't need Donald himself to go through the trouble of answering it again. I just didn't find it on the Wiki, and thought that if there was any place to ask, it would be this. I mean, we don't need another thread for this, and it's better this post than a bad meme, right? Right?
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So, I know that Courtyard, Summon and Settlers were designed by people other than Donald X. I'm very, very sorry to ask this here, as I bet Donald has answered this a lot of times before... But are there any other cards by other people I forgot? It's okay if someone else remembers, I don't need Donald himself to go through the trouble of answering it again. I just didn't find it on the Wiki, and thought that if there was any place to ask, it would be this. I mean, we don't need another thread for this, and it's better this post than a bad meme, right? Right?
Dame Josephine suggested Counting House, but Donald changed it from getting Silvers to getting Coppers. Castles were sorta-kinda a collaboration; I started testing a version of them independently (with his blessing), then he took over and fixed them up. Lots of cards have fixes suggested by whoever. It's tough to draw a line there, for me anyway.
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Thanks, LastFootnote :D
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There's also notes in the Secret Histories about playtesters suggesting final changes to cards, like LF (I think) suggesting turning Coin of the Realm into a Treasure.
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I don't remember if Architecture in Helsinki ever came up when talking about music before. Do you listen to them? Someone showed me one of their songs (Do The Whirlwind, the music video is cool) quite a few years ago, but I never looked further into them. I just got an album from them (In Case We Die, from which Do the Whirlwind came).
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So, I know that Courtyard, Summon and Settlers were designed by people other than Donald X. I'm very, very sorry to ask this here, as I bet Donald has answered this a lot of times before... But are there any other cards by other people I forgot? It's okay if someone else remembers, I don't need Donald himself to go through the trouble of answering it again. I just didn't find it on the Wiki, and thought that if there was any place to ask, it would be this. I mean, we don't need another thread for this, and it's better this post than a bad meme, right? Right?
People have covered this; there's Counting House, and LastFootnote collaborated on the Castles including making Small Castle. You could look through the secret histories. I also try to cover changes that other people suggested, which there are more of.
Dame Molly suggested "spendy" as an expansion theme, which led to Prosperity. Governor is based on Puerto Rico, though I actually had that mechanic pre-Puerto Rico.
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I don't remember if Architecture in Helsinki ever came up when talking about music before. Do you listen to them? Someone showed me one of their songs (Do The Whirlwind, the music video is cool) quite a few years ago, but I never looked further into them. I just got an album from them (In Case We Die, from which Do the Whirlwind came).
In Case We Die is their best album, and the only one I'd recommend. The debut is similar but not as good; the two later albums are like a different band (and then they broke up).
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Yes, I realize now that I should have looked through the secret histories instead of looking for it in the Wiki. Thank you guys for the answers, thank you Donald, and sorry for bothering you.
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I don't remember if Architecture in Helsinki ever came up when talking about music before. Do you listen to them? Someone showed me one of their songs (Do The Whirlwind, the music video is cool) quite a few years ago, but I never looked further into them. I just got an album from them (In Case We Die, from which Do the Whirlwind came).
The band is awesome! I do love "That Beep" video, go watch it if you haven't already.
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Initial favorite tracks or just thoughts from 50 Song Memoir? I have listened through only once, and while at work, so not really with full focus. The initial ones that stuck out to me were "No", "How I Failed Ethics", (those two were released before I think), "I Wish I Had Pictures", "You Can Never Go Back to New York". I didn't like "I'm Sad!".. I don't recall any others that I had much of negative reaction to; many were fairly neutral.
I find my views on songs (in general, but maybe especially his) change a lot after multiple listens. Sometimes ones that didn't make any impression on me the first time end up being lasting favorites. I seem to almost always like his songs more as I listen to them more.
The Shins' new album came out today as well. I bought it but haven't listened yet. I never got into their last one, though I was a huge fan of the first three. I'm hoping this one will be a return to what I liked, but we'll see.
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Initial favorite tracks or just thoughts from 50 Song Memoir?
In my youth I went to the record store every Tuesday to get new stuff (also new stuff came out on Tuesdays). These days I order stuff online and click the free shipping button. So it will be a week before I have any idea what I think of this album.
I can tell you that Wedding in Finistere was the highlight of the new (but not today-new) Jens Lekman, then How We Met, the Long Version (which I already knew from Postcards, his series of a-song-a-week for 2015).
The Shins' new album came out today as well. I bought it but haven't listened yet. I never got into their last one, though I was a huge fan of the first three. I'm hoping this one will be a return to what I liked, but we'll see.
I'm going to listen to some of it on youtube and see if I actually want it. I liked the first two and the fourth, but not the third.
There is also a Laura Marling album today (she was in Noah and the Whale for their first album) (she did not stick around for 5 years).
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For the Shins, I think my personal rating is:
Chutes Too Narrow
Wincing the Night Away
Oh, Inverted World
Ports of Morrow
I really liked the third, but not the fourth. It's hard for me to rate the first three, sometimes I think one is the best, and then sometimes another one.
When I was young, I'd go to CD stores, but I wouldn't be getting the new stuff because I had this huge backlog of music to get. It started with Queen. Now I buy everything on Google Play and just get the electronic version instead of the CDs. I missed the vinyl age :/. I'm not sure if I'm at any risk with digital ownership, but I also download some to my devices. Though one annoying thing with just getting the digital versions is you don't get the liner notes, which for some artists is important.
I didn't know about Laura Marling; I liked her in Noah and the Whale. I don't know the other artists either, but I'll look into them.
One band that I had listened to some years past but forgot about for some time is Matt Pond PA. Not sure if you've heard of them but you may like them. Kind of Indy/Folk singer/songwriter I have Several Arrows Later and like it, and also Last Light, but I prefer Several Arrows Later.
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Did you consider changing the wording of Bridge for the second edition of Intrigue? Technically, the "but not less than 0 coins" wording doesn't cover the coin value of Potion and Debt costs going into negatives. Or is that just something that doesn't come up, anyhow?
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Did you consider changing the wording of Bridge for the second edition of Intrigue? Technically, the "but not less than 0 coins" wording doesn't cover the coin value of Potion and Debt costs going into negatives. Or is that just something that doesn't come up, anyhow?
I both considered changing and did change the wording for Bridge, though not the way you're talking about. The question you're referring to took years to come up as a poke-at-rules questions and would not be a factor in wording Bridge.
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Greed rule question:
How does the interaction between Ted "Naoleon" Bonham (gets Gun and Key next turn) and Ed "Rubberface" Teach (copies a Thug) work?
A) If you copy Napoleon while his effect is active, do you copy the temporary Gun and Key as well? Are they temporary on Rubberface as well?
B) Rubberface says do "its" rules. Is "it" Rubberface or the guy he copies, i.e. if you copy Napoleon, does Napoleon get the the icons next turn or does Rubberface?
Also, am I right to assume you can stack Masterplans with Pete "Repeat", the guy who lets you play a second card next turn, and Hideout?
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Greed rule question:
How does the interaction between Ted "Naoleon" Bonham (gets Gun and Key next turn) and Ed "Rubberface" Teach (copies a Thug) work?
A) If you copy Napoleon while his effect is active, do you copy the temporary Gun and Key as well? Are they temporary on Rubberface as well?
B) Rubberface says do "its" rules. Is "it" Rubberface or the guy he copies, i.e. if you copy Napoleon, does Napoleon get the the icons next turn or does Rubberface?
If you play Rubberface as Napoleon, it's like you played a second Napoleon. It looks like Napoleon, it has the extra icons on your next turn.
A) The idea was to copy the card itself, which wouldn't include the temporary effect. Man it seems simpler if that's what it does. It's super-unlikely to ever matter (if you got the icons for one turn; you aren't getting them permanently).
B) Rubberface gets the icons, not Napoleon.
Also, am I right to assume you can stack Masterplans with Pete "Repeat", the guy who lets you play a second card next turn, and Hideout?
I play Louie. Next turn I play Pete and Hideout, repeating Louie (and Pete). Next turn I play Master Plan. It returns to my hand and I play it again (and it returns to my hand again).
Normally, Master Plan would stay out - the rules have cards that do something next turn stay out to track that. Pete overrides that and puts the card into your hand (already relevant just with Pete plus Master Plan). So you could play Master Plan again there for a quadruple $ turn.
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Any thoughts about a future expansion including more Guilds-like coin-token cards (including events, landmarks)?
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Any thoughts about a future expansion including more Guilds-like coin-token cards (including events, landmarks)?
Experienced interviewers know that I leave such questions up to RGG, who also will not answer them.
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Any thoughts about a future expansion including more Guilds-like coin-token cards (including events, landmarks)?
Experienced interviewers know that I leave such questions up to RGG, who also will not answer them.
But what about an expansion themed on sharks with giant frickin' laser beams attached to their heads? Would you answer that one? I think that is a criminally-unused design space.
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Any thoughts about a future expansion including more Guilds-like coin-token cards (including events, landmarks)?
Experienced interviewers know that I leave such questions up to RGG, who also will not answer them.
But what about an expansion themed on sharks with giant frickin' laser beams attached to their heads? Would you answer that one? I think that is a criminally-unused design space.
How about a Dominion with nothing but really knarly attack cards?
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Why are some of your games published by Rio Grande, while others are published by Queen? Is it common for one designer to use multiple publishers?
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Why are some of your games published by Rio Grande, while others are published by Queen? Is it common for one designer to use multiple publishers?
Some cursory research reveals that yes, it is common. Ubiquitous even.
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Why are some of your games published by Rio Grande, while others are published by Queen? Is it common for one designer to use multiple publishers?
When RGG doesn't want a game, what do you do then? Give up on it? It's nice to work with people you've already worked with, if it went well, but there are only so many of those and then you have to try other companies if you want to get games published. Reiner Knizia made it a point to try to get published by as many German publishers as possible; I'm just trying to do what's easiest, but like to try more than a few publishers before giving up on a good game.
Dominion - RGG
Monster Factory - RGG
Temporum - RGG
Kingdom Builder - Queen
Greed - Queen
Nefarious - Ascora Games, then Magellan / Mosigra
Pina Pirata - IELLO
Infiltration - Fantasy Flight
Gauntlet of Fools - Indie Boards & Cards
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I guess it's just surprising that given Dominion's huge success; RGG wouldn't want to jump on Kingdom Builder.
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I guess it's just surprising that given Dominion's huge success; RGG wouldn't want to jump on Kingdom Builder.
Maybe they didn't think it would sell well. Or didn't want to/couldn't invest the money. Or otherwise lacked some crucial bit to make it happen. Or felt it didn't fit their program. Or...
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I guess it's just surprising that given Dominion's huge success; RGG wouldn't want to jump on Kingdom Builder.
After Dominion won the SdJ, it was still not a given that a company would even look at one of my games. It took winning two for people to say, okay, I guess we can check these out.
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But what about an expansion themed on sharks with giant frickin' laser beams attached to their heads? Would you answer that one? I think that is a criminally-unused design space.
If you're interested in such a game, might I recommend SmashUp? (http://smashup.wikia.com/wiki/Sharks) It even has its own version of Lost City!
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I guess it's just surprising that given Dominion's huge success; RGG wouldn't want to jump on Kingdom Builder.
Past results no guarantee of future success etc.
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So, I read Friedemann Friese's 2F-Spiele website and apparently one of his games uses mechanics from Dominion (together with mechanics from "Agricola" and "Through the Ages"). I understand he asked the authors of the three games first and thanks you as well as the other two on their website. I'm still curious has to how you feel about the game (it's "Fremde Federn" in German, don't know the English title). Did he give you a copy? Did you play it? If yes, was it fun?
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So, I read Friedemann Friese's 2F-Spiele website and apparently one of his games uses mechanics from Dominion (together with mechanics from "Agricola" and "Through the Ages"). I understand he asked the authors of the three games first and thanks you as well as the other two on their website. I'm still curious has to how you feel about the game (it's "Fremde Federn" in German, don't know the English title). Did he give you a copy? Did you play it? If yes, was it fun?
I think this is the game that in English is called Copycat. The premise was combining mechanics from other games.
I have not played it, do not have it, and do not really know how it goes. I am interested in trying Friday sometime (his solitaire Dominion-like game).
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What about the Temporum Alternate Realities preview? :)
I heard the expansion is going to be released in about a week, so... :)
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What about the Temporum Alternate Realities preview? :)
I heard the expansion is going to be released in about a week, so... :)
I think in this case I should wait until people can buy the product. At least I'll wait until my copies show up.
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I'm going to start with a quote from your secret history of 2nd edition:
The main set and Intrigue have the most duds - the most cards that experienced players rarely buy, that usually aren't worth considering. Or, in the case of some main set cards, that just didn't add much to the game, didn't give you things to do
Apologies if you've answered this before, but are you using data gathered from online play when you assess how popular and/or strong cards are?
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Apologies if you've answered this before, but are you using data gathered from online play when you assess how popular and/or strong cards are?
No. I am not doing that.
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You mentioned previously that complexity creep was an issue with continued expansions. I am curious how you would approach solving that problem.
I would like to make it clear that I am not trying to get you to reveal any information about future potential expansions. It is more of a theoretical question about how to continue to add to a game without it becoming overly complex and presenting entry barriers to new players.
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You mentioned previously that complexity creep was an issue with continued expansions. I am curious how you would approach solving that problem.
I would like to make it clear that I am not trying to get you to reveal any information about future potential expansions. It is more of a theoretical question about how to continue to add to a game without it becoming overly complex and presenting entry barriers to new players.
For Dominion the solution is to make spin-offs instead. Suddenly you can make very simple cards again.
Complexity creep is less of a problem when your game is more complex. Magic is crazy complex, and so you can make a huge number of very simple cards; with tens of thousands of cards over 25 years, they haven't done e.g. "destroy target tapped artifact." Complexity creep is also less of an issue the more redundancy is okay.
Dominion is very simple, and I decided to try to avoid redundancy, and so there aren't very many simple cards to make. At the same time adding complexity is a panacea, it solves all of your problems except increased complexity. I labored to reduce complexity in Empires and well there it is. So I mean. How would I approach solving the problem in Dominion? With the healthy attitude that it will be okay to fail.
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I labored to reduce complexity in Empires and well there it is.
I just want to say that I vastly prefer Empires to Adventures because it feels so much less complex. So, good jorb on that!
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I labored to reduce complexity in Empires and well there it is.
I just want to say that I vastly prefer Empires to Adventures because it feels so much less complex. So, good jorb on that!
While it is mechanically simpler the alternative roads to VPs make it more difficult to evaluate Kingdoms.
Also, please more complexity for Dominion. It is after all a fairly simple game and expansion should always strive for complexity and not simplicity. Folks who want that can stick with base.
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I labored to reduce complexity in Empires and well there it is.
I just want to say that I vastly prefer Empires to Adventures because it feels so much less complex. So, good jorb on that!
While it is mechanically simpler the alternative roads to VPs make it more difficult to evaluate Kingdoms.
I think that's a great way to frame it. The mechanics are less cumbersome but the decisions are still complex and interesting.
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...expansion should always strive for complexity and not simplicity.
I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Expansions should strive for variety. That's not to say complexity is necessarily a bad thing, but it's not an end unto itself.
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I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Expansions should strive for variety. That's not to say complexity is necessarily a bad thing, but it's not an end unto itself.
I'll say it: complexity sucks.
Strategic complexity is fine; I'm not talking about that. Perhaps a misunderstanding along those lines is why there's a disparity here. I'm talking about rules complexity.
Ideally you quickly read the cards and then it takes a while to explore the implications. It's great when you play with a card a bunch and still don't have a handle on it. It's awful when your eyes glaze over at all the text; maybe I'll buy some other card and worry about that one later. When you mentally shorthand the card into something that's wrong and it matters. When you aren't sure what's supposed to happen and make a thread in the rules forum.
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How good a Dominion player are you?
(objectively and/or subjectively)
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https://youtu.be/5vRlJrkxsqo
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How good a Dominion player are you?
(objectively and/or subjectively)
Asked and answered way back when: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg148786#msg148786
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How good a Dominion player are you?
(objectively and/or subjectively)
Asked and answered way back when: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg148786#msg148786
Thanks! I actually searched for this question, assuming it had been asked, but my search terms weren't nuanced enough to find it.
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...expansion should always strive for complexity and not simplicity.
I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Expansions should strive for variety. That's not to say complexity is necessarily a bad thing, but it's not an end unto itself.
Huh? It is fairly easy to come up with a village or trasher variant. Anybody can do that. But if a new village is not more complex than Village it'll probably suck.
I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Expansions should strive for variety. That's not to say complexity is necessarily a bad thing, but it's not an end unto itself.
I'll say it: complexity sucks.
Strategic complexity is fine; I'm not talking about that. Perhaps a misunderstanding along those lines is why there's a disparity here. I'm talking about rules complexity.
Ideally you quickly read the cards and then it takes a while to explore the implications. It's great when you play with a card a bunch and still don't have a handle on it. It's awful when your eyes glaze over at all the text; maybe I'll buy some other card and worry about that one later. When you mentally shorthand the card into something that's wrong and it matters. When you aren't sure what's supposed to happen and make a thread in the rules forum.
I don't like rule-messy Dominion cards like Possession. But rule difficulty has nothing to do with complexity. A Euro can be more complex than a wargame in spite of far simpler rules.
What I meant is that stuff that makes the first and fairly non-complex deckbuilder more complex is IMO good. Whether that's stuff like Landmark that makes the road to victory more tricky to evaluate or different starting hands via Shelters and so on doesn't matter. Again, Necro is not a difficult card to understand rule-wise yet the addition of variable starting hands makes the game more complex and thus, IMO, better.
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...expansion should always strive for complexity and not simplicity.
I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Expansions should strive for variety. That's not to say complexity is necessarily a bad thing, but it's not an end unto itself.
Huh? It is fairly easy to come up with a village or trasher variant. Anybody can do that. But if a new village is not more complex than Village it'll probably suck.
I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Expansions should strive for variety. That's not to say complexity is necessarily a bad thing, but it's not an end unto itself.
I'll say it: complexity sucks.
Strategic complexity is fine; I'm not talking about that. Perhaps a misunderstanding along those lines is why there's a disparity here. I'm talking about rules complexity.
Ideally you quickly read the cards and then it takes a while to explore the implications. It's great when you play with a card a bunch and still don't have a handle on it. It's awful when your eyes glaze over at all the text; maybe I'll buy some other card and worry about that one later. When you mentally shorthand the card into something that's wrong and it matters. When you aren't sure what's supposed to happen and make a thread in the rules forum.
I don't like rule-messy Dominion cards like Possession. But rule difficulty has nothing to do with complexity. A Euro can be more complex than a wargame in spite of far simpler rules.
What I meant is that stuff that makes the first and fairly non-complex deckbuilder more complex is IMO good. Whether that's stuff like Landmark that makes the road to victory more tricky to evaluate or different starting hands via Shelters and so on doesn't matter. Again, Necro is not a difficult card to understand rule-wise yet the addition of variable starting hands makes the game more complex and thus, IMO, better.
So the goal, then, is variation. One can add things that create complexity with the goal of generating more variety while striving for simplicity OR one can add complexity for its own sake. Your comment made it sound like you wanted the latter. If that's not what you meant (and based on your follow up, it seems like it isn't) then perhaps we don't truly disagree.
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...expansion should always strive for complexity and not simplicity.
I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Expansions should strive for variety. That's not to say complexity is necessarily a bad thing, but it's not an end unto itself.
Huh? It is fairly easy to come up with a village or trasher variant. Anybody can do that. But if a new village is not more complex than Village it'll probably suck.
I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Expansions should strive for variety. That's not to say complexity is necessarily a bad thing, but it's not an end unto itself.
I'll say it: complexity sucks.
Strategic complexity is fine; I'm not talking about that. Perhaps a misunderstanding along those lines is why there's a disparity here. I'm talking about rules complexity.
Ideally you quickly read the cards and then it takes a while to explore the implications. It's great when you play with a card a bunch and still don't have a handle on it. It's awful when your eyes glaze over at all the text; maybe I'll buy some other card and worry about that one later. When you mentally shorthand the card into something that's wrong and it matters. When you aren't sure what's supposed to happen and make a thread in the rules forum.
I don't like rule-messy Dominion cards like Possession. But rule difficulty has nothing to do with complexity. A Euro can be more complex than a wargame in spite of far simpler rules.
What I meant is that stuff that makes the first and fairly non-complex deckbuilder more complex is IMO good. Whether that's stuff like Landmark that makes the road to victory more tricky to evaluate or different starting hands via Shelters and so on doesn't matter. Again, Necro is not a difficult card to understand rule-wise yet the addition of variable starting hands makes the game more complex and thus, IMO, better.
So the goal, then, is variation. One can add things that create complexity with the goal of generating more variety while striving for simplicity OR one can add complexity for its own sake. Your comment made it sound like you wanted the latter. If that's not what you meant (and based on your follow up, it seems like it isn't) then perhaps we don't truly disagree.
Of course complexity for its own sake. A non-complex game would be Tictactoe and that is utterly trivial and solved.
I don't care much for variety per se. Just adding more cards to Dominion doesn't make it complex/better just like adding new Chess pieces doesn't per se improve the game.
But if those cards achieve something new and innovative that changes how the game works, like the aforementioned Shelters and Landmarks, that's a plus in my book.
The best thing is of course complexity out of simplicity like e.g. in the case of Chess or in the case of rule-wise simple Dominion cards that are nonetheless tricky to play with. And of course complexity that arises out of interaction of cards.
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But rule difficulty has nothing to do with complexity.
Other people who speak English use the word "complexity" differently than you do. If you wish to communicate clearly, I recommend being more specific.
And if you don't wish to communicate clearly, I recommend taking the discussion elsewhere.
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But rule difficulty has nothing to do with complexity.
Other people who speak English use the word "complexity" differently than you do. If you wish to communicate clearly, I recommend being more specific.
And if you don't wish to communicate clearly, I recommend taking the discussion elsewhere.
If you think generally that there complexity is unambiguously defined and specifically that "rule complexity" is the only form of complexity (actually I think that the term rule complexity is utter nonsense as rule difficulty has nothing to do with how complex a game is) you are direly mistaken.
For example Chess is a complex game with simple rules.
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I think contextually it was understood that the discussion was about complexity of the mechanics. Actually, it was explicit (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg690186#msg690186).
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But rule difficulty has nothing to do with complexity.
Other people who speak English use the word "complexity" differently than you do. If you wish to communicate clearly, I recommend being more specific.
And if you don't wish to communicate clearly, I recommend taking the discussion elsewhere.
If you think generally that there complexity is unambiguously defined and specifically that "rule complexity" is the only form of complexity (actually I think that the term rule complexity is utter nonsense as rule difficulty has nothing to do with how complex a game is) you are direly mistaken.
For example Chess is a complex game with simple rules.
I was specific, and distinguished between "strategic complexity" and "rules complexity."
You dropped the adjective, as if I thought that "complexity" did not need more specificity, when in fact I went on to advise you to be specific. Then you suggested that I think there is just one type of "complexity," when in fact I specifically cited two kinds of complexity and did not indicate that two was the limit either.
Your posts! They are not doing much for me. What will your next account be called, anyway? I'm trying to sense a pattern here. Well, probably something short?
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What will your next account be called, anyway? I'm trying to sense a pattern here. Well, probably something short?
weety5
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What will your next account be called, anyway? I'm trying to sense a pattern here. Well, probably something short?
weety5
How about horatio88?
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What will your next account be called, anyway? I'm trying to sense a pattern here. Well, probably something short?
weety5
How about horatio88?
I think this is uncalled for.
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But rule difficulty has nothing to do with complexity.
Other people who speak English use the word "complexity" differently than you do. If you wish to communicate clearly, I recommend being more specific.
And if you don't wish to communicate clearly, I recommend taking the discussion elsewhere.
If you think generally that there complexity is unambiguously defined and specifically that "rule complexity" is the only form of complexity (actually I think that the term rule complexity is utter nonsense as rule difficulty has nothing to do with how complex a game is) you are direly mistaken.
For example Chess is a complex game with simple rules.
I was specific, and distinguished between "strategic complexity" and "rules complexity."
You dropped the adjective, as if I thought that "complexity" did not need more specificity, when in fact I went on to advise you to be specific. Then you suggested that I think there is just one type of "complexity," when in fact I specifically cited two kinds of complexity and did not indicate that two was the limit either.
Your posts! They are not doing much for me. What will your next account be called, anyway? I'm trying to sense a pattern here. Well, probably something short?
I repeat what I said: rule difficulty has nothing to do with any form of complexity. Difficulty and complexity are often not sharply distinguished in such discussions. So much about communicating clearly.
Not that it makes much sense to discuss a topic with a rude guy who accuses me of sucking at English or at using several accounts.
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Not that it makes much sense to discuss a topic with a rude guy
That, I think, is painfully obvious.
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Not that it makes much sense to discuss a topic with a rude guy
That, I think, is painfully obvious.
Feel free to point out where I was as rude to Donald as he was to me.
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Not that it makes much sense to discuss a topic with a rude guy
That, I think, is painfully obvious.
Feel free to point out where I was as rude to Donald as he was to me.
...have you ever written a post where you weren't at least as rude to someone as Donald was to you?
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Not that it makes much sense to discuss a topic with a rude guy
That, I think, is painfully obvious.
Feel free to point out where I was as rude to Donald as he was to me.
This is embarrassing.
You know, I have had some similar internet arguments like this years ago where I was obnoxious and wrong, and occasionally to this day I just ask myself: why.
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Not that it makes much sense to discuss a topic with a rude guy
That, I think, is painfully obvious.
Feel free to point out where I was as rude to Donald as he was to me.
This is embarrassing.
You know, I have had some similar internet arguments like this years ago where I was obnoxious and wrong, and occasionally to this day I just ask myself: why.
I am happily interested in discussing the numerous forms game complexity. Which is all I actually did here. If some game designer cannot stand that I view "rule complexity", as opposed to rule difficulty, as a nonsensical term, so be it.
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Not that it makes much sense to discuss a topic with a rude guy
That, I think, is painfully obvious.
Feel free to point out where I was as rude to Donald as he was to me.
This is embarrassing.
You know, I have had some similar internet arguments like this years ago where I was obnoxious and wrong, and occasionally to this day I just ask myself: why.
I am happily interested in discussing the numerous forms game complexity. Which is all I actually did here. If some game designer cannot stand that I view "rule complexity", as opposed to rule difficulty, as a nonsensical term, so be it.
Poe's law in full force. Perhaps I'm just oblivious, but I can't tell if this is trolling or not.
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Let's just stop it right here.
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Not that it makes much sense to discuss a topic with a rude guy who accuses me of sucking at English or at using several accounts.
I am indeed rude. For example I am rude enough to say, that it will be awesome if you do not actually make a new account after this one is banned.
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Not that it makes much sense to discuss a topic with a rude guy
That, I think, is painfully obvious.
Feel free to point out where I was as rude to Donald as he was to me.
This is embarrassing.
You know, I have had some similar internet arguments like this years ago where I was obnoxious and wrong, and occasionally to this day I just ask myself: why.
I am happily interested in discussing the numerous forms game complexity. Which is all I actually did here. If some game designer cannot stand that I view "rule complexity", as opposed to rule difficulty, as a nonsensical term, so be it.
Poe's law in full force. Perhaps I'm just oblivious, but I can't tell if this is trolling or not.
Sure, what you is fine but me wanting to stay on topic is trolling. Fair is foul and foul is fair. ::)
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Not that it makes much sense to discuss a topic with a rude guy who accuses me of sucking at English or at using several accounts.
I am indeed rude. For example I am rude enough to say, that it will be awesome if you do not actually make a new account after this one is banned.
In fact he made a new account a few minutes later to say
Wow, you got some serious issues. Probably not used somebody disagreeing with the boss. :D
Leck mein Rosettchen Donaldchen. 8)
I guess hey, it's rude to accuse someone of making multiple accounts even if they're doing it.
Edit: theory reports that that account's email address is gofuckyourselfdonald@gmx.at. I am just reporting this because it's hilarious.
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Wow
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Seriously, save that account name for other Donalds...
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Donald,
2017 has been pretty quite for new Dominion. I know you don't usually discuss if you have new stuff in the works but do you let us know when you are NOT working on new Dominion?
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Not that it makes much sense to discuss a topic with a rude guy who accuses me of sucking at English or at using several accounts.
I am indeed rude. For example I am rude enough to say, that it will be awesome if you do not actually make a new account after this one is banned.
In fact he made a new account a few minutes later to say
Wow, you got some serious issues. Probably not used somebody disagreeing with the boss. :D
Leck mein Rosettchen Donaldchen. 8)
I guess hey, it's rude to accuse someone of making multiple accounts even if they're doing it.
Edit: theory reports that that account's email address is gofuckyourselfdonald@gmx.at. I am just reporting this because it's hilarious.
You're so vain, I bet you think this email address is about you.
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Isn't complexity limited by the fact you only use 10 kingdom cards?
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Isn't complexity limited by the fact you only use 10 kingdom cards?
Not if you make them complicated enough!
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Isn't complexity limited by the fact you only use 10 kingdom cards?
+ Events. + Landmarks. + Young Witch. + Black Market. And ^
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Isn't complexity limited by the fact you only use 10 kingdom cards?
+ Events. + Landmarks. + Young Witch. + Black Market. And ^
+ Split Piles, + Travellers, + Urchin/Hermit, +Tournament
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you can also play with more than 10 kingdom cards if there aren't any cops around
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you can also play with more than 10 kingdom cards if there aren't any cops around
What if there are cops around? This is getting more complex...
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prob keep a low profile
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So play kingdoms without Patrol then.
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So play kingdoms without Patrol then.
Or out of range of Sentries.
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2017 has been pretty quite for new Dominion. I know you don't usually discuss if you have new stuff in the works but do you let us know when you are NOT working on new Dominion?
I feel like people could do that math.
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2017 has been pretty quite for new Dominion. I know you don't usually discuss if you have new stuff in the works but do you let us know when you are NOT working on new Dominion?
I feel like people could do that math.
I would but it's too complex.
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2017 has been pretty quite for new Dominion. I know you don't usually discuss if you have new stuff in the works but do you let us know when you are NOT working on new Dominion?
I feel like people could do that math.
I would but it's too complex.
Implying there are imaginary Dominion cards.
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Hey Donald, what has been your favorite Dominion set to design/play?
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2017 has been pretty quite for new Dominion. I know you don't usually discuss if you have new stuff in the works but do you let us know when you are NOT working on new Dominion?
I feel like people could do that math.
I would but it's too complex.
Implying there are imaginary Dominion cards.
Well, a lot of people sometimes bring up these cards like Thief and Scout. Those must be imaginary Dominion cards.
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Hey Donald, what has been your favorite Dominion set to design/play?
Cornucopia obviously.
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Hey Donald, what has been your favorite Dominion set to design/play?
It's hard to answer the design question. I don't have, like, memories of those great evenings spent listing ideas. It was easier earlier on. Well not at the very very beginning, but right after that. But uh I don't know if that means it was more fun.
The favorite set question has been asked before. In the early days it was War, then War turned into Dark Ages and it was Dark Ages. I don't like the question much at this point because I didn't want to just say Adventures when Adventures came out or Empires when Empires came out, it feels too uh intelligent promotiony.
I can't sit and make myself want nothing
But I won't go knocking doors to find out
How many tickets to me I can sell
And it's not like there have really been low points, in terms of those experiences for me. It sucked that Alchemy had a tight schedule, but we enjoyed the playtesting games. I did hate playtesting Pirate Ship because someone always thought it was broken. I felt like Intrigue had more mistakes than Prosperity, to the point of me fixing some of Intrigue's with the 2nd edition, but designing/playtesting weren't worse for that.
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The favorite set question has been asked before.
Can't say I'm surprised, but thanks for answering :D . I've got another one thats probably been asked. I played Dominion every night for the last year, and I still love Dominion but right now I'm kind of sick of playing it. You've probably played more Dominion than anyone else. Way more than me anyways. When you've had to design/playtest more sets are you rarin to go or are you like "bllaaaaaaaahhh, not more Dominion"?
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I understand you used to program dialysis machines for a living. What would you say you liked best about that job, and what was the worst.
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Do you think you would still be as successful if you didn't have a cool name like Donald X. and had something dorky like Dave P. Gilbert instead?
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I played Dominion every night for the last year, and I still love Dominion but right now I'm kind of sick of playing it. You've probably played more Dominion than anyone else. Way more than me anyways. When you've had to design/playtest more sets are you rarin to go or are you like "bllaaaaaaaahhh, not more Dominion"?
My games mostly push variety, with even more variety if I am working on them and thus adding/changing things. And they always push "things Donald X. enjoys." So I don't tend to get sick of them! I do not get sick of Dominion.
I'm sure I don't come close to the record for most games played if we count online games. For just games IRL, I'm up there.
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I understand you used to program dialysis machines for a living. What would you say you liked best about that job, and what was the worst.
Best: I learned a bunch about programming on the job. In particular object-oriented and event-driven programming became a thing, and I learned about them, and that was good times.
Worst: The hours (they were normal hours).
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Do you think you would still be as successful if you didn't have a cool name like Donald X. and had something dorky like Dave P. Gilbert instead?
A story I like to tell: I have had the experience of someone standing there holding a copy of Dominion, introduced to me as Donald X., going on to say, so, we were going to play Dominion, have you played, are you interested.
So, the name does not appear to be a factor.
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Do you think you would still be as successful if you didn't have a cool name like Donald X. and had something dorky like Dave P. Gilbert instead?
A story I like to tell: I have had the experience of someone standing there holding a copy of Dominion, introduced to me as Donald X., going on to say, so, we were going to play Dominion, have you played, are you interested.
So, the name does not appear to be a factor.
I mean, "X" could be anything, so it's obviously not a unique name.
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Do you think you would still be as successful if you didn't have a cool name like Donald X. and had something dorky like Dave P. Gilbert instead?
A story I like to tell: I have had the experience of someone standing there holding a copy of Dominion, introduced to me as Donald X., going on to say, so, we were going to play Dominion, have you played, are you interested.
So, the name does not appear to be a factor.
I mean, "X" could be anything, so it's obviously not a unique name.
Many years ago, I worked briefly for a large corporation who enforced a rule-based email address policy that followed the format "firstname.middle-initial.lastname@whatever.com". If you didn't have a middle name, they used 'X'. Of course this meant that people external to the organization assumed 'X' was part of that person's name, even in the case of one of the most senior positions in the company.
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Do you think you would still be as successful if you didn't have a cool name like Donald X. and had something dorky like Dave P. Gilbert instead?
A story I like to tell: I have had the experience of someone standing there holding a copy of Dominion, introduced to me as Donald X., going on to say, so, we were going to play Dominion, have you played, are you interested.
So, the name does not appear to be a factor.
So...no X factor.
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Do you think you would still be as successful if you didn't have a cool name like Donald X. and had something dorky like Dave P. Gilbert instead?
A story I like to tell: I have had the experience of someone standing there holding a copy of Dominion, introduced to me as Donald X., going on to say, so, we were going to play Dominion, have you played, are you interested.
So, the name does not appear to be a factor.
I mean, "X" could be anything, so it's obviously not a unique name.
Many years ago, I worked briefly for a large corporation who enforced a rule-based email address policy that followed the format "firstname.middle-initial.lastname@whatever.com". If you didn't have a middle name, they used 'X'. Of course this meant that people external to the organization assumed 'X' was part of that person's name, even in the case of one of the most senior positions in the company.
People in the company would have assumed that Donald X didn't have a middle name then!
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As I recall according to Terry Pratchett, the middle initial X stands for "Someone who wants to have a cool and interesting middle name".
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As I recall according to Terry Pratchett, the middle initial X stands for "Someone who wants to have a cool and interesting middle name".
And people with a middle initial Y are just sideways.
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What were to happen to Dominion if you were to die. Does it go to your estate? Does it belong to Rio Grande?
By the way...stay safe.
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What were to happen to Dominion if you were to die. Does it go to your estate? Does it belong to Rio Grande?
By the way...stay safe.
Donald already has at least fifteen youthful clones set aside for that very possibility.
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What were to happen to Dominion if you were to die. Does it go to your estate? Does it belong to Rio Grande?
By the way...stay safe.
Donald already has at least fifteen youthful clones set aside for that very possibility.
The rights to dominion will go to his Estate. As to who Inherits the Estate, only Donald and his lawyer can say...
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The rights to dominion will go to his Estate. As to who Inherits the Estate, only Donald and his lawyer can say...
I think this issue has been discussed in the rules forum.
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What were to happen to Dominion if you were to die. Does it go to your estate? Does it belong to Rio Grande?
By the way...stay safe.
Donald already has at least fifteen youthful clones set aside for that very possibility.
The rights to dominion will go to his Estate. As to who Inherits the Estate, only Donald and his lawyer can say...
I just hope he doesn't Upgrade his Estate first
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Dominion is awesome! Adventures is my favorite, mostly for the travellers and reserve cards.
1. Do you ever come up with/test new cards when you are not actively working on a new expansion (or working on a promo)?
2. Dominion "came from" Spirit Warriors 2, a deckbuilding game with heroes. Have you ever tested adding heroes to dominion, or is Champion as close as it got?
2a. If you did, would that be a spinoff?
3. In a week of playtesting, is it it usually just playtesting the same game, or two, or sometimes a lot of things get playtested in a single week?
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1. Do you ever come up with/test new cards when you are not actively working on a new expansion (or working on a promo)?
Some tiny amount. There's always a file I keep of unused ideas, and I add whatever it is to the file.
2. Dominion "came from" Spirit Warriors 2, a deckbuilding game with heroes. Have you ever tested adding heroes to dominion, or is Champion as close as it got?
2a. If you did, would that be a spinoff?
If I made something like Spirit Warriors 2 I would think of it as a spin-off, although knowing me I'd end up taking out the deckbuilding part.
I haven't been trying to get "heroes you build up" into Dominion, but there are the travellers. Yes those are probably as close as it gets.
3. In a week of playtesting, is it it usually just playtesting the same game, or two, or sometimes a lot of things get playtested in a single week?
Over the years the most typical thing has been either a mix of games or all Dominion. Sometimes an evening might have been all Temporum or whatever, but not as often.
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Do players start with an extra card if Endless City starts the game real? Similar question for Mafia City-States.
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Do players start with an extra card if Endless City starts the game real? Similar question for Mafia City-States.
I would be very surprised if if it counted. To "become real" strongly implies that it wasn't real previously.
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Do players start with an extra card if Endless City starts the game real? Similar question for Mafia City-States.
I would be very surprised if if it counted. To "become real" strongly implies that it wasn't real previously.
Just wanted to check.
Also:
-Being time-shifted out of Viking America will not proc it, right?
-Are the Parthenon tokens component limited? It's possible to have Greek America, New France, and Simulated Paradise in the same game, but you only get 2 tokens.
-Capitalist Utopia's "rule all times" effect only happens if it's real, right?
-You can't look through Quiet Planet's pile until you actually visit, right?
-Coins on Beggar don't count towards its own (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) limit, right?
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Do you ever think about fixing Monopoly? I'd be interested to hear some Donald™ fixes on Monopoly, the game that could have been.
My personal assessment is that the first 25 minutes or so are fun, and then the rest is pretty awful.
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Do players start with an extra card if Endless City starts the game real? Similar question for Mafia City-States.
No.
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-Being time-shifted out of Viking America will not proc it, right?
Correct.
-Are the Parthenon tokens component limited? It's possible to have Greek America, New France, and Simulated Paradise in the same game, but you only get 2 tokens.
They are component limited.
-Capitalist Utopia's "rule all times" effect only happens if it's real, right?
Correct.
-You can't look through Quiet Planet's pile until you actually visit, right?
Correct.
-Coins on Beggar don't count towards its own (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) limit, right?
Correct.
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Do you ever think about fixing Monopoly? I'd be interested to hear some Donald™ fixes on Monopoly, the game that could have been.
My personal assessment is that the first 25 minutes or so are fun, and then the rest is pretty awful.
One of my oldest games is my take on Monopoly. The only elements I preserved were moving around that style of board, and owning properties and building them up. Roll-and-move is a reasonable mechanic that you can't do because of the endless parade of bad roll-and-move games. And owning properties and building them up is great. Of course in my version the properties all had special abilities.
The trading in Monopoly is bad, I mean it's political and so much for that. And as everyone knows the game overall is low on interesting decisions (you can mention the trading but the trading is still awful); you have to be into it for the ritual, and then it blows it on the ritual by taking forever, by eliminating players with hours left and all that.
I always say that Settlers is the fixed version, although I don't like Settlers either, due to the politics. But you know, in both games you roll the dice and see what you get, you can get stuff on other players' turns, you draw cards that do random things, you build up properties, you trade. If you are keen on trying the ritual of Settlers with less politics, try: 1) the robber goes to the space with the most points of buildings that you aren't next to, ties broken by most commonly rolled number, further ties broken randomly; 2) on your turn you can only trade with the player to your left.
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So from a previous answer I know your daughters are slightly older than mine. Are they now involved in playtesting? And if so do they think of it as cool or boring?
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This question might be answered if I had played your other games, but I'll ask anyways:
There's a "strategic breadth" to dominion that stems from it's randomized kingdoms; even with just the base set its incredibly unlikely to play the same kingdom twice, so to get good you have to consider the pairs of interactions of loads of cards. I'm not as convinced that dominion has a similar amount of "strategic depth", in that one kingdom would generally get boring to play in less than 5 play thrus as a decent player. Chess is a good default example of what I mean from strategic depth: there's a universal starting point but it can handle tens of thousands of play thrus while still being interesting.
Did you intentionally aim for (some form similar to my definition of) strategic breadth over depth because you think it's more valuable for board games? Do your favorite games generally have some form of "arbitrarily large number of starting positions"?
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So from a previous answer I know your daughters are slightly older than mine. Are they now involved in playtesting? And if so do they think of it as cool or boring?
They've done a little playing of unpublished games. It's a case-by-case thing, they have to be interested in the particular game and on that particular day. I don't think they've so much registered it as different from playing a game. And sometimes I ask them questions, especially to see, is this wording good. Natalie suggested the wording on the 2E Library, when I was asking about other options.
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There's a "strategic breadth" to dominion that stems from it's randomized kingdoms; even with just the base set its incredibly unlikely to play the same kingdom twice, so to get good you have to consider the pairs of interactions of loads of cards. I'm not as convinced that dominion has a similar amount of "strategic depth", in that one kingdom would generally get boring to play in less than 5 play thrus as a decent player. Chess is a good default example of what I mean from strategic depth: there's a universal starting point but it can handle tens of thousands of play thrus while still being interesting.
Did you intentionally aim for (some form similar to my definition of) strategic breadth over depth because you think it's more valuable for board games? Do your favorite games generally have some form of "arbitrarily large number of starting positions"?
So far the distinction you're making between "breadth" and "depth" just seems arbitrary and negative to me. Either I'm having new experiences or I'm not; either I continue to find ways to improve or I don't. How the game achieves that seems unrelated to whether or not you have it. I mean. It's like you're saying, my games aren't as good, because of the particular ways that they produce new experiences. "Depth" is a term other people use, it will mean something to those people separate from whatever you may mean by it, and no amount of quotation marks changes that. When you say you don't think Dominion has strategic depth, you are telling those people that it sucks, regardless of what you actually mean. FYI!
I try to make games that produce new experiences repeatedly; often that involves varying starting conditions, often with those elements being rules components, to the point of "it's a different game each time." That's not the only way to get new experiences; you can for example simply have lots of designed space, such that it takes players a long time to see all of it. That's a basic thing computer games often do. You can push psychology or creativity such that you're exploring yourself or the other players; for people who like those games (far short of everyone for either category), that can keep a game replayable for a long time with nothing else backing it up. I've done some of each.
I can also enjoy a game that just gives one experience though, if I like that experience. For example I still sometimes play Boggle. Boggle is an example of a game with variable set-up where grouping it with variable rules games like mine is just hugely misleading; the variable set-up doesn't stop it from being the same experience every time.
I hold Chess up as an example of what not to do. It's too hard for new players to even see legal moves, let alone make good plays. It feels like if you were good enough you could see lots of moves ahead, but you aren't actually able to do that; so it feels like the game is telling you how stupid you are.
And yes also "explore what happens when the first 8 moves are the same but then things try somehow to get interesting" is bad. Bobby Fischer - wikipedia says, "Many consider him to be the greatest chess player of all time," and gives citations - didn't think it was so great memorizing openings and exploring those paths, and advocated randomizing the starting positions. As if then the game had more uh well let's not call it depth. More something.
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There's a "strategic breadth" to dominion that stems from it's randomized kingdoms; even with just the base set its incredibly unlikely to play the same kingdom twice, so to get good you have to consider the pairs of interactions of loads of cards. I'm not as convinced that dominion has a similar amount of "strategic depth", in that one kingdom would generally get boring to play in less than 5 play thrus as a decent player. Chess is a good default example of what I mean from strategic depth: there's a universal starting point but it can handle tens of thousands of play thrus while still being interesting.
Did you intentionally aim for (some form similar to my definition of) strategic breadth over depth because you think it's more valuable for board games? Do your favorite games generally have some form of "arbitrarily large number of starting positions"?
So far the distinction you're making between "breadth" and "depth" just seems arbitrary and negative to me. Either I'm having new experiences or I'm not; either I continue to find ways to improve or I don't. How the game achieves that seems unrelated to whether or not you have it. I mean. It's like you're saying, my games aren't as good, because of the particular ways that they produce new experiences. "Depth" is a term other people use, it will mean something to those people separate from whatever you may mean by it, and no amount of quotation marks changes that. When you say you don't think Dominion has strategic depth, you are telling those people that it sucks, regardless of what you actually mean. FYI!
I try to make games that produce new experiences repeatedly; often that involves varying starting conditions, often with those elements being rules components, to the point of "it's a different game each time." That's not the only way to get new experiences; you can for example simply have lots of designed space, such that it takes players a long time to see all of it. That's a basic thing computer games often do. You can push psychology or creativity such that you're exploring yourself or the other players; for people who like those games (far short of everyone for either category), that can keep a game replayable for a long time with nothing else backing it up. I've done some of each.
I can also enjoy a game that just gives one experience though, if I like that experience. For example I still sometimes play Boggle. Boggle is an example of a game with variable set-up where grouping it with variable rules games like mine is just hugely misleading; the variable set-up doesn't stop it from being the same experience every time.
I hold Chess up as an example of what not to do. It's too hard for new players to even see legal moves, let alone make good plays. It feels like if you were good enough you could see lots of moves ahead, but you aren't actually able to do that; so it feels like the game is telling you how stupid you are.
And yes also "explore what happens when the first 8 moves are the same but then things try somehow to get interesting" is bad. Bobby Fischer - wikipedia says, "Many consider him to be the greatest chess player of all time," and gives citations - didn't think it was so great memorizing openings and exploring those paths, and advocated randomizing the starting positions. As if then the game had more uh well let's not call it depth. More something.
I like Dominion more than chess because of the randomized start states, I'm sorry if I came off as negative, I probably coulda thrown in some praise for what I called "breadth". I was wordily describing why I think chess is harder to fully master in a sense (though neither are by any means easy), but I think there's about 1000 things more important to a game being fun than "being incredibly hard to master" to the point where you have to devote your life.
Thanks for the comprehensive answer!
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It's possible that for a game to have the kind of "depth" that chess has, it needs to have little or no randomness. Looking several turns ahead becomes difficult the more random events change things. Personally I'll take some randomness any day of the week. I find chess incredibly dull.
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I'm not as convinced that dominion has a similar amount of "strategic depth", in that one kingdom would generally get boring to play in less than 5 play thrus as a decent player.
I think this might be true; but I think we should test it. I'd actually like to see the results of a "Kingdom of the week" feature on ShuffleIt: give players the option to play the KotW and then at the end of the week publish some analysis on the results: the dominant strategy, etc.; 5/2 vs. 4/3 breakdown; first player advantage etc.
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But even with the same Kingom every time, Dominion has luck which makes it different. Chess has a theoretical right set of moves that will win every game (or force a draw every game; it's not known which). Dominion will always require you to play the odds and work with what you've got.
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But even with the same Kingom every time, Dominion has luck which makes it different. Chess has a theoretical right set of moves that will win every game (or force a draw every game; it's not known which). Dominion will always require you to play the odds and work with what you've got.
You're going either too far or not far enough here. Chess has no correct set of moves, but rather a theoretical tree of optimal moves that is so enormously big that I will confidently claim that non-enhanced humans will never be able to memorize it. Either way, if you were to assume that humans were capable of memorizing it, you should also assume that they would be capable of making the exact right decision (based on probabilities) at any time in a game of Dominion, leaving the result up to chance alone. However, a game that's decided on chance alone isn't more than a coin flip, and therefore just as dull as a game with fixed winners.
The point is that Chess' actions depend exclusively on your opponent's actions, while Dominion's don't. You can like either and complain about either. I like both.
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You're going either too far or not far enough here. Chess has no correct set of moves, but rather a theoretical tree of optimal moves that is so enormously big that I will confidently claim that non-enhanced humans will never be able to memorize it. Either way, if you were to assume that humans were capable of memorizing it, you should also assume that they would be capable of making the exact right decision (based on probabilities) at any time in a game of Dominion, leaving the result up to chance alone. However, a game that's decided on chance alone isn't more than a coin flip, and therefore just as dull as a game with fixed winners.
The point is that Chess' actions depend exclusively on your opponent's actions, while Dominion's don't. You can like either and complain about either. I like both.
We have been down this road before.
For people who want to be super correct: chess is a low-luck game, but does have luck. This is trivially true due to the impossibility of complete analysis. As always I then recommend Richard Garfield's speech on luck vs. skill, which you can find on youtube.
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Will there be a Secret History for Alternate Realities? I'm rather curious to hear some of the stories behind the mechanics and flavor of some of the zones/cards. The ancient aliens want you to get rich, for some reason?
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Will there be a Secret History for Alternate Realities? I'm rather curious to hear some of the stories behind the mechanics and flavor of some of the zones/cards. The ancient aliens want you to get rich, for some reason?
I wrote a preview/history that doesn't say much, but was waiting to post it until my copies showed up, and they are late. So now it's super pointless but probably it will make it out anyway.
You need the money to power up your pyramid spaceships? "Aliens" sounded like it fit with "alternate win condition" and I looked no further.
Obv the number $100 could have been tweaked to be whatever perfect number, but it really wanted to be $100 if $100 worked, and $100 did work.
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You're going either too far or not far enough here. Chess has no correct set of moves, but rather a theoretical tree of optimal moves that is so enormously big that I will confidently claim that non-enhanced humans will never be able to memorize it. Either way, if you were to assume that humans were capable of memorizing it, you should also assume that they would be capable of making the exact right decision (based on probabilities) at any time in a game of Dominion, leaving the result up to chance alone. However, a game that's decided on chance alone isn't more than a coin flip, and therefore just as dull as a game with fixed winners.
The point is that Chess' actions depend exclusively on your opponent's actions, while Dominion's don't. You can like either and complain about either. I like both.
We have been down this road before.
For people who want to be super correct: chess is a low-luck game, but does have luck. This is trivially true due to the impossibility of complete analysis. As always I then recommend Richard Garfield's speech on luck vs. skill, which you can find on youtube.
I'm going to disagree on an abstract level, ignoring actually playing the game.
I'm all but certain chess will be brute-force solved in my lifetime. And even if it's not, we can show easily that such a solution exists even if computing technology as of 20xx or even 23xx can't find it. (The computers described in Star Trek almost certainly had solved chess.)
This is not true of Dominion and other games that involve randomness. Dominion, like poker, is non-solvable.
Chess has no such randomness; you cannot have a "bad beat" in chess, because there are only the moves that have been made. The same could be said for many other games: Go, Caylus, Prismata (though setup is randomized), Terra Mystica (random setup), and of course dozens of games that *have* been solved.
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I think the argument is that, unless you integrate a supercomputer into a human brain, the human won't be able to solve the game, so there is some amount of luck into what a human will or will not see. Computers already beat humans at Chess, and they are getting there at Go. That doesn't stop people from playing those games.
And even in games with luck, there will always be a move that maximizes the odds of winning, so they can theoretically be solved too.
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I don't really get why people still play actual chess. It lacks a ton of aspects that a lot of comparable games do have.
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I don't really get why people still play actual chess.
Nostalgia.
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You're going either too far or not far enough here. Chess has no correct set of moves, but rather a theoretical tree of optimal moves that is so enormously big that I will confidently claim that non-enhanced humans will never be able to memorize it. Either way, if you were to assume that humans were capable of memorizing it, you should also assume that they would be capable of making the exact right decision (based on probabilities) at any time in a game of Dominion, leaving the result up to chance alone. However, a game that's decided on chance alone isn't more than a coin flip, and therefore just as dull as a game with fixed winners.
The point is that Chess' actions depend exclusively on your opponent's actions, while Dominion's don't. You can like either and complain about either. I like both.
We have been down this road before.
For people who want to be super correct: chess is a low-luck game, but does have luck. This is trivially true due to the impossibility of complete analysis. As always I then recommend Richard Garfield's speech on luck vs. skill, which you can find on youtube.
I'm going to disagree on an abstract level, ignoring actually playing the game.
I'm all but certain chess will be brute-force solved in my lifetime. And even if it's not, we can show easily that such a solution exists even if computing technology as of 20xx or even 23xx can't find it. (The computers described in Star Trek almost certainly had solved chess.)
This is not true of Dominion and other games that involve randomness. Dominion, like poker, is non-solvable.
Chess has no such randomness; you cannot have a "bad beat" in chess, because there are only the moves that have been made. The same could be said for many other games: Go, Caylus, Prismata (though setup is randomized), Terra Mystica (random setup), and of course dozens of games that *have* been solved.
To borrow Garfield's example... we'll play a game. We each name a digit 0-9. Whoever is closest to the 23,343,498,734,328'th digit of Pi is the winner. (The large number chosen changes each time you play). The game is perfectly solvable... just memorize the first few quadrillion digits of Pi. However, given the human impossibility of doing such a feat, the game ends up playing out indistinguishable from a coin-toss game with 50/50 chance of winning.
Same goes for chess. Even though it is absolutely solvable, because it's impossible for humans to do so, a beginner could defeat a grandmaster by making random moves and getting lucky enough to make the 1 set of moves that's a guaranteed win.
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I've always thought Dominion and Chess were similar in that they are both very easy to understand (rules are simple) while having very complex strategies and gameplays. To me that's a mark of an elegant game: you can get a lot of richness from a few basic rules.
I contrast this with something like (American) football, where there are lots of complicated and seemingly arbitrary rules.
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Chess would be simple if the pieces had text, but all the text is in the rules which actually makes it pretty complex.
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I'm all but certain chess will be brute-force solved in my lifetime. And even if it's not, we can show easily that such a solution exists even if computing technology as of 20xx or even 23xx can't find it. (The computers described in Star Trek almost certainly had solved chess.)
This is not true of Dominion and other games that involve randomness. Dominion, like poker, is non-solvable.
Chess has no such randomness; you cannot have a "bad beat" in chess, because there are only the moves that have been made. The same could be said for many other games: Go, Caylus, Prismata (though setup is randomized), Terra Mystica (random setup), and of course dozens of games that *have* been solved.
It's obv. moot if computers have solved chess, if we are talking about a game between humans. To the humans, the game has luck. It's trivial to demonstrate.
The idea that a game with randomness can't be solved, well that's not how I use the word "solved." You can of course have a game with randomness where you can calculate the odds and know the best move. The only sane definition of "solved" is the one that includes those games. The fact that after the fact we can tell you another move would have been better given how the dice came up is moot. It's hugely misleading to suggest that "we don't know how the dice will come up" is anything like "we haven't thrown enough computing power at Chess yet."
Poker is unsolvable due to the psychological component. You can hone in on answers with history analysis, but may start with no history of your opponents to analyze.
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Chess would be simple if the pieces had text, but all the text is in the rules which actually makes it pretty complex.
This is not true, and I have playtesting experience backing me up. The grid adds a lot of complexity.
In the early days of Magic, trying to describe it, I'd say, suppose we were playing Chess, but I brought half the set and you brought the other half. You've got knights and bishops and things, but I have archers and pikemen. And half of my board is underwater. After describing it that way a few times, I thought, I should make that game. And I made a game with tiles with text on them that went on a board and fought it out. It was impossible to see legal plays, let alone good plays.
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You're going either too far or not far enough here. Chess has no correct set of moves, but rather a theoretical tree of optimal moves that is so enormously big that I will confidently claim that non-enhanced humans will never be able to memorize it. Either way, if you were to assume that humans were capable of memorizing it, you should also assume that they would be capable of making the exact right decision (based on probabilities) at any time in a game of Dominion, leaving the result up to chance alone. However, a game that's decided on chance alone isn't more than a coin flip, and therefore just as dull as a game with fixed winners.
The point is that Chess' actions depend exclusively on your opponent's actions, while Dominion's don't. You can like either and complain about either. I like both.
We have been down this road before.
For people who want to be super correct: chess is a low-luck game, but does have luck. This is trivially true due to the impossibility of complete analysis. As always I then recommend Richard Garfield's speech on luck vs. skill, which you can find on youtube.
Zermelo's theorem begs to differ.
It has luck if start player is predetermined.
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You're going either too far or not far enough here. Chess has no correct set of moves, but rather a theoretical tree of optimal moves that is so enormously big that I will confidently claim that non-enhanced humans will never be able to memorize it. Either way, if you were to assume that humans were capable of memorizing it, you should also assume that they would be capable of making the exact right decision (based on probabilities) at any time in a game of Dominion, leaving the result up to chance alone. However, a game that's decided on chance alone isn't more than a coin flip, and therefore just as dull as a game with fixed winners.
The point is that Chess' actions depend exclusively on your opponent's actions, while Dominion's don't. You can like either and complain about either. I like both.
We have been down this road before.
For people who want to be super correct: chess is a low-luck game, but does have luck. This is trivially true due to the impossibility of complete analysis. As always I then recommend Richard Garfield's speech on luck vs. skill, which you can find on youtube.
Zermelo's theorem begs to differ.
It has luck if start player is predetermined.
I am looking at the wikipedia article on Zermelo's thereom; it does not appear to have the tiniest bit of relevance to the conversation.
Again if someone wants more words on the topic of what exactly counts as luck and all that, I recommend Richard Garfield's speech on luck, which is easy to find. I am not going to devote time to arguing it out but am prepared to tell more people that they're wrong.
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It's simply different definitions. Donald isn't using the game theory definition of luck, which is perfectly fine because he's using the other definition for a purpose.
Certainly Zermelo's theorem isn't relevant because it's using luck in the randomized integer sense, and implicitly assumes an omniscient player is playing the game.
...it also assumes that the game has no luck within it's assertions, and the proof is about being deterministic, not about lacking chance/luck so it's entirely irrelevant that way too regardless of definition....
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My wife and I came across a Temporum rules question while playing the new expansion (which we absolutely love, by the way).
What happens if you set aside Anubis Statuette with Cache? Presumably the start of your turn happens before changing history or moving. So does "resolve this zone" tell you to visit the zone where you happen to be at the start of your turn, or does Anubis Statuette just set up an effect that happens later in the turn when you visit a zone normally?
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My wife and I came across a Temporum rules question while playing the new expansion (which we absolutely love, by the way).
What happens if you set aside Anubis Statuette with Cache? Presumably the start of your turn happens before changing history or moving. So does "resolve this zone" tell you to visit the zone where you happen to be at the start of your turn, or does Anubis Statuette just set up an effect that happens later in the turn when you visit a zone normally?
Interesting. It's clear that in general Anubis Statuette just sets up an effect that happens later. But there's some unfortunate wording with "this zone", since "this zone" normally means "the zone where you currently are while playing Anubis Statuette". The only reasonable resolution to me would be interpreting "this zone" to mean "the zone that you choose to visit on this turn". Meaning, it would still just set up an effect that you would take after the next time you visit a zone.
It just now occurred to me that even without the expansion, Anubis Statuette might happen in the middle of turn instead of at the end of turn. When combined with Information Age, you might visit Time III, play Anubis Statuette, then resolve Anubis, moving and visiting somewhere else. But then after that you still move on to Time II and/or Time I, depending on where you have 4 influence.
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What happens if you set aside Anubis Statuette with Cache? Presumably the start of your turn happens before changing history or moving. So does "resolve this zone" tell you to visit the zone where you happen to be at the start of your turn, or does Anubis Statuette just set up an effect that happens later in the turn when you visit a zone normally?
Anubis Statuette should say, to clarify this situation, "after you visit your regular zone for the turn" (or some such). That's the intended functionality. With Information Age, it's after resolving Information Age, after visiting whatever Zones result from that.
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Why did you choose to make wall start at 15?
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Why did you choose to make wall start at 15?
If the question is, why 15 specifically, then I don't know. The reason it doesn't start at 0 is because of a lunch game my group had where one player trashed down to a 3-card golden deck (with Temple) and then left to go to a meeting. Now at the time, I believe Wall was "–1 VP per 2 cards you have". If it had been –1 VP per card without the 15-card threshold, he would have won that game, despite gaining a measly 1 VP per turn.
Long story short, having that 15-card threshold lets actual decks compete against golden decks in Wall games.
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Why did you choose to make wall start at 15?
If the question is, why 15 specifically, then I don't know. The reason it doesn't start at 0 is because of a lunch game my group had where one player trashed down to a 3-card golden deck (with Temple) and then left to go to a meeting. Now at the time, I believe Wall was "–1 VP per 2 cards you have". If it had been –1 VP per card without the 15-card threshold, he would have won that game, despite gaining a measly 1 VP per turn.
Long story short, having that 15-card threshold lets actual decks compete against golden decks in Wall games.
That is how it went down. It started at 8 VP if you have no more than 15 cards. It was too hard to go for and became -1 VP per 2 cards. I considered doubling it to make scores more different between players. LF had his game with the player who left. To try to avoid that problem I made it -1 VP per card over 15. The original 15 was based on considering what you could reasonably manage with trashing. The new 15 may have just been because 15 was in the air here. We tried it, it worked, I didn't tweak it further.
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Did you ever consider to make another deckbuilding game respectively a game (like Mage Knight, Core Worlds, etc.) which features deckbuilding as one among other mechanisms?
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Did you ever consider to make another deckbuilding game respectively a game (like Mage Knight, Core Worlds, etc.) which features deckbuilding as one among other mechanisms?
In fact Kingdom Builder and Temporum both started out as deckbuilding games.
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Did you ever consider to make another deckbuilding game respectively a game (like Mage Knight, Core Worlds, etc.) which features deckbuilding as one among other mechanisms?
In fact Kingdom Builder and Temporum both started out as deckbuilding games.
If you could visit another timeline (sorry I can't resist) what design decision would you change for those two?
I'm asking because even though I enjoy Temporum and Kingdom Builder, I always felt like they were just missing a little something compared to Dominion. Which has to be a little annoying come to think of it, like a band where everyone loves their first album. And they're like "dude, I poured my heart and soul into this last album, it's technically brilliant, dude you can hear me miss a chord 1:12 into the third song on that first album just stop venerating it so much!"
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If you could visit another timeline (sorry I can't resist) what design decision would you change for those two?
I'm asking because even though I enjoy Temporum and Kingdom Builder, I always felt like they were just missing a little something compared to Dominion. Which has to be a little annoying come to think of it, like a band where everyone loves their first album. And they're like "dude, I poured my heart and soul into this last album, it's technically brilliant, dude you can hear me miss a chord 1:12 into the third song on that first album just stop venerating it so much!"
I don't imagine any of the changes I'd make would make the difference for you. For Temporum they might give the game a better shot with some people who only tried it once.
For Temporum I would replace the "choose one" zones with the expansions hourglass zones, and I think that's it. There are production issues - two-sided money chits, better arrows. There may be some individual card I'd change that I'm forgetting, but it wouldn't matter much.
For Kingdom Builder I would probably change the rule about lost abilities so that they return to the spot on the board. I would try having randomized abilities on the boards rather than specific ones, to save on set-up time and let you include more abilities with the main set and fewer boards with the expansions; this has other changes that have to go with it though and well I would have to test it to know what I'd really do. I would change the initial set of scoring cards, replacing the worst ones with good ones from Marshlands and Harvest. I know some people like the area control one in the main set, but I think the area control one in Marshlands is way better.
I like both games a lot as is; I don't think of them as those games I didn't quite get right, even though of course I can find things to fix up. Kingdom Builder won the SdJ so it's hard to complain there. Temporum does have fans who like it a lot. When playtesting the expansion, there was a parade of people who liked it and then went and bought the game. Both games have the main issue of, if you don't try it with an experienced player, you can convince yourself that an experienced player wouldn't do any better. Removing the choose-one zones does address that a little in Temporum; the changes for Kingdom Builder don't do anything there. It's a good problem to fix but well all I have there is shoving strategy in your face like with the hourglass zones. But I don't think I blew it for experienced players.
Dominion for me is like my 50th album, not my 1st album. I made it in 2006. Monster Factory is from 1995 even though it came out later. There were a lot of games in-between (including Nefarious in 1999, Infiltration only better in 2003, Greed in 2003). The board for Temporum was from a game from 1998; the piece placement rule from Kingdom Builder is from a game from 1999. So, it's not much like people praising the band's first album over their new one.
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I don't like Adventures (too complex, and its events, Travellers, tavern mat, and Journeys don't feel like Dominion), but like Empires despite its complexity. Will I like Nocturne?
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(Standard apology up front if this has been asked already and I've missed it)
Many collectible card games limit the cards that are currently "legal for play" to something smaller than "every card that has ever existed". While the cynics might say this is merely a money-making scheme, it allows the game developers to tweak power-levels, adjust game balance and introduce card mechanics in a way that would be more difficult without hitting the reset button.
Have you considered taking this approach with Dominion (or at least Dominion Online)?
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(Standard apology up front if this has been asked already and I've missed it)
Many collectible card games limit the cards that are currently "legal for play" to something smaller than "every card that has ever existed". While the cynics might say this is merely a money-making scheme, it allows the game developers to tweak power-levels, adjust game balance and introduce card mechanics in a way that would be more difficult without hitting the reset button.
Have you considered taking this approach with Dominion (or at least Dominion Online)?
Well, in Dominion, all but 10 cards are banned each game!
(yes, except when they aren't, I know)
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I don't like Adventures (too complex, and its events, Travellers, tavern mat, and Journeys don't feel like Dominion), but like Empires despite its complexity. Will I like Nocturne?
…And the Magic 8-Ball™ says…
(https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/magic-eight-ball-ask-again-later-photo-researchers-inc.jpg)
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I don't like Adventures (too complex, and its events, Travellers, tavern mat, and Journeys don't feel like Dominion), but like Empires despite its complexity. Will I like Nocturne?
I can at least tell you that the expansions try to be distinct, their own thing. Nocturne isn't Adventures and it isn't Empires.
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Many collectible card games limit the cards that are currently "legal for play" to something smaller than "every card that has ever existed". While the cynics might say this is merely a money-making scheme, it allows the game developers to tweak power-levels, adjust game balance and introduce card mechanics in a way that would be more difficult without hitting the reset button.
Have you considered taking this approach with Dominion (or at least Dominion Online)?
There's casual play and then there's tournament play.
For casual play, you can already do whatever you want. For Magic you might want to be able to say "this is a Standard deck" or whatever so that I'm not playing my deck with Moxes against your Spider theme deck. For Dominion there's no such concern.
For tournament play, I recommend not playing with certain cards (especially the slowest cards), or being careful with the set of 10 if you want to include certain cards. If we ran lots of tournaments I would have a list of cards to not play with. We don't. If you are running a tournament, I don't mind you doing whatever.
For Dominion online, I advocate players getting to have a 5-card ban list, and letting you play rated games that will never have your 5 cards (or your opponent's).
All of the Dominion expansions have to deal with the power levels of all previously published expansions; for all I know, someone gets Dominion and then Prosperity and then Nocturne, and that's what they've got. The Nocturne cards don't want to suck there, or be too dominating there. There's only so much you can do but every time I try to do it.
I have not really considered letting expansions go out of print (and I doubt RGG would be interested, yes it happened due to the switch to second editions). It was proposed by someone once and well. It turns out that at a supermarket, people spend more if they go clockwise through the store, or is it counterclockwise, I forget. It's one or the other though, you can look it up if you're interested. So you can build your supermarket to take advantage of this (via where the entrance is), or to thwart yourself, or try to ignore it (and possibly thwart yourself that way). Jay and I are just not people seeking to maximize profits via whatever it takes; we're okay with people walking through our supermarket the wrong way. And uh I don't need to sell you one expansion instead of another; I'm happy with people buying the old products.
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All of the Dominion expansions have to deal with the power levels of all previously published expansions; for all I know, someone gets Dominion and then Prosperity and then Nocturne, and that's what they've got. The Nocturne cards don't want to suck there, or be too dominating there. There's only so much you can do but every time I try to do it.
Isn't there quite a bit of wiggle room there, too? Cards do different things, so generally you will find some way to utilize even the weaker ones, and if you don't sometimes, there are still 9 other cards in the kingdom so it's fine.
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All of the Dominion expansions have to deal with the power levels of all previously published expansions; for all I know, someone gets Dominion and then Prosperity and then Nocturne, and that's what they've got. The Nocturne cards don't want to suck there, or be too dominating there. There's only so much you can do but every time I try to do it.
Isn't there quite a bit of wiggle room there, too? Cards do different things, so generally you will find some way to utilize even the weaker ones, and if you don't sometimes, there are still 9 other cards in the kingdom so it's fine.
Yes; if there's for example a new Witch, I don't want to make it as good as the best Witches, but usually it won't have to compete with them. When it does you won't buy it but it adds up to not so bad.
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And I made a game with tiles with text on them that went on a board and fought it out. It was impossible to see legal plays, let alone good plays.
Out of interest, have you ever played RR (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/113066/rr)? There are diagrams rather than text on the cards, but in other respects it sounds quite similar to what you're describing.
It's not the greatest game I've ever tried, but it turns out that working out how to make a move is tractable.
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At first glance, it looked to me as though the pig's snout was sticking over the edge of the frame in the Enchantress artwork. It's not, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who thought that.
What's your attitude to... "creative" deviations from the standard card template? Is there a policy against it, or are you/RGG just waiting for the right moment?
Similarly, what's your attitude to outright silly cards, à la MTG Unglued/Unhinged?
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And I made a game with tiles with text on them that went on a board and fought it out. It was impossible to see legal plays, let alone good plays.
Out of interest, have you ever played RR (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/113066/rr)? There are diagrams rather than text on the cards, but in other respects it sounds quite similar to what you're describing.
It's not the greatest game I've ever tried, but it turns out that working out how to make a move is tractable.
I haven't played that or previously heard of it. It does not sound much like the game I was talking about.
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Do you regret that one rule that make the oldest person go first in kingdom builder?
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At first glance, it looked to me as though the pig's snout was sticking over the edge of the frame in the Enchantress artwork. It's not, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who thought that.
What's your attitude to... "creative" deviations from the standard card template? Is there a policy against it, or are you/RGG just waiting for the right moment?
Similarly, what's your attitude to outright silly cards, à la MTG Unglued/Unhinged?
We've never considered any kind of just-for-fun layout, just functional. Only lately have we struggled to get the text to all be centered and stuff. There could be some compelling reason someday, something that specifically made us think of having a wacky layout, but mostly it has no chance. We don't have that kind of situation.
I have made hundreds of joke Magic cards, but not Un-style - strictly unpublishable stuff, like the joke cards that the Duelist once had. I did make a few Un-style cards because why not; I had a file of those before Unglued came out.
The Un- sets, uh, well the big problem is that you can't play with them in normal games. With Unglued, I got a box, I built some decks, and you know, whoever you run into at the public Magic night says "I have a Standard deck" or whatever, and your deck doesn't qualify and it isn't happening. You can say "here play one of my decks against another one" and maybe they'll bite, but basically I barely got to play with Unglued. But when Unhinged came out, I was making cubes and drafting them with friends, and I could put in Un- cards, within reason (so like nothing that cared about your pants, but caring about how long a card name was was fine). So for me Unhinged was a tiny handful of cards I could reasonably use in cubes. And I mean those few cards were fun.
I'm sure I will enjoy reading the Unstable cards online. My Magic nights got replaced by Dominion nights in 2006 and it has been some years since I bought any cards.
I am not planning to ever do Un-style Dominion cards. If Stash counts then there you go, Stash.
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Do you regret that one rule that make the oldest person go first in kingdom builder?
Well it's nothing to do with me. Queen put that in, I assume because one of the ways to score is area control. I personally would have had the best player go last, and don't play with that scoring card anymore (Marshlands and Harvest each have a better version of area control). I regret that scoring card, and without it Queen might have had it be youngest player, so in that sense, sure. It's not something I ever think about though.
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Why was Chapel not removed with the other first-edition cards? It's, even to this day, just so, so oddly priced. Also, Donate could have almost been branded as Chapel's "replacement". Is it just too fun to remove? Too much of a fan-favorite? Or do you think it's correctly-priced? Or what?
For the record: I love Chapel and thanks for keeping it!
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Why was Chapel not removed with the other first-edition cards? It's, even to this day, just so, so oddly priced. Also, Donate could have almost been branded as Chapel's "replacement". Is it just too fun to remove? Too much of a fan-favorite? Or do you think it's correctly-priced? Or what?
For the record: I love Chapel and thanks for keeping it!
1) the focus was on removing bad/useless cards
2) having more than one card/event do the same thing is fine, it means that role can be found in more random games, this is why there are so many villages
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Why was Chapel not removed with the other first-edition cards? It's, even to this day, just so, so oddly priced. Also, Donate could have almost been branded as Chapel's "replacement". Is it just too fun to remove? Too much of a fan-favorite? Or do you think it's correctly-priced? Or what?
For the record: I love Chapel and thanks for keeping it!
Here are some of Donald's previously recorded thoughts on Chapel:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=85.msg771#msg771
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Why was Chapel not removed with the other first-edition cards? It's, even to this day, just so, so oddly priced. Also, Donate could have almost been branded as Chapel's "replacement". Is it just too fun to remove? Too much of a fan-favorite? Or do you think it's correctly-priced? Or what?
For the record: I love Chapel and thanks for keeping it!
As noted I think it's correctly priced; the issue is whether that text should be a card, not what it should cost if it does. I think it's great that sometimes trashing is so easy. The question then is if the main game is the best place to have one of those. The argument is that new players don't understand trashing immediately, and having such a blatant extreme trasher helps. And then it retains value for experienced players, by changing the game so much but still leaving plenty of room to be the better player.
I don't know how much it actually helps new players. But when working on 2E I wasn't ever thinking, at last, my chance to get rid of Chapel. If I had replaced just one card for high power level it would have been Witch instead (replacing it with another Witch). As you can see, that didn't happen either. The cards that left were the ones that don't contribute enough to making the game different; mostly this is by being weak, though in Feast's case it's just by not changing anything.
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Back when I was a new player, Chapel's existence made a huge positive impact on my enjoyment of Dominion. Though I can't take any credit for discovering on my own that trashing was a good thing; that moment when I read about how good players will trash their starting deck and easily beat anyone who doesn't do such was an amazing and great moment in my personal Dominion history.
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Speaking of Chapel and Witch:
At some point in the past, there were the Four Pillars of Dominion: Chapel, Witch, Gardens, and... Thief.
So, with Thief gone... do you feel there's a new fourth pillar? Is it Bandit?
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Speaking of Chapel and Witch:
At some point in the past, there were the Four Pillars of Dominion: Chapel, Witch, Gardens, and... Thief.
So, with Thief gone... do you feel there's a new fourth pillar? Is it Bandit?
I feel more like, there are 26 pillars for changing how the base game plays. There aren't really 26 to the same degree but you know.
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that moment when I read about how good players will trash their starting deck and easily beat anyone who doesn't do such was an amazing and great moment in my personal Dominion history.
I feel like every player comes to that realization in a different way. For me, it was Salvager.
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Every Dominion blurb is hilarious, but which one is your personal favourite? Hinterlands has always (excluding the time when it didn't exist) been the best for me.
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...excluding the time when it didn't exist...
Only* on this forum is such a qualification necessary.
*Where "Only" = "Not many places other than"
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Every Dominion blurb is hilarious, but which one is your personal favourite? Hinterlands has always (excluding the time when it didn't exist) been the best for me.
The Hinterlands one. The main joke is from one of my screenplays. "It's a big city out there, and we're little people..."
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I think you've said your wife has helped playtest, but are your kids old enough to play Dominion? Are they any good at it?
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I think you've said your wife has helped playtest, but are your kids old enough to play Dominion? Are they any good at it?
Natalie has refused to try it so far, though she suggested the new wording for Library. Sylvia plays sometimes, but we show no mercy and she does not win.
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...excluding the time when it didn't exist...
Only* on this forum is such a qualification necessary.
*Where "Only" = "Not many places other than"
And only on this forum would someone reply to point out that it's not accurate; there was a time that the blurb existed but Theta hadn't seen or read it yet; so it wasn't his favorite yet.
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What aspects of the Dominion meta-game or community in 2017 would Donald X. from 2007-2008 be most surprised about?
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What aspects of the Dominion meta-game or community in 2017 would Donald X. from 2007-2008 be most surprised about?
I am not seeing what the surprising things are, what would have surprised anybody ever. I'd already been in online Magic communities.
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This question probably was asked before, but I think it is worth an update: How do you see the relation between IRL Dominion and Digital Dominion nowadays? To me it seems that most of the core complaints about Dominion (lots of shuffling, setup with 11 expansions, little social interaction, long turns and waiting times, tracking issues) only stay true for IRL Dominion. Digital Dominion in contrast, feels like a perfect fit for the medium, where weaknesses either turn into genuine strengths (like the lack of need for conversation) or disappear (like shuffling, speed, etc).
Did the various digital versions change how you approached the game over the years? Was there a point where your focus shifted between online play and tabletop version? Do you think you would still be releasing expansions, if only the board game version existed?
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This question probably was asked before, but I think it is worth an update: How do you see the relation between IRL Dominion and Digital Dominion nowadays? To me it seems that most of the core complaints about Dominion (lots of shuffling, setup with 11 expansions, little social interaction, long turns and waiting times, tracking issues) only stay true for IRL Dominion. Digital Dominion in contrast, feels like a perfect fit for the medium, where weaknesses either turn into genuine strengths (like the lack of need for conversation) or disappear (like shuffling, speed, etc).
Did the various digital versions change how you approached the game over the years? Was there a point where your focus shifted between online play and tabletop version? Do you think you would still be releasing expansions, if only the board game version existed?
For me it's like backwards from how you're asking it. The online version is significant for having a bunch of players who post on the internet about Dominion. That's really the big thing about it. And I hear those loud voices complain about whatever they complain about, and praise whatever they praise. But the online version has never otherwise been a consideration when working on the expansions; they were all made for the physical game only. If a card simply would not work online, that would not stop me from making it; if it won't work for the physical version, it's not happening (yes someday there could be a single online-only promo, but only if the card can't exist physically for whatever reasons). The physical version makes money and the online version just has dreams there. I have played tons of physical Dominion and much less online Dominion; a bunch when we could playtest on isotropic but it has been a while there. If today I make a Dominion card that I want to playtest for a possible future set, I can mock it up and print it out and play it, the same day or within a few days; the possibility of a future online version of it won't matter at all until the set is done and at the printers.
If only the physical game existed, that would be exactly like how things are now to me, except for the degree to which it changed the nature of this online community. I guess you can say, sometimes the online version takes work from me - for example playtesting online Nocturne some recently and talking about how things should work - and if weren't there, I would save that time.
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This question probably was asked before, but I think it is worth an update: How do you see the relation between IRL Dominion and Digital Dominion nowadays? To me it seems that most of the core complaints about Dominion (lots of shuffling, setup with 11 expansions, little social interaction, long turns and waiting times, tracking issues) only stay true for IRL Dominion. Digital Dominion in contrast, feels like a perfect fit for the medium, where weaknesses either turn into genuine strengths (like the lack of need for conversation) or disappear (like shuffling, speed, etc).
Did the various digital versions change how you approached the game over the years? Was there a point where your focus shifted between online play and tabletop version? Do you think you would still be releasing expansions, if only the board game version existed?
For me it's like backwards from how you're asking it. The online version is significant for having a bunch of players who post on the internet about Dominion. That's really the big thing about it. And I hear those loud voices complain about whatever they complain about, and praise whatever they praise. But the online version has never otherwise been a consideration when working on the expansions; they were all made for the physical game only. If a card simply would not work online, that would not stop me from making it; if it won't work for the physical version, it's not happening (yes someday there could be a single online-only promo, but only if the card can't exist physically for whatever reasons). The physical version makes money and the online version just has dreams there. I have played tons of physical Dominion and much less online Dominion; a bunch when we could playtest on isotropic but it has been a while there. If today I make a Dominion card that I want to playtest for a possible future set, I can mock it up and print it out and play it, the same day or within a few days; the possibility of a future online version of it won't matter at all until the set is done and at the printers.
If only the physical game existed, that would be exactly like how things are now to me, except for the degree to which it changed the nature of this online community. I guess you can say, sometimes the online version takes work from me - for example playtesting online Nocturne some recently and talking about how things should work - and if weren't there, I would save that time.
This is an illuminating perspective for those us who inhabit this little bubble.
If a card simply would not work online, that would not stop me from making it
Chaos Orb hex confirmed!
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The online version is significant for having a bunch of players who post on the internet about Dominion. That's really the big thing about it. And I hear those loud voices complain about whatever they complain about, and praise whatever they praise. But the online version has never otherwise been a consideration when working on the expansions; they were all made for the physical game only.
So we've seen how much feedback (of all kinds) you get from this community -- most of whom play online, I'm guessing -- but what are your avenues for feedback from the rest of the player base?
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How much did you know about the SdJ before winning it?
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So we've seen how much feedback (of all kinds) you get from this community -- most of whom play online, I'm guessing -- but what are your avenues for feedback from the rest of the player base?
I see posts on the internet on f.ds, BGG, r/Dominion, ShuffleiT, discord, and sometimes other places. Reviews on various sites, stuff that's linked to from the other places (the front page comments just had links to https://kingscouncilroom.wordpress.com/), youtube videos.
If it's not on the internet, it's IRL! People come to my table and I play with them.
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How much did you know about the SdJ before winning it?
I was told about it when the game was nominated. I don't know that I learned anything more when it won. I guess I learned that each year they'd invite me to their gaming event at Essen, and what that's like. Before it was nominated, I don't think I'd heard of it. Maybe someone brought it up in the context of, will Dominion get nominated.
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What would you say is the likelihood of ever getting a card type with a black banner color, say with white text?
Pretty high, as it turns out.
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What would you say is the likelihood of ever getting a card type with a black banner color, say with white text?
Pretty high, as it turns out.
Not necessarily.
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What would you say is the likelihood of ever getting a card type with a black banner color, say with white text?
Pretty high, as it turns out.
Not necessarily.
Well, it depends on your opinion regarding retrocausality.
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Were any nocturne cards tested in Simulators?
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Were any nocturne cards tested in Simulators?
I don't think so. Only a few cards have ever been tested in simulators.
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Donald, my wife was pondering over cards and pointed out to me Magic in Dominion is only ever evil. Meaning, harmful. Attack cards.
To which I replied, well, not really since there are magical treasures that aren't harmful. And Alchemy is full of helpful magic, right?
But then I thought, it's funny that in Alchemy you have magic -- Scrying Pool, Familiar, Possession -- and you have pseudoscientists -- Alchemist, Herbalist, Apprentice. And the magic users are attacks and the alchemists are beneficial, contained cards.
Is there an intention here? I'm trying to think of actual "Magic user" cards in Dominion that aren't all attackers or otherwise hostile.
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Uh, Summon?
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Were any nocturne cards tested in Simulators?
I don't think so. Only a few cards have ever been tested in simulators.
What cards were tested in simulators? Are there any cool stories behind those?
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Donald, my wife was pondering over cards and pointed out to me Magic in Dominion is only ever evil. Meaning, harmful. Attack cards.
To which I replied, well, not really since there are magical treasures that aren't harmful. And Alchemy is full of helpful magic, right?
But then I thought, it's funny that in Alchemy you have magic -- Scrying Pool, Familiar, Possession -- and you have pseudoscientists -- Alchemist, Herbalist, Apprentice. And the magic users are attacks and the alchemists are beneficial, contained cards.
Is there an intention here? I'm trying to think of actual "Magic user" cards in Dominion that aren't all attackers or otherwise hostile.
Transmogrify isn’t evil, just off the top of my head. And yeah Summon, as Eran said. Um, what else? Pixie. Exorcist.
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Transmogrify isn’t evil, just off the top of my head. And yeah Summon, as Eran said. Um, what else? Pixie. Exorcist.
Druid seems friendly enough.
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Donald, my wife was pondering over cards and pointed out to me Magic in Dominion is only ever evil. Meaning, harmful. Attack cards.
To which I replied, well, not really since there are magical treasures that aren't harmful. And Alchemy is full of helpful magic, right?
But then I thought, it's funny that in Alchemy you have magic -- Scrying Pool, Familiar, Possession -- and you have pseudoscientists -- Alchemist, Herbalist, Apprentice. And the magic users are attacks and the alchemists are beneficial, contained cards.
Is there an intention here? I'm trying to think of actual "Magic user" cards in Dominion that aren't all attackers or otherwise hostile.
The intention originally was not to have magic that was definitely magic. The only magic was Witches and you could say, were they really magical or what. The art of course messed that up immediately. Then Alchemy actually had magical things because they fit that theme. Anyway the Witches did mean that for a while all of the magic was evil, because it was all Witches.
The Alchemy cards just have names that try to fit the abilities and the expansion theme; no conscious effort was made to make magic evil.
Later expansions with mild magical elements, and then Nocturne with a lot, did not try to make magic evil either.
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Were any nocturne cards tested in Simulators?
I don't think so. Only a few cards have ever been tested in simulators.
What cards were tested in simulators? Are there any cool stories behind those?
There are zero cool stories there. Geronimoo tested Patrol for me - just, to make sure I wasn't missing something big.
In the early days I simulated a few cards myself, mainly just, how fast is whatever with an extremely simple strategy. I could look through old threads to try to find the cards but it just so won't be interesting.
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Have you ever playtested or entertained the idea of an alternate victory condition on a Kingdom Card or Event?
I'm thinking of something like Magic's Door to Nothingness or Felidar Sovereign.
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Have you ever playtested or entertained the idea of an alternate victory condition on a Kingdom Card or Event?
I'm thinking of something like Magic's Door to Nothingness or Felidar Sovereign.
Sure, and Temporum has one.
In general I think really big effects that mean you probably win, like planeswalker ultimates, are better.
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Do you ever draw inspirations from other games for your cards?
I don't mean "do you rip off other games" but rather are any cards intended to be secret cameos or homages?
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Do you ever draw inspirations from other games for your cards?
I don't mean "do you rip off other games" but rather are any cards intended to be secret cameos or homages?
Walled Village and Governor are openly homages to Carcassonne and Puerto Rico respectively.
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Do you ever draw inspirations from other games for your cards?
I don't mean "do you rip off other games" but rather are any cards intended to be secret cameos or homages?
Walled Village and Governor are openly homages to Carcassonne and Puerto Rico respectively.
That's true, although Walled Village doesn't imitate Carcassonne in any way, it just has that title. Governor does imitate Puerto Rico.
I don't think there are any secret cameos/homages. I blab that stuff. You could read all the Secret Histories to see if I'm forgetting one. I'm not thinking of one. Okay Chariot Race has the War mechanic. Mountain Pass has bidding, I got that from games with bidding. Keep has area control.
When I made Governor, for an anniversary of Puerto Rico, I was supposed to make a Power Grid anniversary card instead, but I didn't come up with one, and then Jay said well what about Puerto Rico.
Nefarious: Becoming a Monster has a card called Race for the World, with the Puerto Rico / Race for the Galaxy mechanic.
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We’re approaching the Dominion anniversary. Do you have anything planned for that?
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Actually, there is a way in which Walled Village imitates Carcassonne's mechanics. A meeple in Carcassonne stays in play until it actually does something (scoring points for a completed structure); a Walled Village stays in your hand until it actually does something (becomes part of a turn with three actions played).
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We’re approaching the Dominion anniversary. Do you have anything planned for that?
Just the promos Altenburger had to have.
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Actually, there is a way in which Walled Village imitates Carcassonne's mechanics. A meeple in Carcassonne stays in play until it actually does something (scoring points for a completed structure); a Walled Village stays in your hand until it actually does something (becomes part of a turn with three actions played).
I am technically correct, which is the best kind; Walled Village was a Guilds outtake predating me being asked to make a card for Carcassonne's whatever anniversary, and in no way imitated Carcassonne. Any resemblance to Carcassonnes living or dead is coincidental.
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which is ur favorite version of sufjan stevens' chicago?
- regular
- acoustic
- adult contemporary easy listening
- multiple personality disorder
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which is ur favorite version of sufjan stevens' chicago?
- regular
- acoustic
- adult contemporary easy listening
- multiple personality disorder
I haven't heard the Avalanche ones very many times, but regular.
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which is ur favorite version of sufjan stevens' chicago?
- regular
- acoustic
- adult contemporary easy listening
- multiple personality disorder
I haven't heard the Avalanche ones very many times, but regular.
How easily can you listen to Casimir Pulaski Day?
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How easily can you listen to Casimir Pulaski Day?
When I've heard a song a certain number of times, my brain just edits it out. I have heard that song that many times. If I put it on while typing this I wouldn't hear it. To hear it I'd have to be really focusing on it. So, very easily.
Aside from that, very easily. I am not someone who has trouble sitting through sad songs.
Aside from that, still very easily. It's not a stand-out depressing song for me.
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How easily can you listen to Casimir Pulaski Day?
When I've heard a song a certain number of times, my brain just edits it out. I have heard that song that many times. If I put it on while typing this I wouldn't hear it. To hear it I'd have to be really focusing on it. So, very easily.
Aside from that, very easily. I am not someone who has trouble sitting through sad songs.
Aside from that, still very easily. It's not a stand-out depressing song for me.
Interesting.
I hadn't listened to that album for a few years and it came on via shuffle-all songs recently and it just stopped me in my tracks.
What is a stand-out depressing song for you?
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What is a stand-out depressing song for you?
First there are songs that have some special connection to my life, the time period I was listening to the song vs. what was going on. I can't communicate that stuff, you know, your life experiences are different. I will single out It's All Over Now, Baby Blue here.
Second there are songs that are my favorite depressing songs, but don't bring a tear to my eye. Like when I hear Dress Rehearsal Rag for example, I'm not crying, I'm belting it out. Leonard Cohen does have some great ones, but Scott Miller (Game Theory / Loud Family) is the master of the really great and also depressing song. He killed himself a few years ago. But did he "fire across the temple and out the rear" like in The Waist and the Knees, or was he "out finding some good ledge" like in Slip, or did he just slit his wrists like Slit My Wrists suggests? I met Scott Miller a few times. I always think of that Neil Young song that goes, "And if you never heard him sing / I guess you won't too soon." Or as Scott put it, "Just by chance, maybe not more / We can touch what we live for." Anyway. Tom Waits and Phil Ochs also have some great depressing songs. Guided by Voices of course has some. The Eels album Electro-shock Blues is full of them; he was the master of the uptempo anthemic downer song.
Finally there are songs that actually bring a tear to my eye. The first one I think of is They Should Have Shut Down the Streets, by A C Newman (the New Pornographers guy). It's about the mass grieving that did not actually happen when his mom died.
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Finally there are songs that actually bring a tear to my eye. The first one I think of is They Should Have Shut Down the Streets, by A C Newman (the New Pornographers guy). It's about the mass grieving that did not actually happen when his mom died.
Cool. Thanks for sharing. I really need to check out more of his solo work. One of my favorite songwriters.
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Why is Monastery "...Trash a Copper from play" instead of allowing you to trash any card from play?
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Why is Monastery "...Trash a Copper from play" instead of allowing you to trash any card from play?
"Any card" lets you trash duration cards which is bad (then they aren't tracked; yes Procession and Bonfire do this, and it's bad for those cards). "Non-Duration" still lets you trash e.g. a Throne played on a Duration card, but I could live with that... however mostly what you trash is Copper, and "Copper" is simple than "Non-Duration." "Treasure" would have been okay but well I went with "Copper."
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Along those same lines, have you considered changing (in future editions) the wording of duration cards or Procession to avoid confusion and untracked abilities?
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Along those same lines, have you considered changing (in future editions) the wording of duration cards or Procession to avoid confusion and untracked abilities?
No, the new printing of Dark Ages is out and Procession does not add "non-Duration" to it. Functional changes in the new printings try to be smaller than that.
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Do you look much at the challenges people put together like "Empty the Supply in X turns" or "Let your opponent gain anything on the board using Smugglers"? Do you have a favourite, or one that you find particularly interesting either for its premise or solution?
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Do you look much at the challenges people put together like "Empty the Supply in X turns" or "Let your opponent gain anything on the board using Smugglers"? Do you have a favourite, or one that you find particularly interesting either for its premise or solution?
I've looked them yes. Uh. I've actually done the sporcle quizzes. The thing where you guess the two cards names from google'd images was neat. I enjoyed celestial chameleon's stuff as much as anyone.
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Is it likely we will see Night cards in future expansions or are they a one-off?
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How did you come up with the set of Boons?
(alternatively, when are we getting the Secret History of Nocturne?)
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Is it likely we will see Night cards in future expansions or are they a one-off?
If there are 10 more expansions they might come back eventually. They aren't something I would just do a couple of.
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How did you come up with the set of Boons?
(alternatively, when are we getting the Secret History of Nocturne?)
I like to wait until people can actually buy the set. Which will be any day now, I mean it's gone out.
The Boons were an old old idea, first tried out in Empires, but I had too much stuff to fit in the set and they didn't go with the other things. The specific Boons, well we just tried some and then I tweaked them.
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I would be curious to hear on how you decided how strong they had to be, on average. Though I guess the answer will probably be something along the lines of "not so weak that they don't matter, not so strong that which one you get either makes or breaks your deck".
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I would be curious to hear on how you decided how strong they had to be, on average. Though I guess the answer will probably be something along the lines of "not so weak that they don't matter, not so strong that which one you get either makes or breaks your deck".
The biggest thing is just trying to make them roughly as good. So there were 12, and then some were the weaker ones and some the stronger ones, and I messed with them to try to get them more even. They were always on the small side; I didn't pursue doing much larger effects because it seemed like the random aspect would make those less fun.
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If there are 10 more expansions
Yes pease.
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On Werewolf, why do you say "If it's your Night phase, ..." instead of "If it's your Action phase, ..."? I would think the latter would make more sense because it's chronological. Crown, for example, does do it in chronological order (if-Action-phase-stuff before if-Buy-phase-stuff).
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On Werewolf, why do you say "If it's your Night phase, ..." instead of "If it's your Action phase, ..."? I would think the latter would make more sense because it's chronological. Crown, for example, does do it in chronological order (if-Action-phase-stuff before if-Buy-phase-stuff).
It's only a wolf at night!
There was the possibility of it being neither phase. An outtake could play Action cards in your Buy phase. So that's why it doesn't just list the two phases and what it does in each.
When Crown was previewed, people were all, "so this expansion is ridiculously complex." So it's not exactly a model of what to do.
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Is there a functional reason why Wish is not a Spirit or is it mostly to be thematic?
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Is there a functional reason why Wish is not a Spirit or is it mostly to be thematic?
Exorcist?
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Is there a functional reason why Wish is not a Spirit or is it mostly to be thematic?
Exorcist?
Right, that’s exactly my question, like is is specifically important for exorcist not to be able to gain it? There are these four non supply cards that you can get via other stuff, and three of them are grouped together as the ones you can get with exorcist, and I was just wondering if there was an interesting reason for that. (I know Bat is similar too but that clearly has a specific relationship just with Vampire)
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Is there a functional reason why Wish is not a Spirit or is it mostly to be thematic?
Wishes are Wishes and Spirits are Spirits. They were unrelated ideas and there was never any reason to try to connect them.
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What are your thoughts on the large skill gap in Dominion? While clearly Dominion appeals to heavy and casual players alike, it can be difficult to casual players to enjoy games with heavy players.
I have had several people tell me that they won't play Dominion with me at game nights; and have recently had players resign in frustration because it's not fun for them to just watch me draw and play my deck every turn while they struggle. And, I'm no where near one of the better players on this forum. Maybe I was 5 years ago; but I stopped playing competitively before Isotropic shut down. But even so, there's a huge skill gap between a casual player and someone who spends time on these forums.
Of course there's plenty of games with larger skill gaps; but I suppose where Dominion is different is that the turn of a player who is good looks a lot different than the turn of a player who is new. In Agricola, for example, winning and losing players will still take similar-looking turns.
Just wondering if this is something you have encountered yourself, or if you knew going into it that Dominion would have this large of a skill gap. It's not obvious on the surface; due to being a card game with plenty of luck involved.
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It is a common complaint for many games, but personally I consider those to be bugs of the gaming group, not of the game. What's the point of playing a game where a heavy player has no advantage over a casual player?
The blame-game-for-gaming-group-problem phenomenon is most common in reviews of coop games, where people solemnly point out that Pandemic is a bad game because one time someone took over a newbie game and dictated everyone's moves. It's not the game's fault you're playing with jerks.
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What are your thoughts on the large skill gap in Dominion? While clearly Dominion appeals to heavy and casual players alike, it can be difficult to casual players to enjoy games with heavy players.
It's not a problem I have had personally, though I wouldn't be the best data point. The goal as always is that the game is fun to lose, and in my experience it is.
I do have the problem of a good player who is also slow. Another player leaves when that one shows up (which is always later in the evening). The problem isn't that he's good though, it's that he's slow. Draw your deck quickly, that's my advice. You're already winning, you don't need to eke out each conceivable grain of advantage. On my side there are cards I've blown it on there, like Scrying Pool, and well sorry, and you can skip them if someone is going to hate the slow game.
In games irl with no horribly broken didn't-make-it-to-print cards, I have seen only a tiny number of resignations, out of thousands of games.
Going into it I knew nothing; for all I knew the game wouldn't work at all. Chaining cards was fun so there is some of that; later sets have more than the original main set, because players at large liked it too, hey why isn't there more of this. I didn't start the premise that some turns would be fast and some long, and it doesn't sound like a good premise; but when we are all having a blast I don't say "no no, this is no good."
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How good are you at playing Dominion compared to the people you usually play with? :)
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How good are you at playing Dominion compared to the people you usually play with? :)
I'm mostly better than them. I'd say I'm better than the slow player but it's close. Sir Martin has pointed out that he has the edge in games with new cards, because if I thought the card was overpowered I wouldn't have printed it, I would have weakened it first. But sometimes they're overpowered. So sometimes they're overpowered, and I never think they are (until seeing them in action of course), but he might. I feel like he wins more than his share but I haven't done a tally. But me and those two, we are better than the other players. I play with anyone who will have me, so sometimes there's someone who doesn't know what they're doing at all, sometimes someone who I just taught the game to.
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...sometimes someone who I just taught the game to.
What would you say is the total number of people you have taught this game to?
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...sometimes someone who I just taught the game to.
What would you say is the total number of people you have taught this game to?
I wrote the 2E rulebook, so, a lot. And no I'm not going to try to estimate how many irl. It's work you're asking me to do, work, with the prize of, I answered your question.
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...sometimes someone who I just taught the game to.
What would you say is the total number of people you have taught this game to?
I wrote the 2E rulebook, so, a lot. And no I'm not going to try to estimate how many irl. It's work you're asking me to do, work, with the prize of, I answered your question.
One might have to wonder if estimating would have been less work that thinking of a clever response though!
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...sometimes someone who I just taught the game to.
What would you say is the total number of people you have taught this game to?
I wrote the 2E rulebook, so, a lot. And no I'm not going to try to estimate how many irl. It's work you're asking me to do, work, with the prize of, I answered your question.
One might have to wonder if estimating would have been less work that thinking of a clever response though!
If that response counts as clever well then call me Mr. Clever Guy. Oh I guess you are.
You're not going to trick me into doing the work just so I know how much work it was. I can smell work. They did a Mythbusters episode on it and concluded "plausible."
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Why does Changeling's top make you trash it and gain a copy of a card you have in play instead of something like: "Exchange this for a copy of a card in play"?
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Why does Changeling's top make you trash it and gain a copy of a card you have in play instead of something like: "Exchange this for a copy of a card in play"?
Exchanging Changeling puts it back into the Supply, which lengthens the game and creates all sorts of infinite loop possibilities.
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Why does Changeling's top make you trash it and gain a copy of a card you have in play instead of something like: "Exchange this for a copy of a card in play"?
The top was the initial idea, before there was a bottom and before there was any exchanging going on with the card. When I added the bottom, I don't think I considered changing the top. It was working fine; there was no impetus for changing it. The usual answer to "why isn't this card some other way."
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It would generate questions like, can you exchange it for a Ghost? And I think you could.
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It would generate questions like, can you exchange it for a Ghost? And I think you could.
Also when-gain things wouldn't trigger, which would be confusing.
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I think I know who Matt is, but who is Billy? (From the secret history, no need to answer if it’s private, but it sounded like it wasn’t)
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I think I know who Matt is, but who is Billy? (From the secret history, no need to answer if it’s private, but it sounded like it wasn’t)
He's not part of this community. He's Billy Martin in the rulebook, and looks a lot like Sir Martin in Dark Ages.
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I have a question. I know you've stated several times that you won't make any more Dominion expansions featuring potions, but have you or would you consider a promo or set of promos that utilize them? I personally feel there is a lot left in that mechanic--along with the coin token mechanic--to be explored, and having them be promos could be a way to do it.
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I have a question. I know you've stated several times that you won't make any more Dominion expansions featuring potions, but have you or would you consider a promo or set of promos that utilize them? I personally feel there is a lot left in that mechanic--along with the coin token mechanic--to be explored, and having them be promos could be a way to do it.
There's a big problem with such an idea... the promo couldn't be used without having Potion cards. While it's true that no Promo can be used without the base cards; none of them have ever required you to own any particular component or set other than "and playable Dominion at all". Making a promo that can only be enjoyed if you own Alchemy seems very unlikely.
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That could be worked around by making the promo self-synergistic while interacting with potions and/or potion-cost cards. Possibly using the split-pile trick to reduce complexity.
The larger problem is that Alchemy's not popular enough.
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A question inspired by a certain other thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17928.new):
Have you ever designed cards for your own amusement/satisfaction with no intention of publishing them?
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I have a question. I know you've stated several times that you won't make any more Dominion expansions featuring potions, but have you or would you consider a promo or set of promos that utilize them? I personally feel there is a lot left in that mechanic--along with the coin token mechanic--to be explored, and having them be promos could be a way to do it.
I have no particular interest in a potion-using/costing promo, and I don't imagine RGG would be interested either. The time for that was right after Alchemy came out, so the card could promote the expansion.
I don't think I would get anything special out of having the mechanic available; I have found other ways to do extra-expensive cards (e.g. City Quarter, Grand Market).
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A question inspired by a certain other thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17928.new):
Have you ever designed cards for your own amusement/satisfaction with no intention of publishing them?
If we aren't talking just about Dominion, I've done tons of it. There were all those homemade Magic expansions, and my Netrunner expansion. My Medici expansion. All the card games I made when I wasn't trying to get anything published.
For Dominion, note that I've posted joke Dominion cards many times in the forums. There's a thread collecting some of them.
We could also say, when I make a Dominion card, it isn't so correct to say that I intend to get it published; I'm trying it out, and may be pretty skeptical but still want to try it. I usually am trying something that could go into a set if it worked out though. I've tried "proof of concept" things - like "+$2, each other player receives the next hex" - but if one of those was great it could go the distance.
If I make a non-joke Dominion card, man, odds are I will want want that in an expansion. The only exception I can think of is fixes that I can't get published because "oh man you sold us the bad version of this expansion, where's our upgrade pack product that isn't actually worth buying because it's all mild tweaks and sometimes even weakens the cards." I haven't made those fixes but I've considered doing it for ~5 Hinterlands cards.
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I haven't made those fixes but I've considered doing it for ~5 Hinterlands cards.
Obligatory "what are those fixes?" question.
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Will the last Dominion expansion (ever) be designed by you? Put differently: what's the likelihood of RGG publishing an expansion designed primarily by someone else?
Relatedly, how likely are we to see a re-implementation by you or another designer? Rather than just a thin re-theme (i.e. not Star Wars Dominion); I'm thinking more of something like what Wei-Hwa Huang did with Roll for the Galaxy.
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Will the last Dominion expansion (ever) be designed by you? Put differently: what's the likelihood of RGG publishing an expansion designed primarily by someone else?
Relatedly, how likely are we to see a re-implementation by you or another designer? Rather than just a thin re-theme (i.e. not Star Wars Dominion); I'm thinking more of something like what Wei-Hwa Huang did with Roll for the Galaxy.
I have lots of great ideas for that! We could add Japanese maids and big pink hearts (and make Silvermaid cost 4 and add many other balance improvements like removing Actions), or have letters on cards to make it scrabble-style, or we could even put everything on tokens for ease of use. Or maybe make a market with cards that change all the time. That would be nice. With factions and stuff. And spaceships.
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Will the last Dominion expansion (ever) be designed by you? Put differently: what's the likelihood of RGG publishing an expansion designed primarily by someone else?
Well after you're dead you don't have much of a say. I have no plans to have other people make sets. Richard Garfield expressed an interest in co-designing a set once, and I can't think of someone who would have a better chance of getting the gig, but I would rather make some new game with him, which hasn't happened either, but I mean, if he mentions it again I will have that same comeback.
Relatedly, how likely are we to see a re-implementation by you or another designer? Rather than just a thin re-theme (i.e. not Star Wars Dominion); I'm thinking more of something like what Wei-Hwa Huang did with Roll for the Galaxy.
I have had big plans to make Dominion spin-offs for 10 years now. I worked on two, that ended up published as Kingdom Builder and Temporum. I would still like to make some.
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or have letters on cards to make it scrabble-style,
Back when, to give an example of how far you could go with a Magic expansion (if you didn't care about e.g. maintaining the same player base), I would say, you could do the Scrabble expansion. You try to make words with your cards.
Then in some conversations about Dominion, I had that handy example and used it; you could make the Scrabble expansion.
I finally stopped using that example because as you know someone made that game.
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I have had big plans to make Dominion spin-offs for 10 years now. I worked on two, that ended up published as Kingdom Builder and Temporum. I would still like to make some.
I guess I still don't understand this. What is the window where something is similar enough to be a "Dominion spin-off" instead of just another game, but not so similar that it could have been a Dominion expansion? I don't get the sense that you feel it, but there should be an enormous push to make anything sufficiently Dominion-like into a Dominion expansion so that you can combine it with everything else. It's really, really nice to be able to combine it both from a rules-learning perspective and for the sheer joy of seeing the old stuff with the new stuff.
Since obviously you're not going to get into specifics of what a Dominion spin-off might someday look like, perhaps you could just say, why do you feel the push to specifically make "Dominion spin-offs" rather than Dominion expansions and also unrelated games?
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I guess I still don't understand this. What is the window where something is similar enough to be a "Dominion spin-off" instead of just another game, but not so similar that it could have been a Dominion expansion? I don't get the sense that you feel it, but there should be an enormous push to make anything sufficiently Dominion-like into a Dominion expansion so that you can combine it with everything else. It's really, really nice to be able to combine it both from a rules-learning perspective and for the sheer joy of seeing the old stuff with the new stuff.
At this point I feel the opposite - that if an expansion could work as a spin-off, that's a better direction for it. It's fun to combine all the cards, but you already have so much of that. A new Dominion expansion has a nice minimum built-in audience, but also a maximum one.
My idea of a spin-off is not to copy Dominion in its entirety and then add some mechanics, like lots of people have told themselves was good enough to qualify as a new game. My imaginary spin-offs are much more different from Dominion. Kingdom Builder was, you play on the board to get cards, you play cards to play on the board. It could not have been a Dominion expansion, any which way. Temporum I don't want to go into but it couldn't have been a Dominion expansion either.
Since obviously you're not going to get into specifics of what a Dominion spin-off might someday look like, perhaps you could just say, why do you feel the push to specifically make "Dominion spin-offs" rather than Dominion expansions and also unrelated games?
I would love to make more unrelated games too of course.
A Dominion spin-off gets to be a different game in whatever great ways, just like an unrelated game. It gets to have new simple cards, that do whatever stuff you can do in this game; it gets to have Dominion-like cards that don't have to worry about not being strictly better/worse than any of Dominion's cards. It has a bigger minimum audience than a random new game, but a bigger maximum audience than a Dominion expansion.
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Dominion 2: Reloaded, or Dominion 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold?
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Dominion 2: Reloaded, or Dominion 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold?
Rolled Dominion: a dice version of the game re-themed in Colonial Virginia.
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For Dominion, note that I've posted joke Dominion cards many times in the forums. There's a thread collecting some of them.
Gosh. I've not seen that thread, and Google's not finding it. Anyone got the URL?
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For Dominion, note that I've posted joke Dominion cards many times in the forums. There's a thread collecting some of them.
Gosh. I've not seen that thread, and Google's not finding it. Anyone got the URL?
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=114.0
The question is: which name is Donald's ghost account?
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For Dominion, note that I've posted joke Dominion cards many times in the forums. There's a thread collecting some of them.
Gosh. I've not seen that thread, and Google's not finding it. Anyone got the URL?
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2013.0
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I know I am beating a dead horse here. Donald has repeatedly stated he is not going into Potions anymore.
That could be worked around by making the promo self-synergistic while interacting with potions and/or potion-cost cards. Possibly using the split-pile trick to reduce complexity.
Bribe
$2 Action
Discard a card from hand. All costs of cards in the kingdom are lowered by one * (where * is: Coin, Debt, Potion)
Something like this may give a nod to Potions.
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I know I am beating a dead horse here. Donald has repeatedly stated he is not going into Potions anymore.
That could be worked around by making the promo self-synergistic while interacting with potions and/or potion-cost cards. Possibly using the split-pile trick to reduce complexity.
Bribe
$2 Action
Discard a card from hand. All costs of cards in the kingdom are lowered by one * (where * is: Coin, Debt, Potion)
Something like this may give a nod to Potions.
This is not the thread for card suggestions. Try the Variants forum instead.
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The question is: which name is Donald's ghost account?
I'm Donald's ghost account, and so's my wife.
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The question is: which name is Donald's ghost account?
I'm Donald's ghost account, and so's my wife.
We are all WanderingWinder's ghost account.
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For Dominion, note that I've posted joke Dominion cards many times in the forums. There's a thread collecting some of them.
Gosh. I've not seen that thread, and Google's not finding it. Anyone got the URL?
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2013.0
Glad you found that. I really should try to keep the OP updated.
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Maybe it's just me, but the last few sets have seemed more flavorful than previous sets, and Nocturne seems like the most flavorful of all. The secret history also mentions a few cards that seemed to start with a card name and found mechanics that matched (Necromancer, Vampire, Werewolf, sorta Changeling, maybe more).
So, I was wondering has flavor become more important for you in design? If so, was that a conscious decision? If not, have more recent sets just become more flavorful because you've gotten better at naming cards?
(To be clear, I've never been one of those "Dominion is bland" people, but I still feel like there's been more resonant cards lately.)
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Roughly, how many ideas do you have in files that might work for a future expansion?
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Maybe it's just me, but the last few sets have seemed more flavorful than previous sets, and Nocturne seems like the most flavorful of all. The secret history also mentions a few cards that seemed to start with a card name and found mechanics that matched (Necromancer, Vampire, Werewolf, sorta Changeling, maybe more).
So, I was wondering has flavor become more important for you in design? If so, was that a conscious decision? If not, have more recent sets just become more flavorful because you've gotten better at naming cards?
For the main set, no work went into the flavor. I at least renamed Circus to Festival and switched Bureaucrat and Militia (over objections - wouldn't playtesters be confused now? As if that matters). The cards are just what they had been, back when there was no reason to think I'd try to get the game published.
I put in a little work on flavor for Intrigue. Then from Seaside on, I more aggressively renamed things to fit the set theme. Still there were just a few cards here and there that actually started with a name or art; a great fit like Treasure Map was still, I had a mechanic, what should I call this.
For Adventures I tried to have a few theme-based cards, to uh push theme. The Peasant / Page lines started with names, and Giant and maybe something else. Empires was back to just giving cards good names; I don't think anything started with flavor there. I made a list of Roman things and you know, I guess this Landmark will be Fountain because it cares about Coppers and you like throw them in a Fountain. For Nocturne I specifically tried to have some flavor-based cards, in part because it fit with the mechanics - the mechanics were going after players who might also appreciate some nice flavor. And the extra cards help - you can guess that "Gain a Gold, if you have 7 cards in play gain a Wish else receive a Hex" is called Leprechaun, but I threw in the names "Wish" and "Hex" there, they help.
In general the two things in the way of flavor are 1) caring more about gameplay, and 2) caring more about simplicity. There's no way to have compelling flavor for Smithy; you don't look at "+3 Cards" and think "oh I bet I know what that's called" like you do with Leprechaun. You can add text to reinforce flavor, but that's adding text, and it's better not to add text. And then uh. Like let's compare two cases, Warrior and Vampire. Warrior can kill other Warriors. Flavorwise that makes sense. Flavor was actually one of the arguments for not preventing that. And it's like a stand-out mistake in Adventures, the fact that Warriors can kill Warriors. Meanwhile in the flavor-heavy Nocturne, Vampire cannot gain Vampires. That makes no sense, it's anti-flavor. I sided with gameplay! It's just always the move.
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Roughly, how many ideas do you have in files that might work for a future expansion?
There are pages and pages of ideas that didn't end up as published cards (or some that did, but they're still in the file in whatever forms). You never know how many can go somewhere until you try them.
I don't know that it's that relevant. Most of the ideas in Adventures and Empires and Nocturne were fresh ones; you can count up the old ideas in the Secret Histories, and I think mostly they're in the outtakes sections; they hadn't worked before and continued not to.
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Maybe it's just me, but the last few sets have seemed more flavorful than previous sets, and Nocturne seems like the most flavorful of all.
For what it's worth, to me Dark Ages remains easily the most flavourful set. The vast majority of the cards are on-theme in name and artwork; a lot of them are mechanically, too.
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I haven't made those fixes but I've considered doing it for ~5 Hinterlands cards.
Obligatory "what are those fixes?" question.
I missed this question somehow. I've been over this ground in other threads but it's like: IGG cost $6 worth $2 gives out Curses (no Copper business); Fool's Gold no reaction; move the +Buy from Margrave to Cache; would-less Trader; Duchess not including other players; something something Mandarin.
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I haven't made those fixes but I've considered doing it for ~5 Hinterlands cards.
Obligatory "what are those fixes?" question.
I missed this question somehow. I've been over this ground in other threads but it's like: IGG cost $6 worth $2 gives out Curses (no Copper business); Fool's Gold no reaction; move the +Buy from Margrave to Cache; would-less Trader; Duchess not including other players; something something Mandarin.
I like all of these except for removing the Fool's Gold reaction.
Back when WW still posted here, he said he was starting to dislike Margrave, because it gave too much of what you wanted for free. After thinking about it, I agreed. Getting rid of the +Buy would be nice for that.
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What’s the most fun you can have with a deck of traditional playing cards?
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What’s the most fun you can have with a deck of traditional playing cards?
I'll pretend that instead you asked, what's the best game to play with a deck of playing cards.
Well I'm no expert. I imagine you can do an entertaining mini-version of Dominion; people don't tend to research this stuff because you can just make a special deck can't you. Some of the games I've played the most with one deck of playing cards are: Crazy Crazy 8's (it's Crazy 8's but the winner of a hand makes up a new rule to add to the game; Pina Pirata is this only the rules are provided and the deck is different); Speed; FreeCell. I respect Deuces but have not played it much. The trick-taking games I've played any noticeable amount of did not use a regular deck. Well I made some just to play around and they did.
There's a game idea I tested with playing cards, and it worked but I never made the game with its own deck. Maybe someday. Oh there are two of those, though the second needed chits too. I have another game that would totally work with playing cards, but has a special deck, and well maybe someday I will show it to publishers again. They like it but realize it won't sell. I have an old old game that used playing cards but added another deck too; that's how it goes. My Poker game had a special deck; I've barely played playing-card-deck Poker.
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What’s the most fun you can have with a deck of traditional playing cards?
Tichu, if your traditional deck happens to have 4 unique jokers.
Otherwise, Canasta and Pinochle are quite good; though those also require special / double decks.
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What’s the most fun you can have with a deck of traditional playing cards?
Strip Poker.
Or maybe Bridge.
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Or maybe Bridge.
But that's not a traditional playing card.
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Was the current naming format for Boons there from the beginning? And what was the name for the +1VP Boon in Empires?
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Was the current naming format for Boons there from the beginning? And what was the name for the +1VP Boon in Empires?
+1 VP was The Sky's Gift.
At the very beginning they had no names; then they were named after Roman deities. Jupiter's Gift and so on. The problem is, those deities suck. They just suck, man. I mean I always knew they were renamed Greek ones, but really, they have zilch going for them.
Then I hit on the nature thing and liked it better. And they left Empires so there was no pull towards Roman deities at all.
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What’s the most fun you can have with a deck of traditional playing cards?
Strip Poker.
Or maybe Bridge.
Come on, making card-houses is way more fun.
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The problem is, those deities suck. They just suck, man. I mean I always knew they were renamed Greek ones, but really, they have zilch going for them.
When Donald X. gets struck by lightning, remember this...
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What’s the most fun you can have with a deck of traditional playing cards?
Strip Poker.
Or maybe Bridge.
Come on, making card-houses is way more fun.
Being Gambit and blowing stuff up.
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The problem is, those deities suck. They just suck, man. I mean I always knew they were renamed Greek ones, but really, they have zilch going for them.
When Donald X. gets struck by lightning, remember this...
Of course Donald X prefers the Greek deities. We all know he's a Hera-tic.
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I'm going to +1 the suggestion of bridge earlier. :)
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I have found other ways to do extra-expensive cards (e.g. City Quarter, Grand Market).
Just curious, do you consider Ghost an extra-expensive card, or Bat or any other Nocturne card?
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I have found other ways to do extra-expensive cards (e.g. City Quarter, Grand Market).
Just curious, do you consider Ghost an extra-expensive card, or Bat or any other Nocturne card?
Ghost is hard to get, so it falls into this category of hard-to-get cards, a better term I think than extra-expensive since you don't buy it. Wish is also hard to get; Bat is not.
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Donald,
Once again, thanks for answering all these questions.
Onto: I'm curious about how you got your name plastered on the Dominion box. How does that happen? I mean, I know that once you've won two Spiel awards, any publisher would be dumb to not put your name on the box; But, when the first Dominion game came out, I understand your name was on the box. Is this just how RGG rolls? Is there a fun story here?
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Donald,
Once again, thanks for answering all these questions.
Onto: I'm curious about how you got your name plastered on the Dominion box. How does that happen? I mean, I know that once you've won two Spiel awards, any publisher would be dumb to not put your name on the box; But, when the first Dominion game came out, I understand your name was on the box. Is this just how RGG rolls? Is there a fun story here?
I imagine it went something like this:
(http://38.media.tumblr.com/824637154a6cb88c100bf37c6caa086d/tumblr_no1fm1DSou1qjnl39o1_500.gif)
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I thought it was standard to put the designer's name on boardgames now.
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How come many apparently simple potential card names haven't been used yet, when so many more obscure words and phrases have seen the light of day?
Looking back at the outtakes there are a bunch of names like Cavalry, Servant, Battlements, Barbarian, Butler, Poison, Academy, etc. which you were once considering.
Also, statues have been mentioned in the intro text for two expansions now, but we still don't have a Statue, let alone one that comes to life. (-8
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Guardian is a statue come to life.
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Sure, various cards depict statues (Monument, Duplicate, ...) but it seems such a simple concept not to have a card of its own.
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I thought it was standard to put the designer's name on boardgames now.
I think it still depends on the publisher. I think most we think of as Board Game Publishers do it, but not all. For example, Gamewright games (publisher of children's games) does not appear to list the designer's name, not even on Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert (by Pandemic-designer Matt Leacock).
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It's a trend in euro-style games (also why they're sometimes called "designer games" apparently).
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Onto: I'm curious about how you got your name plastered on the Dominion box. How does that happen? I mean, I know that once you've won two Spiel awards, any publisher would be dumb to not put your name on the box; But, when the first Dominion game came out, I understand your name was on the box. Is this just how RGG rolls? Is there a fun story here?
That is just how RGG rolls. If the contract doesn't put your name on the box though, find another company. Similarly if you write a book, and they won't put your name on the cover, find a different publisher. And if you write a screenplay... direct it.
The RGG contract was based on the "Knizia contract" - a contract Knizia wrote up some years ago. Well and it didn't throw it all out, it was actually mostly that contract. And that contract is very friendly to the game designer.
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How come many apparently simple potential card names haven't been used yet, when so many more obscure words and phrases have seen the light of day?
Looking back at the outtakes there are a bunch of names like Cavalry, Servant, Battlements, Barbarian, Butler, Poison, Academy, etc. which you were once considering.
Also, statues have been mentioned in the intro text for two expansions now, but we still don't have a Statue, let alone one that comes to life. (-8
The goal is never "make sure I get these simple potential card names used." The goal is always to have names that fit the cards and expansion well. So I mean. There's no mystery here.
As noted Guardian is a statue that comes to life.
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Donald's name does seem to be more prominent than most, though.
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Donald's name does seem to be more prominent than most, though.
Maybe it just catches your eye because you recognize it?
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Checking the name of the designer is one of the first things I do when somebody brings a new game to game night. A few names keep coming up, and it's fun to see how their style evolves in time.
...was fairly surprised last Sunday when the name under the cutesy titled and illustrated "Bunny Kingdom" turned out to be Richard Garfield. Good game though!
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Donald's name does seem to be more prominent than most, though.
Maybe it just catches your eye because you recognize it?
It's easier to find because X marks the spot.
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Checking the name of the designer is one of the first things I do when somebody brings a new game to game night. A few names keep coming up, and it's fun to see how their style evolves in time.
...was fairly surprised last Sunday when the name under the cutesy titled and illustrated "Bunny Kingdom" turned out to be Richard Garfield. Good game though!
Garfield has done a bunch of games that are very different. The ones I played were The Great Dalmuti, Robo Ralley and King of Tokio.
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Why does Treasury no longer have a dividing line?
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Why does Treasury no longer have a dividing line?
Wiki says it was a printing error, I remember some forum post saying as much too.
http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Treasury
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Why does Treasury no longer have a dividing line?
Wiki says it was a printing error, I remember some forum post saying as much too.
http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Treasury
I don't know if I'd call it a printing error. Donald accidentally left the dividing line out of the file that he sent to Rio Grande, and then nobody caught it in the proofs. So it's a mistake, but it's not the printer's fault.
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why do Envious and Deluded have their respective names? I would think you'd have to be awfully deluded to confuse Silver and Gold with copper.
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why do Envious and Deluded have their respective names? I would think you'd have to be awfully deluded to confuse Silver and Gold with copper.
You're envious because your Treasures only make $1.
There were a bunch of different Delusions. As usual this kind of question does not have an interesting answer. There was a moment where I did not think, oh should I rename these. Then art was being done and then layout.
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The Victory pile counts seem designed to be evenly divisible by the number of players (2-4).
Did you ever consider or playtest an odd number of victory cards in the piles?
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The Victory pile counts seem designed to be evenly divisible by the number of players (2-4).
Did you ever consider or playtest an odd number of victory cards in the piles?
No.
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Did you ever consider or playtest a complex number of victory cards in the piles?
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Did you ever consider or playtest a complex number of victory cards in the piles?
You mean something like a pile composed by 7(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7a/Potion.png/9px-Potion.png) cards? I have trouble imagining it.
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Did you ever consider or playtest a complex number of victory cards in the piles?
I tested nothing but complex numbers of victory cards, and that's what I went with too - e.g. 8 + 0i cards in each Victory pile for 2 players.
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What about a letter of victory cards?
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Did you ever consider or playtest a complex number of victory cards in the piles?
Yes, 8 is a complex number.
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How come many apparently simple potential card names haven't been used yet, when so many more obscure words and phrases have seen the light of day?
Looking back at the outtakes there are a bunch of names like Cavalry, Servant, Battlements, Barbarian, Butler, Poison, Academy, etc. which you were once considering.
Also, statues have been mentioned in the intro text for two expansions now, but we still don't have a Statue, let alone one that comes to life. (-8
The goal is never "make sure I get these simple potential card names used." The goal is always to have names that fit the cards and expansion well. So I mean. There's no mystery here.
As noted Guardian is a statue that comes to life.
But it's not made of baklava, which is only slightly disappointing.
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Yes, 8 is a complex number.
But it's not made of baklava, which is only slightly disappointing.
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How come many apparently simple potential card names haven't been used yet, when so many more obscure words and phrases have seen the light of day?
Looking back at the outtakes there are a bunch of names like Cavalry, Servant, Battlements, Barbarian, Butler, Poison, Academy, etc. which you were once considering.
Also, statues have been mentioned in the intro text for two expansions now, but we still don't have a Statue, let alone one that comes to life. (-8
The goal is never "make sure I get these simple potential card names used." The goal is always to have names that fit the cards and expansion well. So I mean. There's no mystery here.
As noted Guardian is a statue that comes to life.
But it's not made of baklava, which is only slightly disappointing.
??
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How come many apparently simple potential card names haven't been used yet, when so many more obscure words and phrases have seen the light of day?
Looking back at the outtakes there are a bunch of names like Cavalry, Servant, Battlements, Barbarian, Butler, Poison, Academy, etc. which you were once considering.
Also, statues have been mentioned in the intro text for two expansions now, but we still don't have a Statue, let alone one that comes to life. (-8
The goal is never "make sure I get these simple potential card names used." The goal is always to have names that fit the cards and expansion well. So I mean. There's no mystery here.
As noted Guardian is a statue that comes to life.
But it's not made of baklava, which is only slightly disappointing.
??
I will explain the joke by directing you to the flavor text for Prosperity.
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There’s many good reasons not to self-publish things, certainly including “I don’t feel like it”. Is self-publishing a game something you never see yourself doing, even for games you believe in that have struck out with publishers?
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There’s many good reasons not to self-publish things, certainly including “I don’t feel like it”. Is self-publishing a game something you never see yourself doing, even for games you believe in that have struck out with publishers?
At the moment I'm not interested in self-publishing.
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I happened upon this from an old thread:
In MtG, I might have a creature that says "tap: Gain an amount of life equal to this creature's power". I could use that ability, and with MtG's stack you could kill that creature before the ability happens. So then the question of how much life I need to gain comes up.
As it happens, I am the person who suggested that rule for Magic. Which is to say, as with anything I suggested, I don't know if they got it from me or from someone else with the same suggestion, since I never saw what went on internally; but there was a point when they needed a good rule here and I proposed last known information.
I dodged LKI in Dominion by having cost be the only card stat that can change, and changing it everywhere whenever it changes. If you need to know what types a card has, you always know, because it never changes. If all copies of the card are hidden away in decks, look at the randomizer.
Now we have Band of Misfits, Overlord and Inheritance. And they do create confusion about LKI (with certain card interactions; I have no idea how often). What made you change your mind? Did you imagine that it would be as confusing as it is (without implying that it is or isn't overly confusing) and still be worth it?
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Chess is a great example of what not to do in a board game.
As someone who does not like Chess, I'd love to hear you elaborate on this.
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Chess is a great example of what not to do in a board game.
As someone who does not like Chess, I'd love to hear you elaborate on this.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.0;all
and ctrl+f "chess"
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Chess is a great example of what not to do in a board game.
As someone who does not like Chess, I'd love to hear you elaborate on this.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.0;all
and ctrl+f "chess"
Why are you trying to crash people's computers? Rude.
Chess: Chess has two huge flaws. First, for new players, it's hard to even see what the pieces can do. You have to remember how all the pieces move and then consider how they would all interact with any potential move. Second, you can potentially see many moves in advance, perfectly. Only, you personally, you cannot do that, because it's too hard. You aren't looking ten moves ahead and therefore you're playing suboptimally. I guess you're just stupid, Chess tells you. Chess magnifies this due to the way the game works; it's not just perfect information, it's perfect information and small differences can get blown up. At one point I made a game in the Chess family. People would ask me about Magic, and I would say, well suppose we were going to play Chess, only we each brought half of the board and pieces. You've got knights and pawns and so forth, but I've got archers and pikemen, and half of my board is under water. After using this analogy a few times, I thought, I should make that game. And I made a game and well, it was way too hard to even see what the pieces could do.
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Now we have Band of Misfits, Overlord and Inheritance. And they do create confusion about LKI (with certain card interactions; I have no idea how often). What made you change your mind? Did you imagine that it would be as confusing as it is (without implying that it is or isn't overly confusing) and still be worth it?
Band of Misfits was too confusing, and left Dark Ages. Eventually I decided, maybe it's okay after all, and put it back in. I was weak, I wanted the fun card. Most games it's not so tricky. I don't know exactly which questions I anticipated and which I didn't. Well there's the FAQ, I anticipated those questions.
Overlord made it because, well it's the same as Band of Misfits, and people are dealing with that. Inheritance blows it here with the implementation of what exactly "your Estates" are (due to wanting when-buy to work); I would try to find a better way to do that today.
And I'd try to do Band a better way too. Necromancer technology might work (with just letting it be strong with e.g. Feast). I tried versions that played the card at the time, but they put the card in front of you, and people would scoop up the card as one of their own.
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Band of Misfits, Overlord, and Inheritance are three of my favorite cards. I think they're great as-is.
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To ask a rather general question, what is your experience with playtesters and "minigames", such as Windfall/Leprechaun/others?
Also, now that Nocturne is released, is Rats still your favourite card?
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What's your favorite Boon and Hex?
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Chess is a great example of what not to do in a board game.
As someone who does not like Chess, I'd love to hear you elaborate on this.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.0;all
and ctrl+f "chess"
Why are you trying to crash people's computers? Rude.
Even better... http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1204.0;all
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Even better: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=50.0
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Even better: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=50.0
I was waiting for someone to do that
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Even better: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=50.0
I was waiting for someone to do that
Were you expecting Someone?
Too bad! It was just me, Awaclus!
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That could be the response to any number of posts on this forum.
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What's your favorite Boon and Hex?
The Boon is easy: The Swamp's Gift.
The Hex is tricky. If everyone knows all about them and it's even handled for you like in a computer game, then Envy; it's a very exotic penalty, one of the things that made doing Hexes look good. However there are other vantage points. As I've said elsewhere, it's bad that Hexes are so complex, and since they had to be so complex I shouldn't have done them, even though we had a lot of fun with them; furthermore the ones that say "continued on next card," well that's so ridiculous, what was I thinking. So, Envy, that crazy complex thing I regret. Surely I don't pick that one.
The Hexes would have been okay if they had almost all been as simple as Greed / Plague / Poverty, like how the Boons are almost all that simple. Attacks are just too wordy. "Discard an Action or Treasure" is so simple; but you can't just say that, it has to say "If you have at least 5 cards in hand" and then "(or reveal you can't)."
So anyway, my favorite Hex that was reasonable to do, I'll pick Greed.
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To ask a rather general question, what is your experience with playtesters and "minigames", such as Windfall/Leprechaun/others?
Also, now that Nocturne is released, is Rats still your favourite card?
Minigames are great. They are crowd-pleasers with the playtesters, and I'm a fan too. You may note that there are several of them in Nocturne. Magic Lamp, Haunted Mirror, and Leprechaun are the big ones, but there are smaller minigames too - trying to get your Imps from Devil's Workshop, trying to keep or cash in Tragic Hero, getting your Necromancer to be good.
Rats, another mini-game, is still my favorite card; it's not something I'm really going to reassess carefully, who has the time. My favorite cards in Nocturne are Devil's Workshop and Exorcist.
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To ask a rather general question, what is your experience with playtesters and "minigames", such as Windfall/Leprechaun/others?
Also, now that Nocturne is released, is Rats still your favourite card?
Minigames are great. They are crowd-pleasers with the playtesters, and I'm a fan too. You may note that there are several of them in Nocturne. Magic Lamp, Haunted Mirror, and Leprechaun are the big ones, but there are smaller minigames too - trying to get your Imps from Devil's Workshop, trying to keep or cash in Tragic Hero, getting your Necromancer to be good.
Rats, another mini-game, is still my favorite card; it's not something I'm really going to reassess carefully, who has the time. My favorite cards in Nocturne are Devil's Workshop and Exorcist.
It just occurred to me the other day that Keep is like a mini Area-control game.
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It just occurred to me the other day that Keep is like a mini Area-control game.
In fact that was the intent! I believe that's how Donald X. describes it somewhere, perhaps in the secret history.
EDIT: Nope, not in the secret history, but somewhere.
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It just occurred to me the other day that Keep is like a mini Area-control game.
In fact that was the intent! I believe that's how Donald X. describes it somewhere, perhaps in the secret history.
EDIT: Nope, not in the secret history, but somewhere.
It's possible I read that somewhere previously, in which case it would be more accurate to say it "re-occurred" to me recently; I think the discussion around here on Fool made me think about other interactive game mechanics that have cameo appearances in Dominion.
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It just occurred to me the other day that Keep is like a mini Area-control game.
In fact that was the intent! I believe that's how Donald X. describes it somewhere, perhaps in the secret history.
EDIT: Nope, not in the secret history, but somewhere.
It was the Landmarks preview.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15398.0
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Also, a few pages back in this very thread http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg732653#msg732653 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg732653#msg732653).
Do you ever draw inspirations from other games for your cards?
I don't mean "do you rip off other games" but rather are any cards intended to be secret cameos or homages?
Walled Village and Governor are openly homages to Carcassonne and Puerto Rico respectively.
That's true, although Walled Village doesn't imitate Carcassonne in any way, it just has that title. Governor does imitate Puerto Rico.
I don't think there are any secret cameos/homages. I blab that stuff. You could read all the Secret Histories to see if I'm forgetting one. I'm not thinking of one. Okay Chariot Race has the War mechanic. Mountain Pass has bidding, I got that from games with bidding. Keep has area control.
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Also, a few pages back in this very thread http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg732653#msg732653 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg732653#msg732653).
Do you ever draw inspirations from other games for your cards?
I don't mean "do you rip off other games" but rather are any cards intended to be secret cameos or homages?
Walled Village and Governor are openly homages to Carcassonne and Puerto Rico respectively.
That's true, although Walled Village doesn't imitate Carcassonne in any way, it just has that title. Governor does imitate Puerto Rico.
I don't think there are any secret cameos/homages. I blab that stuff. You could read all the Secret Histories to see if I'm forgetting one. I'm not thinking of one. Okay Chariot Race has the War mechanic. Mountain Pass has bidding, I got that from games with bidding. Keep has area control.
That was probably it. It probably lodged in my brain somewhere and then popped up, masquerading as a spontaneous thought.
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Also, a few pages back in this very thread http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg732653#msg732653 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg732653#msg732653).
Do you ever draw inspirations from other games for your cards?
I don't mean "do you rip off other games" but rather are any cards intended to be secret cameos or homages?
Walled Village and Governor are openly homages to Carcassonne and Puerto Rico respectively.
That's true, although Walled Village doesn't imitate Carcassonne in any way, it just has that title. Governor does imitate Puerto Rico.
I don't think there are any secret cameos/homages. I blab that stuff. You could read all the Secret Histories to see if I'm forgetting one. I'm not thinking of one. Okay Chariot Race has the War mechanic. Mountain Pass has bidding, I got that from games with bidding. Keep has area control.
That was probably it. It probably lodged in my brain somewhere and then popped up, masquerading as a spontaneous thought.
That's telekinesis.
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Also, a few pages back in this very thread http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg732653#msg732653 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg732653#msg732653).
Do you ever draw inspirations from other games for your cards?
I don't mean "do you rip off other games" but rather are any cards intended to be secret cameos or homages?
Walled Village and Governor are openly homages to Carcassonne and Puerto Rico respectively.
That's true, although Walled Village doesn't imitate Carcassonne in any way, it just has that title. Governor does imitate Puerto Rico.
I don't think there are any secret cameos/homages. I blab that stuff. You could read all the Secret Histories to see if I'm forgetting one. I'm not thinking of one. Okay Chariot Race has the War mechanic. Mountain Pass has bidding, I got that from games with bidding. Keep has area control.
That was probably it. It probably lodged in my brain somewhere and then popped up, masquerading as a spontaneous thought.
That's telekinesis.
Kyle.
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I heard that there will be a new promo for the German Dominion championship 2018. Do you already give details which kind of card we can expect?
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I heard that there will be a new promo for the German Dominion championship 2018. Do you already give details which kind of card we can expect?
This is the card for the winning province of Germany/Austria. I don't need to give them the card until there's a winner, which is more than a year away. I have not made a card. When the time comes it will be them announcing it.
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I heard that there will be a new promo for the German Dominion championship 2018. Do you already give details which kind of card we can expect?
This is the card for the winning province of Germany/Austria. I don't need to give them the card until there's a winner, which is more than a year away. I have not made a card. When the time comes it will be them announcing it.
Do you take suggestions which card you should make as a promotion? We could save you some work ^^
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I heard that there will be a new promo for the German Dominion championship 2018. Do you already give details which kind of card we can expect?
This is the card for the winning province of Germany/Austria. I don't need to give them the card until there's a winner, which is more than a year away. I have not made a card. When the time comes it will be them announcing it.
Do you take suggestions which card you should make as a promotion? We could save you some work ^^
Only from playtesters. Anticipating the next question, the way to become a playtester is for me to ask you.
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The obvious follow up: when will you ask?
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The obvious follow up: when will you ask?
Well of course I'm waiting at least until you stop beating your wife.
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The obvious follow up: when will you ask?
Well of course I'm waiting at least until you stop beating your wife.
I didn't know you cared that much about your playtesters' winrate against their significant others.
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Individually, Heirlooms seem to impact gameplay much more than the three Shelters put together.
If you were to make Shelters nowadays, would you make them more impactful?
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The obvious follow up: when will you ask?
Well of course I'm waiting at least until you stop beating your wife.
I didn't know you cared that much about your playtesters' winrate against their significant others.
Yeah, if anything I would think that you would want a playtester to be a better player in general; if I can't beat my wife, then she should be the one you ask to be a playtester.
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Ideally you'd have playtesters representing a range of skills, otherwise how would you know if bad players find a card too difficult or complicated?
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Individually, Heirlooms seem to impact gameplay much more than the three Shelters put together.
If you were to make Shelters nowadays, would you make them more impactful?
They don't come to mind when I think of things to change, so, I don't imagine so. I've got something that works, hooray.
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The obvious follow up: when will you ask?
Well of course I'm waiting at least until you stop beating your wife.
So when did the Nocturne playtesters stop beating their spouses? And when did Dame Josephine stop beating hers? :P
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The obvious follow up: when will you ask?
Well of course I'm waiting at least until you stop beating your wife.
So when did the Nocturne playtesters stop beating their spouses? And when did Dame Josephine stop beating hers? :P
When did this thread just become rhetorical questions?
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The obvious follow up: when will you ask?
Well of course I'm waiting at least until you stop beating your wife.
So when did the Nocturne playtesters stop beating their spouses? And when did Dame Josephine stop beating hers? :P
Obvious. The requirement is to stop beating enfynet's wife, not your own.
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The obvious follow up: when will you ask?
Well of course I'm waiting at least until you stop beating your wife.
So when did the Nocturne playtesters stop beating their spouses? And when did Dame Josephine stop beating hers? :P
When did this thread just become rhetorical questions?
If I answer that question will you answer this question?
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To bring this thread back on track a little...
Is there a card (/event/landmark/mechanism) that has really surprised you in terms of its strength or popularity?
I mean, have you designed a card thinking "this is going to be awesome", and then it has fallen completely flat during playtesting. Or have you unwillingly gone ahead with some idea that seemed mediocre and then it turned out to be awesome after all.
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Is there a card (/event/landmark/mechanism) that has really surprised you in terms of its strength or popularity?
I mean, have you designed a card thinking "this is going to be awesome", and then it has fallen completely flat during playtesting. Or have you unwillingly gone ahead with some idea that seemed mediocre and then it turned out to be awesome after all.
I was surprised at how well debt went over. I could see people not liking that you uh were in debt. We liked it, or it wouldn't have made it out, but, I didn't see it standing out for people like it did.
I have endlessly made things that sounded awesome but did not work out. The outtakes sections of the secret histories are full of them.
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Will you or have you ever considered putting a question mark or exclamation point in any card-shape-thing text? If so, what would it take?
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Will you or have you ever considered putting a question mark or exclamation point in any card-shape-thing text? If so, what would it take?
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Philosopher%27s_Stone.jpg/200px-Philosopher%27s_Stone.jpg)(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/78/Bank.jpg/200px-Bank.jpg)(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/e/ed/Fool%27s_Gold.jpg/200px-Fool%27s_Gold.jpg)(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/d/de/Charm.jpg/200px-Charm.jpg)
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Will you or have you ever considered putting a question mark or exclamation point in any card-shape-thing text? If so, what would it take?
I don't feel the need to rule out a card name with ? or !, but it doesn't seem so likely. I mean it's Raid, not Raid!, and I think all the ! adds there is "this is trying to be funny."
As noted ? is used to represent unknown $ amounts. I'm not seeing what ! could do. I don't want to suggest that any rule is more emphatic than the others.
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I will always be a little sad it isn't Rats!.
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Will you or have you ever considered putting a question mark or exclamation point in any card-shape-thing text? If so, what would it take?
I don't feel the need to rule out a card name with ? or !, but it doesn't seem so likely. I mean it's Raid, not Raid!, and I think all the ! adds there is "this is trying to be funny."
As noted ? is used to represent unknown $ amounts. I'm not seeing what ! could do. I don't want to suggest that any rule is more emphatic than the others.
I was assuming he was asking about ability text. As you say, an exclamation couldn't realistically add anything to the ability itself. A question mark seems more possible, but I can't really think of a wording where it would make sense.
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Will you or have you ever considered putting a question mark or exclamation point in any card-shape-thing text? If so, what would it take?
I don't feel the need to rule out a card name with ? or !, but it doesn't seem so likely. I mean it's Raid, not Raid!, and I think all the ! adds there is "this is trying to be funny."
As noted ? is used to represent unknown $ amounts. I'm not seeing what ! could do. I don't want to suggest that any rule is more emphatic than the others.
I was assuming he was asking about ability text. As you say, an exclamation couldn't realistically add anything to the ability itself. A question mark seems more possible, but I can't really think of a wording where it would make sense.
Mining Village
+1 Card
+2 Actions
You may trash this.
Did you trash this?
If yes: good job! +(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
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There could be a Treasure that gives X-factorial amount of money.
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There could be a Treasure that gives X-factorial amount of money.
Maybe we could call it Bank!
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Cards with specialized discounts, like Quarry or Ferry, make for interesting Remodel paths that aren't available with global discounts.
Have you ever tested other types of specialized discounts? For example, a Victory-specific cost reducer?
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Cards with specialized discounts, like Quarry or Ferry, make for interesting Remodel paths that aren't available with global discounts.
Have you ever tested other types of specialized discounts? For example, a Victory-specific cost reducer?
Dark Ages had "Copies of cards in the trash cost $1 less." Various cards have made just themselves cheaper different ways, like Peddler.
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Altenburger also wanted the world champion for this coming year to get to make a card. We said no! We are willing to put their face on a card, that is as far as we will go. However, as it happens, Adam is the current world champion. So a world champion did get to design a card.
So... if I want to get to design a card, I should ask you a question to which the answer is no? Hmmm.
Please can I design a card?
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Altenburger also wanted the world champion for this coming year to get to make a card. We said no! We are willing to put their face on a card, that is as far as we will go. However, as it happens, Adam is the current world champion. So a world champion did get to design a card.
So... if I want to get to design a card, I should ask you a question to which the answer is no? Hmmm.
Please can I design a card?
We like to have fun in the Interview with Donald X. thread.
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I think it was already asked and sorry if so, ut I couldn't find it. What is your most favorite videogame? What is a videogame you spent the most hours on? looking for something to play
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I think it was already asked and sorry if so, ut I couldn't find it. What is your most favorite videogame? What is a videogame you spent the most hours on? looking for something to play
The one I've spent the most hours on is surely Dudes of Stuff and Things, which I made and which you could find in this very thread and download and see if your computer plays it. I forget if the DOS version is the one posted, but if so, there's DOSBox, some software you can find somewhere on the internet that allows these older games to be played.
Dudes was my take on Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and 3, so if Dudes is no good for you, there you go. You can get them at gog.com, they have lots of older games in forms that will play on modern computers. They're cheap and you download them.
These days if I play a game on my computer, and it's not Dudes, odds are it's either one where you build up a hero while exploring a fantasy or sci-fi world and the combat isn't so good, which is to say it's a Bethesda game, with Fallout 4 being the latest; or it's a flash game that you can play for free on e.g. kongregate. There are lots of really classic flash games, man. Look for a category you like and go through the top-rated ones and you will find good ones.
Mostly I play video games on consoles, and by consoles I mean Nintendo consoles. Zelda: BotW and Super Mario Odyssey were both great. Before them on the Wii U, Super Mario 3-D World, Rayman Legends, Pikmin 3. On the 3DS, A Link Between Worlds. Those are all mainstream hits and well they deserved to be.
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What's the problem with a card being set aside for long amounts of time? Like, why does Island and Native Village require a mat to work? Is it because in practice, you would forget you set a card aside?
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What's the problem with a card being set aside for long amounts of time? Like, why does Island and Native Village require a mat to work? Is it because in practice, you would forget you set a card aside?
Native Village requires a mat because you will otherwise absent-mindedly shuffle the cards into your deck at some point.
I do not use a mat for Island personally; I turn the first Island sideways and that's my mat. I do need that sideways Island though, for the same reason.
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Have you ever tried or thought about a doom attack that did set up like druid with 3 predetermined hexes?
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Have you ever tried or thought about a doom attack that did set up like druid with 3 predetermined hexes?
Problem with that is that if either of the predetermined Hexes were Delusion, Envy, or Misery, the card would just fall apart. The obv solution is to not have made those Hexes to begin with, but that isn't really worth it just for this one card.
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misery and envy are fine. i´d be more concerned with Locusts and War.
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Have you ever tried or thought about a doom attack that did set up like druid with 3 predetermined hexes?
No; instead, some of the hexes were things that wouldn't work if you could always get them.
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Why does Ritual say "+1VP per 1$ it cost" and not "+1VP per 1$ it costs"? To me, "cost" implies past-tense, like the card now ceases to be. But it's just in the trash.
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The first corner case that springs to mind for me is:
• Use Inheritance (it doesn't matter which Action you choose)
• Play Quarry
• Use Ritual on an Estate
• Get no VP
Because the Estate was an Action-Victory when you trashed it, Quarry reduced its to $0. The moment the Estate leaves your ownership it reverts to being a plain Victory card, costing $2.
I'm sure there are others.
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Why does Ritual say "+1VP per 1$ it cost" and not "+1VP per 1$ it costs"? To me, "cost" implies past-tense, like the card now ceases to be. But it's just in the trash.
There's no good reason. Some cards refer to the current cost and some to the past cost, and it's just, what words fell out onto the card, what sounded good that minute. In general it's probably simpler to refer to the current cost so they should all do that.
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Why does Ritual say "+1VP per 1$ it cost" and not "+1VP per 1$ it costs"? To me, "cost" implies past-tense, like the card now ceases to be. But it's just in the trash.
There's no good reason. Some cards refer to the current cost and some to the past cost, and it's just, what words fell out onto the card, what sounded good that minute. In general it's probably simpler to refer to the current cost so they should all do that.
I see an edge case here. You can trash an inherited Estate with Quarry in play. In the trash it costs always $2, but in your hand it can cost $0.
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Why does Ritual say "+1VP per 1$ it cost" and not "+1VP per 1$ it costs"? To me, "cost" implies past-tense, like the card now ceases to be. But it's just in the trash.
There's no good reason. Some cards refer to the current cost and some to the past cost, and it's just, what words fell out onto the card, what sounded good that minute. In general it's probably simpler to refer to the current cost so they should all do that.
I see an edge case here. You can trash an inherited Estate with Quarry in play. In the trash it costs always $2, but in your hand it can cost $0.
Like this for example:
The first corner case that springs to mind for me is:
• Use Inheritance (it doesn't matter which Action you choose)
• Play Quarry
• Use Ritual on an Estate
• Get no VP
Because the Estate was an Action-Victory when you trashed it, Quarry reduced its to $0. The moment the Estate leaves your ownership it reverts to being a plain Victory card, costing $2.
I'm sure there are others.
?
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Why does Ritual say "+1VP per 1$ it cost" and not "+1VP per 1$ it costs"? To me, "cost" implies past-tense, like the card now ceases to be. But it's just in the trash.
There's no good reason. Some cards refer to the current cost and some to the past cost, and it's just, what words fell out onto the card, what sounded good that minute. In general it's probably simpler to refer to the current cost so they should all do that.
I see an edge case here. You can trash an inherited Estate with Quarry in play. In the trash it costs always $2, but in your hand it can cost $0.
That is not an edge case to "there's no good reason." It simply doesn't matter how exotic cases end up here.
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How would you briefly describe Dominion to someone who doesn't play a lot of board games?
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How would you briefly describe Dominion to someone who doesn't play a lot of board games?
It's a game where you build a deck of cards. Everything about your position is in your deck - your money, your victory points, the things you can do. We build our decks out of cards that vary each game; the game gives you a puzzle to solve, of how best to build up, given the particular cards available.
When teaching it I go on to say: We take turns. On your turn first you can play an Action card from your hand, doing whatever it says; then you can play any number of Treasure cards and buy one new card for as much $ as you have or less, putting it into your discard pile; then you discard everything you played and everything you didn't, and draw a new hand of 5, shuffling as needed.
If instead you want to talk about it as a thing not to be played but merely marveled at, well, it's the widely imitated game that spawned the deckbuilding "genre" ("genre" in quotes because of how so many of the games do so little to distinguish themselves, but no-one's interested in hearing about that).
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("genre" in quotes because of how so many of the games do so little to distinguish themselves, but no-one's interested in hearing about that).
I am. What are some examples of some blatant Dominion clones?
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I am. What are some examples of some blatant Dominion clones?
I'm not interested in promoting them by naming them. In one of the most extreme ones, the Treasures cost $1 more, that was what passed for innovation for them.
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("genre" in quotes because of how so many of the games do so little to distinguish themselves, but no-one's interested in hearing about that).
I am. What are some examples of some blatant Dominion clones?
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/27/Replace.jpg/200px-Replace.jpg)
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/e/e9/Changeling.jpg/200px-Changeling.jpg)
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There are so many games that I've played, and thought that I would enjoy if I hadn't played Dominion first. Games where I just can't stop myself from thinking "so this is why this mechanic is so much cleaner in Dominion" while playing.
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There are so many games that I've played, and thought that I would enjoy if I hadn't played Dominion first. Games where I just can't stop myself from thinking "so this is why this mechanic is so much cleaner in Dominion" while playing.
it happened the other way around for me, since I played so many deck-builders before dominion.
But i still like both "arctic scavengers" (for the extra interaction, and the competition) and "valley of the kings" (for how interesting it is to figure out when to embalm, that is trash, your best cards).
neither are better then dominion, nor have as much replayability, but both are rather interesting to pull out from time to time.
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I am not familar with actual Dominion clones (the closest one I know is Ascension / Star Realms / Hero Realms as it is arguably Dominion without a restriction on Actions and Buys but here the equivalent of the Supply works different enough from Dominion to not call it a clone) just like I am not familiar with actual Caylus clones.
Agricola and all other worker placement games that appeared after Caylus did something different or new which was obviously not always better than what the first game with that mechanism did. Same with Dominon and deckbuilders.
Also, a game which invents an important mechanism tends to be mono-mechanic where games that appear afterwards tend to use that mechanism as one among many. See e.g. Martin Wallace's battle deckbuilder trilogy or Euros with deckbuilding like Concordia.
The only actual difference I see is that Dominion is not finished but still evolving. That's, at least to me, the reason for its goodness. Its originality, doing something first, matters only for history. I liked other deckbuilders much more than Base Dominion with 1 or 2 expansions but with more expansions the game became pretty good (and still does become better).
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Given Donald X's unwillingness to mention Dominion clones, I suggest the conversation move over to another thread. I started one (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18241).
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Given Donald X's unwillingness to mention Dominion clones, I suggest the conversation move over to another thread. I started one (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18241).
You're there for me.
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How many copies of the States are there? I've only played Nocturne online, and it's not clear there. And wiki doesn't say. I always thought there was 1 of each - like how Lost In The Woods goes from person to person. But I guess it's possible for multiple players to each have Miserable (game id: 11763249). And can they run out / what would happen if they ran out (if more players than number of copies of them were playing and all players had to take one)? And why don't hexes say "... take a Miserable", "... take a Deluded", etc., to imply there are multiple of each?
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How many copies of the States are there? I've only played Nocturne online, and it's not clear there. And wiki doesn't say. I always thought there was 1 of each - like how Lost In The Woods goes from person to person. But I guess it's possible for multiple players to each have Miserable (game id: 11763249). And can they run out / what would happen if they ran out (if more players than number of copies of them were playing and all players had to take one)? And why don't hexes say "... take a Miserable", "... take a Deluded", etc., to imply there are multiple of each?
There is 1 Lost in the Woods (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Lost_in_the_Woods), 6 Deluded (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Deluded) (with Envious (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Envious) on the back) and 6 Miserable (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Miserable) (with Twice Miserable (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Twice_Miserable) on the back).
This lines up with the mechanics, because Lost in the Woods can only ever be held by one person, but each person can be either Deluded or Envious (but never both), and each person can be either Miserable or Twice Miserable (but never both).
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How many copies of the States are there? I've only played Nocturne online, and it's not clear there. And wiki doesn't say. I always thought there was 1 of each - like how Lost In The Woods goes from person to person. But I guess it's possible for multiple players to each have Miserable (game id: 11763249). And can they run out / what would happen if they ran out (if more players than number of copies of them were playing and all players had to take one)? And why don't hexes say "... take a Miserable", "... take a Deluded", etc., to imply there are multiple of each?
GendoIkari has the numbers. They don't say e.g. "a" because I didn't think of that in time.
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Given boons and hexes already introduced "take" and "receive" as terms with special meanings, it wouldn't have been a particular stretch to go with "become" for States.
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Given boons and hexes already introduced "take" and "receive" as terms with special meanings, it wouldn't have been a particular stretch to go with "become" for States.
I believe “take” was first introduced with Pirate Ship; but then given special meaning in Guilds.
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For the tenth anniversary of Carcassone, you did a Carcassone-like promo; for the tenth anniversary or Puerto Rico, you did a Puerto-Rico-like promo. (Arguably Governor is a better homage to the game, will Walled Village just an homage to the... well, the walls.)
We're getting near the tenth anniversary of Dominion. Is there a chance there will be a tenth anniversary promo card? And of course I wonder, what would be a single card that evokes Dominion in the way Governor evokes Puerto Rico?
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For the tenth anniversary of Carcassone, you did a Carcassone-like promo; for the tenth anniversary or Puerto Rico, you did a Puerto-Rico-like promo. (Arguably Governor is a better homage to the game, will Walled Village just an homage to the... well, the walls.)
We're getting near the tenth anniversary of Dominion. Is there a chance there will be a tenth anniversary promo card? And of course I wonder, what would be a single card that evokes Dominion in the way Governor evokes Puerto Rico?
Black Market potentially makes all of Dominion part of the game. Does that count?
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We're getting near the tenth anniversary of Dominion. Is there a chance there will be a tenth anniversary promo card? And of course I wonder, what would be a single card that evokes Dominion in the way Governor evokes Puerto Rico?
I haven't considered doing such a thing; however Altenburger considered it so hard that there are ~3 such promos - Dismantle to have available at German tournaments for the 10th anniversary, a promo for the province of Germany/Austria that "wins," and a promo depicting the winning player.
If I had a single card that evoked Dominion and it was worth actually doing, I wouldn't be sharing it. For cards that aren't worth doing there's e.g. Visiting Relative. For cards that exist already, there's e.g. Workshop. You pick a card you want for your deck. Or Tactician - it gives you 5 cards an Action and a Buy. Hmmmmm.
Dominion themed kingdom
Feodum - flavor paragraph
Minion - flavor paragraph
Treasury - flavor paragraph
Outpost - take a turn
Tactician - 5 cards, an action, a buy
Workshop - you pick a card you want for your deck
Black Market - get in all the cards, makes you build a deck
Tournament - there are tournaments
Inn - shuffling
Castles - castle builder
Battlefield - the win condition
Dominate - kind of looks like "Dominion"
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A card that best exemplifies dominion might be one that creates a subgame of dominion with the remaining cards, a la Scheherazade in Magic.
Everywhere, tournament directors have started crying, and they don't know why.
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Minion
Yeah, I guess you'd sorta have to do Minion there.
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Dominate - kind of looks like "Dominion"
Seems legit.
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I took a glance at the Secret History of Seaside, and noticed something peculiar about Treasury:
Treasury: This replaced a card that had rules problems. I eventually figured out a way to deal with the problems, but not in time for it to make the set. It will make it somewhere else eventually.
Did the mystery card that this excerpt is referring to ever get released in a Dominion expansion?
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I took a glance at the Secret History of Seaside, and noticed something peculiar about Treasury:
Treasury: This replaced a card that had rules problems. I eventually figured out a way to deal with the problems, but not in time for it to make the set. It will make it somewhere else eventually.
Did the mystery card that this excerpt is referring to ever get released in a Dominion expansion?
No! I am pretty sure it's Stash.
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What’s on your mind, Donald?
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You posted a link to an old comment where you said:
I had to raise it to $4, and that meant getting rid of a Throne-Room-with-a-bonus I had in another set, that had cost $4 but was no good at $5.
What was this Throne-Room-with-a-bonus?
(🎵I know, I know, it's serious 🎵)
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You posted a link to an old comment where you said:
I had to raise it to $4, and that meant getting rid of a Throne-Room-with-a-bonus I had in another set, that had cost $4 but was no good at $5.
What was this Throne-Room-with-a-bonus?
(🎵I know, I know, it's serious 🎵)
I believe it was a choose one between a blank cantrip (+1 Card and +1 Action) and playing an Action card from your hand twice.
EDIT: Edited for clarity.
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What was this Throne-Room-with-a-bonus?
I believe it was a choose one between [+1 Card, +1 Action] and throne.
Ah, ok. Thanks! Often these "abandoned" cards from old threads have eventually resurfaced with a tweak or two, so I was half-expecting this to be a Disciple or Procession progenitor.
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Procession actually seems like a counterexample to this idea that card variants which seem stronger than the original should cost more. I guess it's easy enough to see the downside of Procession, but I still had to pause when I saw it costed 4 coins like Throne Room.
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I believe it was a choose one between [+1 Card, +1 Action] and throne.
Is that really not worth $5? If you played it on itself, you could draw an extra Smithy's worth of cards, which has got to help with engine building. I'd certainly pay $5 for it if I got to choose card or action after I'd played a card twice.
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I believe it was a choose one between [+1 Card, +1 Action] and throne.
Is that really not worth $5? If you played it on itself, you could draw an extra Smithy's worth of cards, which has got to help with engine building. I'd certainly pay $5 for it if I got to choose card or action after I'd played a card twice.
You can throne a throne to play Smithy twice, then get built in actions without having to throne a non-terminal, but usually you have a non-terminal to throne that does more than +1 card +1 action.
It dunno, this looks fairly weaker than Royal Carriage, at least when reliability is a concern. It doesn't do anything that Throne Room doesn't when the cards do line up, and doesn't mitigate the downside of not drawing it with an action as well as Royal Carriage does.
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I believe it was a choose one between [+1 Card, +1 Action] and throne.
Is that really not worth $5? If you played it on itself, you could draw an extra Smithy's worth of cards, which has got to help with engine building. I'd certainly pay $5 for it if I got to choose card or action after I'd played a card twice.
You misunderstand. It’s either a cantrip, or throne. Not, throne and either an extra action or an extra card.
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You misunderstand. It’s either a cantrip, or throne. Not, throne and either an extra action or an extra card.
Oh, OK. I do indeed misunderstand.
That could have been a lot clearer. (-8
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You misunderstand. It’s either a cantrip, or throne. Not, throne and either an extra action or an extra card.
Oh, OK. I do indeed misunderstand.
That could have been a lot clearer. (-8
Sorry. I was typing it on my phone. I've updated it now.
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I believe it was a choose one between [+1 Card, +1 Action] and throne.
Is that really not worth $5? If you played it on itself, you could draw an extra Smithy's worth of cards, which has got to help with engine building. I'd certainly pay $5 for it if I got to choose card or action after I'd played a card twice.
You misunderstand. It’s either a cantrip, or throne. Not, throne and either an extra action or an extra card.
Still seems about as strong as Crown.
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You misunderstand. It’s either a cantrip, or throne. Not, throne and either an extra action or an extra card.
Oh, OK. I do indeed misunderstand.
That could have been a lot clearer. (-8
Sorry. I was typing it on my phone. I've updated it now.
I think you could have just replaced the “and” for an “or”, and it would have been good. Or is that not proper English?
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I believe it was a choose one between a blank cantrip (+1 Card and +1 Action) and playing an Action card from your hand twice.
EDIT: Edited for clarity.
The clear version is correct.
I thought, I'll make some cards that can be a cantrip or the card. Then I only did Throne Room and then I cut it.
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What’s on your mind, Donald?
I was just thinking about how much I enjoy giving self-referential answers to questions.
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I thought, I'll make some cards that can be a cantrip or the card. Then I only did Throne Room and then I cut it.
Reminds me of cycling from Magic.
Somehow the cantrip-or-other design feels closer to Crown/Werewolf than say, a choose-your-benefit(s) card like Steward.
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blank cantrip (+1 Card and +1 Action)
I think "Pig" should be the official name for this.
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I believe it was a choose one between a blank cantrip (+1 Card and +1 Action) and playing an Action card from your hand twice.
EDIT: Edited for clarity.
The clear version is correct.
I thought, I'll make some cards that can be a cantrip or the card. Then I only did Throne Room and then I cut it.
Pawn and Hamlet do it. Moreso Pawn, because with Hamlet you get the cantrip before having to decide if you want to get more.
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blank cantrip (+1 Card and +1 Action)
I think "Pig" should be the official name for this.
?
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blank cantrip (+1 Card and +1 Action)
I think "Pig" should be the official name for this.
?
Enchantress
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I took a glance at the Secret History of Seaside, and noticed something peculiar about Treasury:
Treasury: This replaced a card that had rules problems. I eventually figured out a way to deal with the problems, but not in time for it to make the set. It will make it somewhere else eventually.
Did the mystery card that this excerpt is referring to ever get released in a Dominion expansion?
No! I am pretty sure it's Stash.
Well, we're glad you got rid of the rules problems... /s :)
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Donald, most sets have one of two cards like council room that help your opponents in some way, but never too many in one set. Would too many of these cards in one set be a problem for gameplay, or otherwise be unpopular, or is it just one of those things Dominion hasn't done?
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Donald, most sets have one of two cards like council room that help your opponents in some way, but never too many in one set. Would too many of these cards in one set be a problem for gameplay, or otherwise be unpopular, or is it just one of those things Dominion hasn't done?
I was going to say that "War" originally did this - it was interaction themed - but only two of the cards were flat-out that (Council Room itself and a shared Throne Room). Then it had an Trade Route, an attack that gave them Copper to hand, interactive cards that just get information, and of course attacks.
I do think those cards tend to be unpopular. Well they are unpopular among the group that talks loudly online. We always enjoy it when there's e.g. Sacred Grove in a game and it means that you'll be randomly getting some Boons from other players. But some people are all "I'd be such a fool if I helped them win" and shun that family of cards. The cards end up looking bad when they're fair.
I do them anyway in small quantities because they provide non-attack player interaction and well surely someone else likes them.
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I do think those cards tend to be unpopular. Well they are unpopular among the group that talks loudly online. We always enjoy it when there's e.g. Sacred Grove in a game and it means that you'll be randomly getting some Boons from other players.
Count me as one of the guys that likes them.
Since I design kingdoms for my play groups, I can put sacred grove in a kingdom with zero other ways to gain cards, to encourage people to use it...but sadly, if I don't do that, they will not buy the grove :(
But then, i'm the kind of guy that played werewolf, as a werewolf, and convinced the werewolves to stop eating people, and convinced the towns people to stop their witch hunt...
So i'm not a great stand-in for the average gamer.
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For what its worth I LOVE those kinds of cards, they are my favorites. But I can certainly see why some people don't.
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I do think those cards tend to be unpopular. Well they are unpopular among the group that talks loudly online. We always enjoy it when there's e.g. Sacred Grove in a game and it means that you'll be randomly getting some Boons from other players. But some people are all "I'd be such a fool if I helped them win" and shun that family of cards. The cards end up looking bad when they're fair.
I do them anyway in small quantities because they provide non-attack player interaction and well surely someone else likes them.
I don't think that's quite true. Governor is a clear counter-example. Top players and the forum crowd love Governor, and the friendly interaction is what makes it so interesting and difficult. It's also very strong, but then Bishop is a good example of a friendly interactive card that's generally liked despite being mid-strength. Bishop is very interesting because it's occasionally a powerhouse and the crux of a good strategy, but often it's not as powerful as it looks, and you need to be very careful about the friendly interaction.
Generally, I don't think there's a dislike for friendly interactive cards among the top players and forum posters. Yes, they're not all filling the top of the Qvist rankings, but those are power rankings, not rankings of how much we appreciate the cards as interesting and fun additions to dominion. Yes, very weak cards tend to be disliked, but so do overpowered ones. As well as Governor and Bishop, Lost City is a friendly interactive card that is very appreciated by skilled players, and the interaction is, once again, a huge part of that. Deciding at what points in the game the interaction is most helpful to your opponents and therefore what points are bad times to buy lost city is difficult and interesting. Council Room is generally considered weak, yes, but it's not disliked. Nobody raves about Duchess, but again that's nothing to do with the friendly interaction, it's just a fairly weak card in most situations. Vault and Embassy are friendly interactive cards that used to be a bit panned by some sections of the community, but that's because they were viewed as overpowered BM enablers just like JoaT was. The dislike was unrelated to the friendly interaction. And those dislikes have mostly gone away as BM has become less relevant. Messenger isn't a favourite but I've not seen anyone point out the friendly interaction as a problem. Often it's quite cool. Yes, Sacred Grove isn't liked by high-level players, but that's not really because it has a friendly interaction, it's because that friendly interaction is unpredictable and swingy. People dislike Swindler for similar reasons.
I guess I'm saying, next time you're designing a set, I'd be sad to think that you were considering friendly interactions only as something for the casual players and that won't be appreciated by the hardcore, just because Sacred Grove hasn't gone down a storm with the latter group. My observations of forum posting (which lines up with my own opinions on the cards) is that top level players actually quite like friendly interactions and see them as interesting and challenging, they just don't like it when that friendly interaction is unpredictable and swingy, which the boons when received off-turn certainly are, more than hexes off-turn and boons on-turn (the normal way round to get them), and probably more so than hexes on-turn (from Cursed Village, which is also a friendly interaction I suppose - hexing yourself is helping your opponents (though this could open up a huge can of worms as to what a friendly interaction actually is so don't hold me to this semantic judgement) - and Cursed Village is another generally liked card.)
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Top players don't love governor. It's one of the most frequently appearing cards on lists of that most disliked. ("Top players" is also not a uniform group in any way. Some of them even like swindler, the heathens)
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Donald, I'm champing at the bit to get Cornucopia/Guilds. Is there any update on the expected date this will be available for purchase? Thank you!
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For what its worth I LOVE those kinds of cards, they are my favorites. But I can certainly see why some people don't.
I usually set the 'non-attack interaction' minimum to at least one in my self-written kingdom-generation program.
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Donald, I'm champing at the bit to get Cornucopia/Guilds. Is there any update on the expected date this will be available for purchase? Thank you!
I looked into buying Guilds/Cornucopia and places want $70 for it! Must be out of print for some reason? I'll grab it when the price comes back down, thanks for everyones suggestions!
The next printing should be out soon, likely within the next month. That’s Donald’s latest news on BGG, anyhow.
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I’m sure this has been discussed before, but the problem with positive interaction cards isn’t that helping opponents is unpopular, but that they’re tricky to balance, and cards that are nearly always strong or nearly always weak are unpopular with top players.
After all, if you help your opponent(s), you need to have a corresponding extra benefit to yourself. This means that if the positive interaction is on a card that’s only situationally useful (like Bishop or Sacred Grove), it’ll be rather weak, and if it’s a card that’s generally useful (like Governor), it’ll be so strong it’s unavoidable.
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I’m sure this has been discussed before, but the problem with positive interaction cards isn’t that helping opponents is unpopular, but that they’re tricky to balance, and cards that are nearly always strong or nearly always weak are unpopular with top players.
After all, if you help your opponent(s), you need to have a corresponding extra benefit to yourself. This means that if the positive interaction is on a card that’s only situationally useful (like Bishop or Sacred Grove), it’ll be rather weak, and if it’s a card that’s generally useful (like Governor), it’ll be so strong it’s unavoidable.
No, the main problem is that helping opponents is unpopular.
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I’m sure this has been discussed before, but the problem with positive interaction cards isn’t that helping opponents is unpopular, but that they’re tricky to balance...
No, the main problem is that helping opponents is unpopular.
among top magic players, cards that help your opponents are very popular if they are powerful, and especially if there is a way to undo the help.
For instance giving your opponent life doesn't help them if you are trying an alternative route to victory.
Such a person looks at counsel room, and seeks to combine it with militia...
There is another magic card that MIGHT help your opponent. It's so powerful that players using it are ok because sometimes the help is meaningless.
The analog to this card is sacred grove. yeah, it's gonna help them sometimes, but also there will be times when they don't want a silver when the mountain shows up.
these powerful cards are not well liked by the casual crowd though.
among LONGTIME casual players, cards that help your opponents are popular if they have a long history of helping the opponents. for instance, "Slivers", were changed to remove the help for the other player, and there was major outcry because it was a defining attribute of the card type (to the players).
And then there is a TINY subset of magic players that like "Hugs" decks that intentionally help everyone, and don't worry so much about actually trying to win.
All that is to say, there should be SOME. but not a lot of them. It's madness to try to make every card be for every person.
If you don't like a card, it will usually be correct to think "i wonder who the audience is for this card?" before "this should not have been printed".
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Donald, I'm champing at the bit to get Cornucopia/Guilds. Is there any update on the expected date this will be available for purchase? Thank you!
I looked into buying Guilds/Cornucopia and places want $70 for it! Must be out of print for some reason? I'll grab it when the price comes back down, thanks for everyones suggestions!
The next printing should be out soon, likely within the next month. That’s Donald’s latest news on BGG, anyhow.
Thanks for finding that!
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I guess I'm saying, next time you're designing a set, I'd be sad to think that you were considering friendly interactions only as something for the casual players and that won't be appreciated by the hardcore, just because Sacred Grove hasn't gone down a storm with the latter group.
It's nothing to do with Sacred Grove or top-level players (people who post online: not all top-level players). It goes back to the beginning. I had these cards right away. For a bit there Council Room cost $4, because no-one would buy it at $5. It's not at all weak at $5.
People are stingy. Sure they'll buy Governor, since it's crazy.
It has not stopped me from making friendly interaction cards. The question was, would I do a bunch of them in one set.
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Donald, I'm champing at the bit to get Cornucopia/Guilds. Is there any update on the expected date this will be available for purchase? Thank you!
Last I heard, "March." My copies have not arrived.
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for instance, "Slivers", were changed to remove the help for the other player, and there was major outcry because it was a defining attribute of the card type (to the players).
What.
Right, that settles it. I'm retroactively not playing M:TG for the last fifteen years in protest.
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Governor is great. Why do people even complain about Governor? They can't all be the most straightforward $5 card ever.
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for instance, "Slivers", were changed to remove the help for the other player, and there was major outcry because it was a defining attribute of the card type (to the players).
What.
Right, that settles it. I'm retroactively not playing M:TG for the last fifteen years in protest.
lol. you didn't see what they did to the visuals of the M14 slivers did you? wizards stands by the mechanical change, but even they have apologized for the visual change and called it a mistake.
don't look.
save yourself.
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Donald, are all the new prints coming out at roughly the same time? or do you know if the base cards are coming sooner or later than G/C?
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Donald, are all the new prints coming out at roughly the same time? or do you know if the base cards are coming sooner or later than G/C?
The "second edition" updated printings are definitely not coming out at roughly the same time. They've been rolled out slowly as stock is sold out for each product.
I do not know when the updated Base Cards product is being released, but I think soon.
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Donald, are all the new prints coming out at roughly the same time? or do you know if the base cards are coming sooner or later than G/C?
I don't know the dates for Alchemy and Base Cards - everything else is out - but they're both done on our end.
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for instance, "Slivers", were changed to remove the help for the other player, and there was major outcry because it was a defining attribute of the card type (to the players).
What.
Right, that settles it. I'm retroactively not playing M:TG for the last fifteen years in protest.
lol. you didn't see what they did to the visuals of the M14 slivers did you? wizards stands by the mechanical change, but even they have apologized for the visual change and called it a mistake.
don't look.
save yourself.
I google'd it. What where they thinking...
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War was interaction-themed. Different ways for players to interact. Its cards included versions of Swindler, Trade Route, Tribute, Council Room, and Smugglers. Council Room kept the same name when I moved it to the main set; now you know how it got that name.
War was my favorite expansion, but the problem was, every expansion needed interactive non-attack cards. Every expansion needed a certain percentage of interactive cards, and attacks slow the game down, whereas non-attack interactive cards may not, and may even speed it up. So I had to spread them around. I made War more attack-themed and gave each other set at least one non-attack interactive card. Man do I need an acronym for that? Maybe I am done saying it.
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Can you discuss the rationale for the change from "coin tokens" to the "Coffers" mat in the second edition of Guilds? http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18379.msg751151#msg751151
One potential benefit is to reduce the risk of confusion given that Pirate Ship, Trade Route, and Guilds cards use the same tokens.
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Can you discuss the rationale for the change from "coin tokens" to the "Coffers" mat in the second edition of Guilds? http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18379.msg751151#msg751151
One potential benefit is to reduce the risk of confusion given that Pirate Ship, Trade Route, and Guilds cards use the same tokens.
It made sense to have a mat. It lets you put the rule for how they work right on the mat. It keeps the tokens distinct from ones used for Pirate Ship, or from unused tokens waiting to be used.
I had "Add a token to your Coffers." Well "+1 Coffers" is way shorter. And familiar, people get it immediately. It gets to go with the other +'s. It looks nice on the cards.
As I mentioned in Discord, there is another change coming that you won't see until Alchemy, which is, Possession is now going to call out the Debt token specifically - you get the cards they would get and the Debt tokens they would get. It will have the symbol on the card, weird though that is.
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So, not all tokens anymore? Just the debt tokens?
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So, not all tokens anymore? Just the debt tokens?
Yes, that's what I'm saying, just Debt tokens.
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How do you pronounce Courtier?
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How do you pronounce Courtier?
Not always the same way, but usually like, more courty.
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So, not all tokens anymore? Just the debt tokens?
Yes, that's what I'm saying, just Debt tokens.
So happy about this! Though I understand the awkwardness of referencing a mechanic from a different set. Is this rule change official as of a particular date? Need to make sure I get my Possession-Monument engine going at just the right time.
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Donald, you've mentioned in the past that sometime you like to play around with Magic meta-mechanics, like Split cards or double-sided cards.
What would you do with something like Vehicles?
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So happy about this! Though I understand the awkwardness of referencing a mechanic from a different set. Is this rule change official as of a particular date? Need to make sure I get my Possession-Monument engine going at just the right time.
IRL, whenever people can get new copies of Alchemy. Online, whenever Stef puts it in.
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Donald, you've mentioned in the past that sometime you like to play around with Magic meta-mechanics, like Split cards or double-sided cards.
What would you do with something like Vehicles?
I'm not sure what you're remembering; you haven't put that a way that makes any sense to me. I haven't "played around" with those mechanics. Aside from the layout, Split cards go back to Alpha, so I can't say if they inspired anything for me or not. I mean Magic got me to pursue seriously designing games, so I knew things like "choose one" were possible before I got going. So I've done plenty of that stuff, but it doesn't feel like "playing around with Split cards" to me. It predates Split cards. Double-sided cards, again aside from layout, I've been doing cards that changed form since the beginning.
I hated Vehicles! Hated them so much. I don't think there's a Magic mechanic I've liked less.
- They're creatures that lots of removal doesn't work on. So much for playing with those cards! The new Rabid Bite looks cool; hey it's there for your vehicle-less cube.
- You can't kill off all of their creatures to stop them. Somehow, Equipment, which I like fine, doesn't always grant haste!
- They made some awful pushed ones, including the one they banned. Goes in every deck!
Their public comments were sad too. "We've gotta push some cards" and "this is why we don't make so many artifact blocks" and "we should have tied the Mirrodin artifacts to colors" (thus getting rid of the whole point to having artifacts). Man color is one way to stop a card from going into every deck; it isn't the only way! If the pushed artifacts are a millstone, a thing that likes enchantments, a graveyard recursion thing, etc., they don't just go in every deck. Only "just a generic thing, but pushed" goes in every deck. Give me colorless artifacts and just tie the pushed ones to different kinds of decks. Man.
I don't know if I wouldn't have hated Vehicles, if sick creatures couldn't pilot them, and they were creatures all the time so you could use your Rabid Bite or whatever (but obv. still requiring piloting to attack/block), and they hadn't made broken ones. I hated them though.
The move is for them to change the rule that lets sick creatures use tap abilities that don't have the tap symbol - a crazy confusing thing that needs fixing anyway - and then make a new keyword for vehicles so that they can be creatures all the time. Good luck, Wizards!
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And familiar, people get it immediately.
Good for them - it usually takes me at least a few shuffles.
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So, not all tokens anymore? Just the debt tokens?
Yes, that's what I'm saying, just Debt tokens.
So happy about this! Though I understand the awkwardness of referencing a mechanic from a different set. Is this rule change official as of a particular date? Need to make sure I get my Possession-Monument engine going at just the right time.
Pedantry time! Technically, "tokens" are from different sets already. There are no tokens at all in Alchemy.
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So, not all tokens anymore? Just the debt tokens?
Yes, that's what I'm saying, just Debt tokens.
So happy about this! Though I understand the awkwardness of referencing a mechanic from a different set. Is this rule change official as of a particular date? Need to make sure I get my Possession-Monument engine going at just the right time.
Pedantry time! Technically, "tokens" are from different sets already. There are no tokens at all in Alchemy.
Yeah, I guess both versions had that issue over the original. But at least with tokens it’s a word people know, even if they don’t know what tokens it’s talking about. Some people might see the debt icon and have no idea what it means. But I still think it’s the best way.
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Yeah, I guess both versions had that issue over the original. But at least with tokens it’s a word people know, even if they don’t know what tokens it’s talking about. Some people might see the debt icon and have no idea what it means. But I still think it’s the best way.
There is at least a rulebook to tell you that it's a thing from Empires.
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Yeah, I guess both versions had that issue over the original. But at least with tokens it’s a word people know, even if they don’t know what tokens it’s talking about. Some people might see the debt icon and have no idea what it means. But I still think it’s the best way.
There is at least a rulebook to tell you that it's a thing from Empires.
So the version with "tokens" never existed physically, correct?
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Yeah, I guess both versions had that issue over the original. But at least with tokens it’s a word people know, even if they don’t know what tokens it’s talking about. Some people might see the debt icon and have no idea what it means. But I still think it’s the best way.
There is at least a rulebook to tell you that it's a thing from Empires.
So the version with "tokens" never existed physically, correct?
I’m pretty certain that’s correct, at least in English.
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Yeah, I guess both versions had that issue over the original. But at least with tokens it’s a word people know, even if they don’t know what tokens it’s talking about. Some people might see the debt icon and have no idea what it means. But I still think it’s the best way.
There is at least a rulebook to tell you that it's a thing from Empires.
So the version with "tokens" never existed physically, correct?
I’m pretty certain that’s correct, at least in English.
Well there you go, Dominion now has its equivalent of Magic's "Substance" keyword.
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Well there you go, Dominion now has its equivalent of Magic's "Substance" keyword.
Magic has endlessly had cards with errata that were never printed with it... because expansions for Magic don't stay in print. What's special about Substance is that it was such a weird solution to the problem they had.
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Are all the sets on Amazon (except Alchemy) now 2nd edition?
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I have bought all of them except for Nocturne, Guild/Corn and Alchemy on Amazon, all are 2nd edition.
I got several from candcgames through Amazon, they were good.
KK
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Are all the sets on Amazon (except Alchemy) now 2nd edition?
I have bought all but Adventures (and Alchemy, of course) as second editions on Amazon. I didn’t know about the upcoming second editions when I bought Adventures.
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What does it feel like inspiring a whole genre of games at varying levels of rip-offy-ness?
How do you feel about the idea of rotating supplies? I get the sense that most Dominion players frown upon it, but Black Market is my favorite card, and that design choice seems to be common in other deckbuilders. What would you change if you were gonna re-work Dominion into a more "black markety" format, and do you think that would make the game inherently worse (or better)?
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What does it feel like inspiring a whole genre of games at varying levels of rip-offy-ness?
How do you feel about the idea of rotating supplies? I get the sense that most Dominion players frown upon it, but Black Market is my favorite card, and that design choice seems to be common in other deckbuilders. What would you change if you were gonna re-work Dominion into a more "black markety" format, and do you think that would make the game inherently worse (or better)?
That's a very good point for descrbing why I don't like Black Market. I think all other deck builders are worse than Dominion (of the ones I've tried), and the rotating supply, which is common as you say, is one of the things that make them worse.
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Are all the sets on Amazon (except Alchemy) now 2nd edition?
I don't have any better way of finding out than you do.
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What does it feel like inspiring a whole genre of games at varying levels of rip-offy-ness?
It's like sitting on a porch swing in a breeze. It's like when you're walking down the street, and you see your imaginary friend, and it's been so long, you almost don't recognize them. It's like the right angle that takes you into another dimension. It's like a grapefruit, but a little sweeter, and weird-looking.
How do you feel about the idea of rotating supplies? I get the sense that most Dominion players frown upon it, but Black Market is my favorite card, and that design choice seems to be common in other deckbuilders. What would you change if you were gonna re-work Dominion into a more "black markety" format, and do you think that would make the game inherently worse (or better)?
In my initial notes for Dominion, I gave it a rotating supply. When it came time to make the game, I thought, wouldn't you just endlessly be screwed because good cards came up when you didn't have first shot at them? So I didn't do that.
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/996671/secret-history-dominion
I have not put in the work to know what I'd do if I tried to make a version of Dominion with a rotating supply. There's no special draw towards trying it, because man, it's been done. The big things you get are 1) you need way fewer cards, and 2) it gives you a more tactical rather than strategic game, which could be something you wanted.
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I have bought all of them except for Nocturne, Guild/Corn and Alchemy on Amazon, all are 2nd edition.
I got several from candcgames through Amazon, they were good.
KK
Including Adventures? I was looking at picking up Hinterlands and Adventures off Amazon, since they appear to be on sale currently, along with Guilds/Corn.
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I have bought all of them except for Nocturne, Guild/Corn and Alchemy on Amazon, all are 2nd edition.
I got several from candcgames through Amazon, they were good.
KK
Including Adventures? I was looking at picking up Hinterlands and Adventures off Amazon, since they appear to be on sale currently, along with Guilds/Corn.
Yes Adventures is second edition, I only started playing last summer. I only have second editions. Adventures I bought from candcgames through Amazon.
Kevin
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I have bought all of them except for Nocturne, Guild/Corn and Alchemy on Amazon, all are 2nd edition.
I got several from candcgames through Amazon, they were good.
KK
Including Adventures? I was looking at picking up Hinterlands and Adventures off Amazon, since they appear to be on sale currently, along with Guilds/Corn.
Yes Adventures is second edition, I only started playing last summer. I only have second editions. Adventures I bought from candcgames through Amazon.
Kevin
I also just recently got my copy of Adventures on Amazon (I'd rather go to a local store but none had it), on sale, and it is 2nd edition.
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I have bought all of them except for Nocturne, Guild/Corn and Alchemy on Amazon, all are 2nd edition.
I got several from candcgames through Amazon, they were good.
KK
Including Adventures? I was looking at picking up Hinterlands and Adventures off Amazon, since they appear to be on sale currently, along with Guilds/Corn.
Yes Adventures is second edition, I only started playing last summer. I only have second editions. Adventures I bought from candcgames through Amazon.
Kevin
I also just recently got my copy of Adventures on Amazon (I'd rather go to a local store but none had it), on sale, and it is 2nd edition.
I really wish I didn't have Adventures already; I'd be so happy to get 2nd edition just for the fixed card bendiness issue.
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I have bought all of them except for Nocturne, Guild/Corn and Alchemy on Amazon, all are 2nd edition.
I got several from candcgames through Amazon, they were good.
KK
Including Adventures? I was looking at picking up Hinterlands and Adventures off Amazon, since they appear to be on sale currently, along with Guilds/Corn.
Yes Adventures is second edition, I only started playing last summer. I only have second editions. Adventures I bought from candcgames through Amazon.
Kevin
I also just recently got my copy of Adventures on Amazon (I'd rather go to a local store but none had it), on sale, and it is 2nd edition.
So I ordered Adventures from Amazon (along with a couple other sets), and it doesn't say "first edition of Intrigue" on the back. What does your 2nd edition copy say on the back? The other three I got (Hinterlands, Prosperity, Dark Ages) all seem to be 2nd edition.
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You’ve got a first edition, wero. My (non-Amazon) second edition copy has “first edition of Intrigue”.
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You’ve got a first edition, wero. My (non-Amazon) second edition copy has “first edition of Intrigue”.
Alright, I'll be returning that, then. Need to figure out how to do that.
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You’ve got a first edition, wero. My (non-Amazon) second edition copy has “first edition of Intrigue”.
Alright, I'll be returning that, then. Need to figure out how to do that.
I did check mine and it says "or the first edition ...".
Good luck returning it - I'm not sure if you'll be able to cite it being a first edition as a reason for the return, unless it was actually falsely advertised as being second edition (I couldn't see anything on Amazon that mentioned the edition details). You might be better off just returning it as a normal return.
Another thing you might consider is that first editions might be collectors' items - the first edition of Guilds standalone is on Amazon for about $80 if I recall, and the first print of Guilds/Cornucopia was about $200. You could hang onto it and it might appreciate in value. I'm not sure if the card quality issue that people have been talking about in first edition Adventures would be a problem with that though. Something to consider perhaps.
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The fanciness (size, whatever) of the castles in the Castle art is supposed to be indicative of the card's price, right? If so, have you ever had someone unfamiliar to them to sort them by fanciness without knowing their price, and if so was it close to their price order? Were castle arts ever swapped during development?
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The fanciness (size, whatever) of the castles in the Castle art is supposed to be indicative of the card's price, right? If so, have you ever had someone unfamiliar to them to sort them by fanciness without knowing their price, and if so was it close to their price order? Were castle arts ever swapped during development?
Yes there's this idea that the more expensive castles are grander in whatever ways. No I have not had that experience, no no arts were swapped.
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If you had the opportunity (or requirement) to create a reskin or variant of Dominion based on an existing IP, what IP would you want to use?
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If you had the opportunity (or requirement) to create a reskin or variant of Dominion based on an existing IP, what IP would you want to use?
We were approached some years ago by FFG with the idea of making a Star Wars version of Dominion. Either a new game, or just a reskin.
I did some research. My two sources of information were Amazon and BGG. For Star Wars themed games based on an existing game, the existing game sold way better - people buy way more Operation than they do Star Wars Operation (it's R2-D2, so that's cute). For new games, Star Wars didn't look like it applied any kind of magic to sales; there were tons of complete duds with the Star Wars theme. One that stands out: the Wizards of the Coast TCG. Made by people who might know something and everything, with a team of people working on it, and plenty of promotion. No sale.
At the same time, the rights holders expect to be paid a lot for the rights. In this case it was even worse, since FFG wasn't the ultimate rights-holder for either thing and yet of course needed their share of the take. So the deal just looked awful. It would have needed to be crazy successful, selling many times what Dominion was, to be worth doing, and there was just no reason to believe it would do anything like that.
So we said no and so much for that. This was all before the new movies were announced. Star Wars had gone from being "those three movies people remember fondly even though one of them actually sucked" to being "That endless parade of awfulness." The new movies... just make it some random sci-fi IP, like Star Trek is now. But I digress.
Your question!
- If no-one is approaching us with an offer, I have no special interest in pursuing an IP. I'm happy just having Dominion. If I make a spin-off, I'm happy making up flavor for it.
- If someone approaches us with an offer, we'll consider it, but given what I already know, I'm not optimistic. I wouldn't rule out any IP that didn't just suck, though of course some things would sound better than others. Listing the good ones is beyond the scope, I mean it's an endless task of thinking of entertainment I've enjoyed. We could list thousands of things and not get to say Lizard Music, and yet, Lizard Music, I wouldn't just rule that out.
- If I had to pick an IP to use, I was always struck by how much Dominion fans admired the prototype images that came from The Princess Bride. But like, there was a point where I was interacting with the company that I knew had those rights, and I didn't say, hey, what about...
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OK. Now I want a Rodents Of Unusual Size promo...
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OK. Now I want a Rodents Of Unusual Size promo...
Well, there are 20 of them in the supply pile. That's an unusual amount.
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I keep trying to come up with a Grand Market-style Rats variant now but just keep coming up with Junk Dealer.
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The Kingdom-space of Dominion is large enough now that the game feels robust to certain combos that would have felt game-breaking when the card pool was smaller.
Do you agree?
Has this changed your philosophy when designing/developing cards?
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The Kingdom-space of Dominion is large enough now that the game feels robust to certain combos that would have felt game-breaking when the card pool was smaller.
Do you agree?
Has this changed your philosophy when designing/developing cards?
I wouldn't say my philosophy has changed, but rather that it's always included a "how many cards are there" factor.
A two-card combo that requires two specific cards isn't a problem once you don't see it that often. If they're in the same set you see the combo too much, if the combo is dominating (and not also "we always love doing that"). If they aren't you don't... unless you have a particular mix of expansions that you totally might. If the combo is Capital plus Mandarin, well maybe you just bought Dominion, Hinterlands, Empires. That's not some ludicrous scenario. But nevertheless, if it's a specific two cards and they're in different sets, I feel less worried. I factor that in. Like, Feodum didn't get to kill Masterpiece.
If it's a card plus a category of cards then it's a problem; a card that's broken with Militias is just broken. If it's three cards then man whatever. I did fix the Masquerade pin, which was two cards plus a category. I mean that's another thing: what am I giving up by fixing the problem? If nothing, probably I fix it, even if it's a two-card combo that won't come up much.
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I did fix the Masquerade pin, which was two cards plus a category. I mean that's another thing: what am I giving up by fixing the problem? If nothing, probably I fix it, even if it's a two-card combo that won't come up much.
I think there's also a big difference in how a pin-combo feels compared to how something like Mandarin-Capital feels. You get pinned and it's miserable. Your opponent pulls off Mandarin-Capital and you think, "Oh wow, that's cool. I hadn't seen that before."
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How do you feel about the idea of rotating supplies? I get the sense that most Dominion players frown upon it, but Black Market is my favorite card, and that design choice seems to be common in other deckbuilders. What would you change if you were gonna re-work Dominion into a more "black markety" format, and do you think that would make the game inherently worse (or better)?
In my initial notes for Dominion, I gave it a rotating supply. When it came time to make the game, I thought, wouldn't you just endlessly be screwed because good cards came up when you didn't have first shot at them? So I didn't do that.
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/996671/secret-history-dominion
I have not put in the work to know what I'd do if I tried to make a version of Dominion with a rotating supply. There's no special draw towards trying it, because man, it's been done. The big things you get are 1) you need way fewer cards, and 2) it gives you a more tactical rather than strategic game, which could be something you wanted.
You don't really need to put in the work anyway, since it's been done almost to death and never quite gotten to the point where it's anything like Dominion.
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Why were Boons called Boons and not Gifts? Or, rather, why weren't they called "The Earth's Boon", "The Field's Boon", etc.?
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If it's a card plus a category of cards then it's a problem; a card that's broken with Militias is just broken. If it's three cards then man whatever. I did fix the Masquerade pin, which was two cards plus a category. I mean that's another thing: what am I giving up by fixing the problem? If nothing, probably I fix it, even if it's a two-card combo that won't come up much.
Royal Carriage is the only card that on its own combos with Masquerade to enable a complete pin. At the time that Royal Carriage was printed, was the fix to Masquerade in 2nd Edition Intrigue already planned?
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Why were Boons called Boons and not Gifts? Or, rather, why weren't they called "The Earth's Boon", "The Field's Boon", etc.?
I had names I liked and I used them! There is no interesting story here. I like Boon, I like The Earth's Gift. I don't feel compelled to put the name of the category into the names of the elements.
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Royal Carriage is the only card that on its own combos with Masquerade to enable a complete pin. At the time that Royal Carriage was printed, was the fix to Masquerade in 2nd Edition Intrigue already planned?
I don't know without checking, but I can tell you that there's no connection; there was no point at which I was thinking, wait, consider this particular interaction, what will I be doing about that. I did Royal Carriage because it was a cool card and I fixed the Masquerade pin because I had the opportunity and it seemed worth fixing.
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Did the well-known blue dog discussion (https://boardgamegeek.com/article/7743728#7743728) inform the development and naming of Faithful Hound?
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Did the well-known blue dog discussion (https://boardgamegeek.com/article/7743728#7743728) inform the development and naming of Faithful Hound?
The card name wasn't based on that, but when I made the card I thought, sweet, a blue dog.
I tried two cards at the same time for that slot, two reactions that cared about being discarded. The other was a Black Cat. That would have been cool too. But the blue dog was better.
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Cornucopia's 2E rulebook has the jesters fighting to the death joke. Did you intentionally add it back in?
Why did you change Raider from a cost of $5 to $6, and also change "4 or more cards" to "5 or more cards?" (From Nocturne's secret history) Was it just too good?
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Cornucopia's 2E rulebook has the jesters fighting to the death joke. Did you intentionally add it back in?
Shhhhh.
Technically I didn't add it back in, I just made the new rulebook based on my old file, which always had it. And Jay based the back cover on the previous back cover, so it's still not there.
Why did you change Raider from a cost of $5 to $6, and also change "4 or more cards" to "5 or more cards?" (From Nocturne's secret history) Was it just too good?
Letting it work twice is just too oppressive. It couldn't have been "4 or more" for more than one evening.
It was $5 until late in the going. We had some bad recommended set games where someone got it on a 5/2, and then we played some more games that intentionally had a 5/2 Raider, and then I upped it to $6. When you get it turn one, the Cutpurse effect - all it does for you then - keeps other players from $5. And they can't buy the Cutpurse to do that right back to you - the Cutpurse costs $5. It stood out as a thing that made players have no fun. I could have tried to make a weaker cheaper version, so we could all buy it, or just up it to $6, and well time was short and $6 seemed fine.
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Can you give any information on when the Base Cards will be back "in stock"?
Right now it seems they are pretty scarce, and cost almost as much as a full 2E base set, which makes me wish I had bought the full 2E base set instead of the upgrade pack.
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Can you give any information on when the Base Cards will be back "in stock"?
Right now it seems they are pretty scarce, and cost almost as much as a full 2E base set, which makes me wish I had bought the full 2E base set instead of the upgrade pack.
We did our work on it a while ago, so I expect it soon. I don't have a date though.
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Can you share any other news about the next expansion (which may show up too early for some people on BGG)?
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Can you share any other news about the next expansion (which may show up too early for some people on BGG)?
Where are you getting the information that there is a next expansion?
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Can you share any other news about the next expansion (which may show up too early for some people on BGG)?
Where are you getting the information that there is a next expansion?
Here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/article/29140912#29140912 (https://boardgamegeek.com/article/29140912#29140912)
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Can you share any other news about the next expansion (which may show up too early for some people on BGG)?
I like to leave announcements to the publisher.
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Did the well-known blue dog discussion (https://boardgamegeek.com/article/7743728#7743728) inform the development and naming of Faithful Hound?
The card name wasn't based on that, but when I made the card I thought, sweet, a blue dog.
I tried two cards at the same time for that slot, two reactions that cared about being discarded. The other was a Black Cat. That would have been cool too. But the blue dog was better.
Now I'm kinda sad there's no black cat (which I assume would be a Night-only card named Cat). At least we have a Bat.
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Did the well-known blue dog discussion (https://boardgamegeek.com/article/7743728#7743728) inform the development and naming of Faithful Hound?
The card name wasn't based on that, but when I made the card I thought, sweet, a blue dog.
I tried two cards at the same time for that slot, two reactions that cared about being discarded. The other was a Black Cat. That would have been cool too. But the blue dog was better.
Now I'm kinda sad there's no black cat (which I assume would be a Night-only card named Cat). At least we have a Bat.
There's also Bad Omens, which has (according to Adam Horton) a black cat doing cocaine.
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The Secret History for Wedding says it used to have a different bonus that you decided not to use until a future expansion. Was that receiving a Boon?
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The Secret History for Wedding says it used to have a different bonus that you decided not to use until a future expansion. Was that receiving a Boon?
Yes. It had “Recieve a Boon” instead of +1 VP. And at the time, one of the Boons was “+1 VP”.
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Does it ever annoy you that Dark Ages is the only expansion with two words in the title?
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Does it ever annoy you that Dark Ages is the only expansion with two words in the title?
It depends on how you count them - there's Guilds & Cornucopia aka Cornucopia & Guilds aka Mixed Box, and Update Pack and Intrigue Update Pack. And then less-expansion-y things - Big Box, Big Box II, Base Cards. And then other languages and those Japanese rethemes.
But no. I worried that Jay might complain, but he didn't; he likes short names, but Dark Ages was short enough.
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So I know you don't look at fan expansions, but you should check out the artwork from the Antiquities expansion, and then you should hire this JanBoruta guy to illustrate at least a couple cards in all future expansions! I especially like his human closeups on cards like Archaeologist.
https://imgur.com/a/WQ1aX
Hmmm...apparently that's not a question. Will you please hire this guy?
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I especially like his human closeups on cards like Archaeologist.
https://imgur.com/a/WQ1aX
Hmmm...apparently that's not a question. Will you please hire this guy?
Archaeologist does not look like a guy
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So I know you don't look at fan expansions, but you should check out the artwork from the Antiquities expansion, and then you should hire this JanBoruta guy to illustrate at least a couple cards in all future expansions! I especially like his human closeups on cards like Archaeologist.
https://imgur.com/a/WQ1aX
Hmmm...apparently that's not a question. Will you please hire this guy?
This brings me a question: How are the artists chosen for each card? Do you choose them, or does RGG handle that?
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This brings me a question: How are the artists chosen for each card? Do you choose them, or does RGG handle that?
Jay assigned them until Nocturne. I assigned them there, though Jay dealt with, what if they aren't available.
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First time posting to this thread (and no idea if I'm doing this right), but here goes.
How many expansions do you think you'll be making after Nocturne? Is there a set number of expansions you think Dominion can have before every aspect of the game's been fully explored and developed, or is it more a matter of continuing to make sets for as long as you have the ideas for them?
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How many expansions do you think you'll be making after Nocturne? Is there a set number of expansions you think Dominion can have before every aspect of the game's been fully explored and developed, or is it more a matter of continuing to make sets for as long as you have the ideas for them?
My plan is to slow the pace down after the next expansion. How many you can make depends on how complex you're willing to make them, and how little you require them to evoke the basic experience of the game. If you are loose enough on those issues you can keep going for a long time; if you demand simplicity and a classic Dominion feel, there may not be much more to do.
For me though the big thing is, well it's the war between "time spent on Dominion is time not spent on other games, and I'd like to make other games too" and "I'm not getting anything done on other games and like to feel satisfied with accomplishing things; maybe another Dominion expansion?"
So, how many more expansions, it's really down to how well I do on other projects, which is just so hard to predict.
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So I know you don't look at fan expansions, but you should check out the artwork from the Antiquities expansion, and then you should hire this JanBoruta guy to illustrate at least a couple cards in all future expansions! I especially like his human closeups on cards like Archaeologist.
https://imgur.com/a/WQ1aX
Hmmm...apparently that's not a question. Will you please hire this guy?
That art is good, except that Profiteer and Prospector are the exact same dude.
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While we're talking about art, why is the art for Ruined Village a ruined looking Walled Village? That was a promo so the vast majority of Dominion players will never have played the card and they won't make the connection. Why not, you know... just a ruined version of Village?
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While we're talking about art, why is the art for Ruined Village a ruined looking Walled Village? That was a promo so the vast majority of Dominion players will never have played the card and they won't make the connection. Why not, you know... just a ruined version of Village?
That was something Jay did. Note though that Village does appear on Pillage in the same set (and on Scrying Pool). So he may have just been avoiding doing two callbacks to Village at once.
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After release, have there been any cards that have turned out to be significantly stronger/weaker than you expected?
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After release, have there been any cards that have turned out to be significantly stronger/weaker than you expected?
Of course. Especially cards from early sets, e.g. Outpost, and cards that were added/changed late in the process for a set, e.g. Rebuild.
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While we're talking about art, why is the art for Ruined Village a ruined looking Walled Village? That was a promo so the vast majority of Dominion players will never have played the card and they won't make the connection. Why not, you know... just a ruined version of Village?
That was something Jay did. Note though that Village does appear on Pillage in the same set (and on Scrying Pool). So he may have just been avoiding doing two callbacks to Village at once.
Maybe Ruined Village should have been:
"+1 Action. If you have less than 3 actions in play you may put this back on your deck"
[I know why this is wrong. In so many ways]
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Maybe Ruined Village should have been:
"+1 Action. If you have less than 3 actions in play you may put this back on your deck"
[I know why this is wrong. In so many ways]
I considered "Play up to two Ruins cards" - the village for Ruinses - but as you can see went with the classic.
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If you were going to have Ruins that directly played cards rather than giving you +Action, you could have had Ruined Throne Room. "You may play an Action card from your hand once."
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If you were going to have Ruins that directly played cards rather than giving you +Action, you could have had Ruined Throne Room. "You may play an Action card from your hand once."
That's Ruined Village, just worse and more complicated...
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If you were going to have Ruins that directly played cards rather than giving you +Action, you could have had Ruined Throne Room. "You may play an Action card from your hand once."
That's Ruined Village, just worse and more complicated...
I assume that was the joke. Though I could be wrong.
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If you were going to have Ruins that directly played cards rather than giving you +Action, you could have had Ruined Throne Room. "You may play an Action card from your hand once."
That's Ruined Village, just worse and more complicated...
I assume that was the joke. Though I could be wrong.
I do like the idea of "you may play an action card from your hand costing 2 or less twice" as a ruin.
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If you were going to have Ruins that directly played cards rather than giving you +Action, you could have had Ruined Throne Room. "You may play an Action card from your hand once."
That's Ruined Village, just worse and more complicated...
I assume that was the joke. Though I could be wrong.
I do like the idea of "you may play an action card from your hand costing 2 or less twice" as a ruin.
Honestly, that could a be kinda interesting standalone card...a 5 cost King's Court exclusively limited to playing 2 cost cards. Would certainly be a lot less inherently busted than our current KC (as much as I love the card regardless), and it could lead to interesting strategies (ever wanted to desperately fight to win a Pawn split?).
That being said, it does seem a little overly niche in concept. In certain sets the card would basically do nothing, and in a Highway kingdom the card could be absolutely broken with a little bit of setup. Still, I like the concept.
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Speaking of Thrown Room variants .. Do you try to avoid making new card shaped things that are variants of cards that have caused a lot of rule headache in the past (Thrown Room variants, Band of Misfits variants, Possession, etc.)? Or do you see rule discussions as just part of the fun?
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Honestly, that could a be kinda interesting standalone card...a 5 cost King's Court exclusively limited to playing 2 cost cards. Would certainly be a lot less inherently busted than our current KC (as much as I love the card regardless), and it could lead to interesting strategies (ever wanted to desperately fight to win a Pawn split?).
That being said, it does seem a little overly niche in concept. In certain sets the card would basically do nothing, and in a Highway kingdom the card could be absolutely broken with a little bit of setup. Still, I like the concept.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=11.0
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Speaking of Thrown Room variants .. Do you try to avoid making new card shaped things that are variants of cards that have caused a lot of rule headache in the past (Thrown Room variants, Band of Misfits variants, Possession, etc.)? Or do you see rule discussions as just part of the fun?
I try not to create rules questions! If a card has issues, I don't necessarily avoid making a new version, but I try to fix those problems in the new one.
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What are the Followers following?
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What are the Followers following?
Follow-up question: what are the Survivors surviving?
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What are the Followers following?
Follow-up question: what are the Survivors surviving?
The Followers are following you, they're your followers. In the prototype it's the people following brave brave Sir Robin.
The Survivors survived an attack of some kind, like Pillage. Sadly they are doomed to be sold to a Junk Dealer.
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Sadly they are doomed to be sold to a Junk Dealer.
Somebody's gotta live in that ravine.
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Do you enjoy convoluted rules debates, etc? And just in general, the theoretical discussions about the logical structure of the game?
I ask because I personally find all that stuff fascinating, but I always feel bad since you are inevitably dragged into the discussion, and, well, I can imagine that's patience-testing!
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Do you enjoy convoluted rules debates, etc?
Not so much. It's work. You can get it wrong.
And just in general, the theoretical discussions about the logical structure of the game?
If I haven't had them already, sure.
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How did you decide on the Boons and Hexes? I can off the top of my head think of all sorts of marginally good bonuses that aren't a boon -- +1 VP, set aside a card from your hand put it in your hand next turn, +1 Coffer, etc.
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How did you decide on the Boons and Hexes? I can off the top of my head think of all sorts of marginally good bonuses that aren't a boon -- +1 VP, set aside a card from your hand put it in your hand next turn, +1 Coffer, etc.
+1 VP was a boon when they were in Empires; setting aside a card for next turn was tried too. +1 Coffers would have been tried if either set had had Coffers tokens.
I did the work, that's how I decided. I went through the basic effects and some not-so-basic ones; there were ones that didn't make it and ones that had multiple versions before I found the version that made the set. They weren't randomly picked; they aren't the first 12 things I thought of.
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Adventures added +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +$1 tokens. It added a permanent +Card Duration (Hireling) and a permanent +Action Duration (Champion).
To me, the obvious extension of those new ideas is permanent +Buy and +Coin Durations, but I can't see them mentioned in the Secret History. I'm guessing you considered them at some point, and decided they sucked?
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Adventures added +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +$1 tokens. It added a permanent +Card Duration (Hireling) and a permanent +Action Duration (Champion).
To me, the obvious extension of those new ideas is permanent +Buy and +Coin Durations, but I can't see them mentioned in the Secret History. I'm guessing you considered them at some point, and decided they sucked?
I tried a conditional +$2 each turn in Empires. It didn't suck, it just didn't rock hard enough. +$1 had the issue of "isn't there Treasury already."
In general Dominion tries not to exhaust every path of possibilities, because that's less fun than having more variety. Over time some of these "holes" have been filled in due to needing basic cards to pair with new effects, for example Caravan Guard being the "next turn +$1" to Caravan's "next turn +1 Card." But that's still the general philosophy.
In fact Adventures did not start out with all four tokens, it just had +1 Action and +$1 (and e.g. Ferry). It was clear that I could have the other two, and they didn't seem worth the space. But then Events changed into Events, from one-shot kingdom cards, and suddenly I had room for a lot more of them.
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+$1 had the issue of "isn't there Treasury already."
Ah, but Hireling did not apparently have the issue of "isn't there Alchemist already".
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+$1 had the issue of "isn't there Treasury already."
Ah, but Hireling did not apparently have the issue of "isn't there Alchemist already".
Two things there:
First, a lot of people don't have Alchemy, and don't want it. So "remaking" Alchemy cards is mostly great. Like Exorcist being sort of a fixed Transmute, for instance.
Second, Alchemist doesn't really feel like Hireling to me, since it's so much less reliable. Until you get your engine really going, I mean. But still, that's a good portion of the game.
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+$1 had the issue of "isn't there Treasury already."
Ah, but Hireling did not apparently have the issue of "isn't there Alchemist already".
Two things there:
First, a lot of people don't have Alchemy, and don't want it. So "remaking" Alchemy cards is mostly great. Like Exorcist being sort of a fixed Transmute, for instance.
Second, Alchemist doesn't really feel like Hireling to me, since it's so much less reliable. Until you get your engine really going, I mean. But still, that's a good portion of the game.
Hireling was also offering the new joy of the duration that stays out forever; the +$1 one wouldn't have had that, because there would already be Hireling.
In fact the premise of Alchemist was Hireling. I tested "one-shot, +1 hand size" for Alchemy; it would have required a mat and couldn't have one (and at the time duration cards were confined to Seaside). I turned it into Alchemist.
But there we were in Adventures, it was no mystery that Hireling was a relative of Alchemist, and it seemed fine to do anyway. And that experiment has played out fine too, people love Hireling, when they don't think it's broken. Maybe they would have loved the +$1 card too; I personally don't feel like I missed out there.
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Maybe they would have loved the +$1 card too; I personally don't feel like I missed out there.
No, I agree, a permanent +$1 (or +1 buy) just doesn't sound like much fun; permanent +Actions and +Cards on the other hand make a big difference to what you can do during your Action phase.
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On the one hand, permanent +$1 and +1Buy could be a lot cheaper, which suddenly makes them an opening consideration whereas you have to work to afford a Hireling and jump through game-dominating hoops to get Champion.
On the other, Seaway demonstrates Donald is quite capable of adding a twist, just when you thought you'd got the hang of how something was going to work. Permanent +coin and +buy which were as different from Hireling and Champion as Hireling and Champion are from one another could be quite interesting.
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What about a permanent cost reduction?
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What about a permanent cost reduction?
Well, there's Prince and Bridge. I mean, at this point the answer to "permanent X" is Prince + X.
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What about a permanent cost reduction?
Well, there's Prince and Bridge. I mean, at this point the answer to "permanent X" is Prince + X.
Prince and Princess.
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http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=11.0
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What about a permanent cost reduction?
Well, there's Prince and Bridge. I mean, at this point the answer to "permanent X" is Prince + X.
Or, simpler, there is Ferry.
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Adventures added +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +$1 tokens. It added a permanent +Card Duration (Hireling) and a permanent +Action Duration (Champion).
They are obviously not analogous. They would be if Hireling would read something like "Draw a card for Action card you play."
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Adventures added +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +$1 tokens. It added a permanent +Card Duration (Hireling) and a permanent +Action Duration (Champion).
They are obviously not analogous. They would be if Hireling would read something like "Draw a card for Action card you play."
Yeah, if you want analogues to Hireling for each of the other basic resources, just Prince the corresponding Ruin.
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Including Ruined Library for Hireling herself.
Walled Village is what comes closest to a Hireling/Alchemist type of action dispenser.
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Anyone seen Donald recently?
Maybe we should get back to questions, or take the discussion elsewhere.
I think this is a great thread and am really impressed that Donald has the patience to be answering questions for us still nearly 6 years after the interview started. Thanks Donald.
Question for Donald:
Have you come across any other game designer engaging so much with a community that plays their game? For you, was it a deliberate decision to get so involved, or did it just happen?
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Have you come across any other game designer engaging so much with a community that plays their game? For you, was it a deliberate decision to get so involved, or did it just happen?
There are other game designers who interact with fans online; I don't have a good feel for how much any of them do it except Mark Rosewater, whose tumblr for answering questions (originally for posting comics) is currently 6242 pages long. http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/
I was already posting online, it was not a leap to post specifically about my games.
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Have you come across any other game designer engaging so much with a community that plays their game? For you, was it a deliberate decision to get so involved, or did it just happen?
There are other game designers who interact with fans online; I don't have a good feel for how much any of them do it except Mark Rosewater, whose tumblr for answering questions (originally for posting comics) is currently 6242 pages long. http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/
I was already posting online, it was not a leap to post specifically about my games.
There's also that guy who made the rip off chips deckbuilder that bitches at people who legitimately think he's an asshole
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Have you ever had to choose different artwork or a different concept for a card due to it being printed in a certain country? I know China in particular will censor, like, human skeletons, which could have been a problem for something with Nocturne's theme.
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Have you ever had to choose different artwork or a different concept for a card due to it being printed in a certain country? I know China in particular will censor, like, human skeletons, which could have been a problem for something with Nocturne's theme.
I don't know about this, but I remember when Old Blacksmith had to be Royal Blacksmith instead, since Alayna came back with art of a guy who didn't look old.
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Now I'm curious how artwork commissioning works. If an artist comes back with something clearly sucky or inappropriate, can it be rejected, or do they get paid regardless?
(I didn't know the blacksmith was supposed to look old, in the sense of aged. It's already been pointed out that he ought to have looked old in the sense of historical.)
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Have you ever had to choose different artwork or a different concept for a card due to it being printed in a certain country? I know China in particular will censor, like, human skeletons, which could have been a problem for something with Nocturne's theme.
I don't know about this, but I remember when Old Blacksmith had to be Royal Blacksmith instead, since Alayna came back with art of a guy who didn't look old.
Honestly, I think "Royal" fits better with what the card does, anyway.
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Have you ever had to choose different artwork or a different concept for a card due to it being printed in a certain country? I know China in particular will censor, like, human skeletons, which could have been a problem for something with Nocturne's theme.
In the prototype, the 4th expansion was called War. That wasn't an acceptable theme for Hans im Gluck, and it ended up Dark Ages.
City was called Boomtown, and I said, make sure it doesn't look wild-west-y, and Jay said, wait why is this called Boomtown.
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Now I'm curious how artwork commissioning works. If an artist comes back with something clearly sucky or inappropriate, can it be rejected, or do they get paid regardless?
I'm not involved with payment, but think that they do get paid if they produce a finished piece which we don't use, which there have been a few of. We usually see sketches first meaning we've okay'd a sketch at that point. Sometimes there are things you can't tell from the sketch though. And sometimes like Jay insists on a piece being lighter, for example, and brightness was specified in advance so I bet they don't get paid extra for fixing it.
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City was called Boomtown, and I said, make sure it doesn't look wild-west-y, and Jay said, wait why is this called Boomtown.
I think the artwork would fit a boomtown, with buildings rising a bit higher than what would be reasonable, like the high-rising private homes in Renaissance Tuscany towns.
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I'm not sure that's the point. The issue is that Boomtown simply isn't a thematic term. It would sound as out of place as Goldrush or Shoot-out.
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Why do you have the "everywhere" part on Bridge (formerly "including cards in players’ hands" in the 1st edition), but not on Highway, Princess, Bridge Troll, etc.?
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A lot of Dominion's Attacks can actually help your opponent in certain circumstances. Do you have any particular tricks for making sure those Attacks remain balanced rather than ruining some kingdoms, being too swingy or whatever?
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I've noticed you spectating several high-level league matches. What is it like watching people play your creation competitively, in general?
Is it amusing? Entertaining? Fulfilling?
Do you find validation of design choices by watching some of these matches?
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Why do you have the "everywhere" part on Bridge (formerly "including cards in players’ hands" in the 1st edition), but not on Highway, Princess, Bridge Troll, etc.?
At any given moment I had to word a card and had some idea as to what wording I liked best, and for Intrigue I put in that "everywhere." Possibly I was thinking "this is the first expansion, let's be a little friendlier," or "I am already saving words cutting out that other text, I have room for this word" or something.
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A lot of Dominion's Attacks can actually help your opponent in certain circumstances. Do you have any particular tricks for making sure those Attacks remain balanced rather than ruining some kingdoms, being too swingy or whatever?
It's not some specific concern to focus on. We play games with the cards, if they're too strong or too weak I change them, unless they're early cards and I didn't know better, or later cards where I just blew it. It's fine by me if say draw-to-X is good against Militias. It's a problem if an attack is too often shut out; I try to avoid that.
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I've noticed you spectating several high-level league matches. What is it like watching people play your creation competitively, in general?
Is it amusing? Entertaining? Fulfilling?
Do you find validation of design choices by watching some of these matches?
To me, I'm just me; when I post on the forums it feels a lot to me like it does when I post on forums where I'm no-one special. Now shift that over to watching games being played. For the most part I don't think I'm specially affected. Sure there are things I can speak up on, oh in playtest that card was different. I'm aware that people might expect me to be a better player than I am, because I'm the guy. That's a bummer, who needs that pressure.
That said, I do like seeing interesting games, cool lines of play; I don't like seeing cards I blew it on make the game worse. It's fun to see cards I blew it on by making them too weak end up doing something. For a typical game I am not thinking "look at all my mistakes," but then the powerful cards gain some finesse from the high level of play in the matches I'm likely to click on, and taking out those 12 Dominion/Intrigue cards reduced the frequency of games with lots of duds. In that last championship there was a game with Pirate Ship, Counting House, and Noble Brigand, but there was a lot going on in the remaining cards.
Probably when an expansion is new I feel more like, this is my thing, please like it guys, I hope I didn't blow it. But later that pressure is off.
I'm probably overstating this due to wanting to feel like I'm not stuck-up or something; some cognitive bias, we can work out which one later. Probably I've to some degree watched games just because I'm the guy. Maybe in a sideways sense of, like, this isn't as much of a waste of time as it would be if it were some other game, because hey I'm the guy. Or the expected background idea of wanting to feel good about making a game that people are playing.
But then, I've watched a bunch of Super Mario Odyssey videos, and I'm clearly no-one there, just a guy who wants to see cool stuff in a game he likes.
Spectating Dominion is greatly enhanced by being able to chat with the other spectators. It's way more fun than watching the videos. I do watch some of the videos, but tend to skip a lot, trying to just see, how did they open, how did things develop, how did it end, without seeing every decision being considered. But when you're spectating, you can talk about the decisions, spot things they didn't, listen to Stef spot things they didn't, or you know, talk about something else even.
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Do you ever get players who want to give you their ideas for the a fan based dominion expansion? And to just give you all their cards info completely for free. I mean as in when it comes down to it it’s still your game.
The reason why I ask is I’ve created my own new cards for alchemy and I’ve also created my own fan based expansion called snowline. I did all the cards on shemitz.com so I’ve got lots of card templates. I wasn’t extremely good with the artwork, there mostly just photos or clip art. And I only have an iPad. So the only way someone would see them is if I sent them by email.
But the card templates is as far as I can go on my own. It would take a few years before I could make them into real cards. So I’d rather just give them to you (Donald x Vaccarino) and you could make it into a real expansion if you want.
And I would give you all my ideas completely free of charge. If you did make it into an expansion, I would love to get the expansion free. And if you wanted or needed to tweak my cards go for it. However the only thing I would ask is if didn’t add any cards like snow hag or ice witch or something like that. But you can change wasteland back to curse. I’m mentally disabled so I still have to live with my folks. But my step father is very anti magic anything. So when I bought dominion I had to replace every card he wanted thrown out. So I got creative with the blank cards. And replaced curse with wasteland, witch with snake pit, possession with truth serum, scrying pool with poisen apples and so on.
I own every expansion but intrigue and nocturne. And now you know why I don’t own nocturne. Too much work and I’m out of blank cards. 2 of my friends own intrigue anyway. And I really want the first edition so I can play with secret chamber and saboteur. Oh and thankfully I didn’t have to replace the vague cards. Like haunted woods. And he didn’t have any problem bridge troll or giant. So my snowline does have yeti. Along with a bunch of animals. I volunteer at a zoo. So I usually replace cards with animals. And yes menagerie is one of my most favorite cards.
Anyways I tend to get carried away. I have asbergers syndrome. They call it high functioning autism I believe.
So if your interested I made this expansion similar to adventures. It has reserve cards, duration cards, new cards that work with the journey token, 2 new travelers. It also has a few card besides the travelers that aren’t in the supply. Similar to way it was done with dark ages. And I have a type of card there’s one in alchemy and one in snowline I call them defeat cards. They are actions with minus victory points. The one in snowline is called firn village. ( firn is term to describe a large amount of snow compacted) firn village is just like fortress it can’t be trashed and has minus 2 victory points. The only way to get rid of it would be to use masquerade. Fortunately there’s a card just like masquerade and their both not in the supply. An attack card called avalanche gives them both out. Depending on how you play it depends on who gets what. And the other is mad scientist a very powerful attack with a huge benefit as well as a minus 2 victory points on it. And fairly hard to obtain at 5 and a potion. And at least you can trash it when the time is right. If there’s obviously another card that can trash it. Like I said feel free to tweak em if you need to. It is your game after all.
When I look at my snowline expansion I really like all the cards and I wish I had the the resources to play test and make them into a real official expansion. I even tried at my own flavor text. Then I thought Donald does. I thought that maybe at least my cards might inspire more creativity to make another expansion. I mean I know almost all the names of cards by heart. And there’s not really any that have to do with snow. Except for maybe tracker/pouch. Which is why I came up with the snowline expansion. The name of the expansion kinda changed again and again. So apparently the term snowline refers to an altitude where the snow remains year after year. So I thought snowline would be a cool original name for an expansion kinda reminds me of the name seaside. Or hinterlands.
And I apologize if this isn’t the right place to share this with you it was the only forum I could find that seemed current.
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I believe he gets this kind of request all the time, with the answer being an overwhelming "I don't do fan cards." The only exceptions would be the very small number of official cards which have been designed by playtesters.
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Do you ever get players who want to give you their ideas for the a fan based dominion expansion? And to just give you all their cards info completely for free. I mean as in when it comes down to it it’s still your game.
Yes this is a thing that has happened.
I like making up the cards. I haven't been willing to give that up. Getting a card from someone else still means playtesting it and polishing it. I'd rather do that work on cards I got to make up. A few friends have gotten to contribute a card and well that group doesn't seem likely to get larger.
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Well I figured you would like to make them up on your own. Would you like to see a few of my favorites from snowline then? I might spark your creativity for a new expansion. In fact I haven’t really mentioned too much to anyone on the forum about snowline. Only my close friends. So you would be the one of the first on the forum.
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Well I figured you would like to make them up on your own. Would you like to see a few of my favorites from snowline then? I might spark your creativity for a new expansion. In fact I haven’t really mentioned too much to anyone on the forum about snowline. Only my close friends. So you would be the one of the first on the forum.
There's a subforum for this. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=11.0
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Well I figured you would like to make them up on your own. Would you like to see a few of my favorites from snowline then? I might spark your creativity for a new expansion. In fact I haven’t really mentioned too much to anyone on the forum about snowline. Only my close friends. So you would be the one of the first on the forum.
There's a subforum for this. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=11.0
And if posting your cards in that subforum doesn't get Donald's attention (which it won't), then that tells you that Donald is not interested in looking at other people's fan cards. Because if he were, he knows where he can go to find all sorts of fan cards to look at.
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Well I figured you would like to make them up on your own. Would you like to see a few of my favorites from snowline then? I might spark your creativity for a new expansion. In fact I haven’t really mentioned too much to anyone on the forum about snowline. Only my close friends. So you would be the one of the first on the forum.
I do not want to see them. You can share them with other people in the variants forum J Reggie linked to, or on reddit or BGG or elsewhere. I specifically do not go to the variants forum, and all fan-made cards posted on dominionstrategy should go there and nowhere else.
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Jokes on you, Donald. My fan card says: "If Donald X reads this, Robz888 has to give him $20." You're missing out!
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Well thanks anyway, i knew it was a long shot
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I do not want to see them. You can share them with other people in the variants forum J Reggie linked to, or on reddit or BGG or elsewhere. I specifically do not go to the variants forum, and all fan-made cards posted on dominionstrategy should go there and nowhere else.
So this response doesn't sound harsh and villain-spawning like Mr. Incredible's (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXiVuLCBuFg), I'll offer this additional perspective that might help. In any creative endeavor, it can be hard to trace where an idea truly originated. If Donald X. read the variants forum, there would always be a question of whether some future canon Dominion card was inspired by something he read there without him realizing it. I'm sure you'd still be honored if that happened even without any actual recognition, but others might be disappointed that he forgot. In the extreme, someone could accuse Donald X. of ripping off their variant with his new expansion, which is not the kind of publicity he wants.
I think we all have to remember that we have different roles here. For Donald X., as accessible as he is to us here, Dominion is not just something he does for fun; it's a job for him. Like anyone, he wants to do his job well, and that involves being responsible about the origins of ideas that he will profit off of. Hence the firewall keeping the variants and fan cards in that subforum, which allows him to roam freely about these discussion boards and participate in our discussions about his game.
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I do not want to see them. You can share them with other people in the variants forum J Reggie linked to, or on reddit or BGG or elsewhere. I specifically do not go to the variants forum, and all fan-made cards posted on dominionstrategy should go there and nowhere else.
So this response doesn't sound harsh and villain-spawning like Mr. Incredible's (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXiVuLCBuFg), I'll offer this additional perspective that might help. In any creative endeavor, it can be hard to trace where an idea truly originated. If Donald X. read the variants forum, there would always be a question of whether some future canon Dominion card was inspired by something he read there without him realizing it. I'm sure you'd still be honored if that happened even without any actual recognition, but others might be disappointed that he forgot. In the extreme, someone could accuse Donald X. of ripping off their variant with his new expansion, which is not the kind of publicity he wants.
I think we all have to remember that we have different roles here. For Donald X., as accessible as he is to us here, Dominion is not just something he does for fun; it's a job for him. Like anyone, he wants to do his job well, and that involves being responsible about the origins of ideas that he will profit off of. Hence the firewall keeping the variants and fan cards in that subforum, which allows him to roam freely about these discussion boards and participate in our discussions about his game.
And I mean, I've had the same experience from the other side. Years ago I made a homemade Netrunner expansion. Then FFG got the rights to Netrunner and started making new products. I was the Dominion guy, and FFG was publishing one of my games too. I said hey, I have a Netrunner expansion. They weren't interested in seeing it. They had their own Netrunner cards to make.
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Do you playtest digitally or physically?
What art do you use on cards when playtesting?
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This (https://dominionstrategy.com/2013/06/24/dominion-outtakes/) article shows what his prototype cards look like. Plenty of random stuff off Google image searches, not all of it entirely sensible.
On the other question, I gather he used to use Isotropic a lot for playtesting, even after it stopped being available to the general public because of commercial online offerings, but the author of Isotropic finally packed it in before Nocturne so it got rather less online playtesting, mainly via beta implementations of the new expansion on dominion.games late on in development.
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Do you playtest digitally or physically?
What art do you use on cards when playtesting?
Both; in the early days I had a program I wrote, then Doug Z. made isotropic.
I google up images, all of them entirely sensible. Mostly the same images were used in isotropic, so many people are familiar with the pre-Dark Ages ones.
The physical version of Nocturne was not playtested on dominion.games, it was already done; all that was playtested there was the online functionality.
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Happy 20,000th respect, Donald!
It seems like recent Dominion expansions have 1 splashy mechanic and a bunch of other workhorse ones. (For example, Empires has the super splashy Landmarks, while debt, split piles, VP tokens, and Events are more workhorse-y.) But what would you say Nocturne's splashy mechanic be?
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Happy 20,000th respect, Donald!
And they said that I was mad! Soon, all the respect will be mine!
It seems like recent Dominion expansions have 1 splashy mechanic and a bunch of other workhorse ones. (For example, Empires has the super splashy Landmarks, while debt, split piles, VP tokens, and Events are more workhorse-y.) But what would you say Nocturne's splashy mechanic be?
I'm never thinking of it like that. All of the mechanics are trying to be great things to do. I would say all of those things you listed for Empires are splashy. The workhorses are like "there have to be some new villages, some new draw etc.," but those new villages etc. are still trying to be awesome.
Everything in Nocturne is splashy. Which thing stands out the most depends on who you are.
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Did you ever worry that the recent expansions have been trying to do too many new things at once? Up through guilds, each expansion had one or two mechanical themes, then adventures comes along with 4 (Events, reserves, player tokens, travelers. Not counting durations, as they're pretty much standard now), empires with 5 (Events, Landmarks, Debt, VP chips, Split piles), and Nocturne with 5 (Nights, non-supply piles, Boons/hexes, Heirlooms, states)
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Did you ever worry that the recent expansions have been trying to do too many new things at once? Up through guilds, each expansion had one or two mechanical themes, then adventures comes along with 4 (Events, reserves, player tokens, travelers. Not counting durations, as they're pretty much standard now), empires with 5 (Events, Landmarks, Debt, VP chips, Split piles), and Nocturne with 5 (Nights, non-supply piles, Boons/hexes, Heirlooms, states)
It depends on the mechanic - does it make you reach for the rulebook or not - but yes. I think the recent expansions have gotten too complex. I always cite how Vampire makes you read 18 cards to know the full story.
As you will see, despite having 4 mechanics, Renaissance is much simpler.
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Did you ever worry that the recent expansions have been trying to do too many new things at once? Up through guilds, each expansion had one or two mechanical themes, then adventures comes along with 4 (Events, reserves, player tokens, travelers. Not counting durations, as they're pretty much standard now), empires with 5 (Events, Landmarks, Debt, VP chips, Split piles), and Nocturne with 5 (Nights, non-supply piles, Boons/hexes, Heirlooms, states)
It depends on the mechanic - does it make you reach for the rulebook or not - but yes. I think the recent expansions have gotten too complex. I always cite how Vampire makes you read 18 cards to know the full story.
As you will see, despite having 4 mechanics, Renaissance is much simpler.
18? I count only 14 (card-shaped things)...What are the other 4?
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Did you ever worry that the recent expansions have been trying to do too many new things at once? Up through guilds, each expansion had one or two mechanical themes, then adventures comes along with 4 (Events, reserves, player tokens, travelers. Not counting durations, as they're pretty much standard now), empires with 5 (Events, Landmarks, Debt, VP chips, Split piles), and Nocturne with 5 (Nights, non-supply piles, Boons/hexes, Heirlooms, states)
It depends on the mechanic - does it make you reach for the rulebook or not - but yes. I think the recent expansions have gotten too complex. I always cite how Vampire makes you read 18 cards to know the full story.
As you will see, despite having 4 mechanics, Renaissance is much simpler.
18? I count only 14 (card-shaped things)...What are the other 4?
Deluded, Envious, Miserable and Twice Miserable. Alternatively, Deluded/Envious, Miserable/Twice Miserable, Curse and Copper.
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Did you ever worry that the recent expansions have been trying to do too many new things at once? Up through guilds, each expansion had one or two mechanical themes, then adventures comes along with 4 (Events, reserves, player tokens, travelers. Not counting durations, as they're pretty much standard now), empires with 5 (Events, Landmarks, Debt, VP chips, Split piles), and Nocturne with 5 (Nights, non-supply piles, Boons/hexes, Heirlooms, states)
It depends on the mechanic - does it make you reach for the rulebook or not - but yes. I think the recent expansions have gotten too complex. I always cite how Vampire makes you read 18 cards to know the full story.
As you will see, despite having 4 mechanics, Renaissance is much simpler.
18? I count only 14 (card-shaped things)...What are the other 4?
Deluded, Envious, Miserable and Twice Miserable. Alternatively, Deluded/Envious, Miserable/Twice Miserable, Curse and Copper.
...And I thought Donald was exaggerating.
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Leprechaun and Tormentor share Vampire's status in also counting the 12 Hexes, 4 associated States, themselves, and a non-Supply card.
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Did you ever worry that the recent expansions have been trying to do too many new things at once? Up through guilds, each expansion had one or two mechanical themes, then adventures comes along with 4 (Events, reserves, player tokens, travelers. Not counting durations, as they're pretty much standard now), empires with 5 (Events, Landmarks, Debt, VP chips, Split piles), and Nocturne with 5 (Nights, non-supply piles, Boons/hexes, Heirlooms, states)
It depends on the mechanic - does it make you reach for the rulebook or not - but yes. I think the recent expansions have gotten too complex. I always cite how Vampire makes you read 18 cards to know the full story.
As you will see, despite having 4 mechanics, Renaissance is much simpler.
18? I count only 14 (card-shaped things)...What are the other 4?
Deluded, Envious, Miserable and Twice Miserable. Alternatively, Deluded/Envious, Miserable/Twice Miserable, Curse and Copper.
...And I thought Donald was exaggerating.
That means Hexes by themselves make you read 16 cards. So Vampire, Tormentor, and Skulk all make you read 18 cards. Leprechaun sits at 19.
Edit:
Leprechaun and Tormentor share Vampire's status in also counting the 12 Hexes, 4 associated States, themselves, and a non-Supply card.
If you count Gold as a different card to read, Skulk also shares Vampire's status and Leprechaun surpasses it.
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Did you ever worry that the recent expansions have been trying to do too many new things at once? Up through guilds, each expansion had one or two mechanical themes, then adventures comes along with 4 (Events, reserves, player tokens, travelers. Not counting durations, as they're pretty much standard now), empires with 5 (Events, Landmarks, Debt, VP chips, Split piles), and Nocturne with 5 (Nights, non-supply piles, Boons/hexes, Heirlooms, states)
It depends on the mechanic - does it make you reach for the rulebook or not - but yes. I think the recent expansions have gotten too complex. I always cite how Vampire makes you read 18 cards to know the full story.
As you will see, despite having 4 mechanics, Renaissance is much simpler.
18? I count only 14 (card-shaped things)...What are the other 4?
Deluded, Envious, Miserable and Twice Miserable. Alternatively, Deluded/Envious, Miserable/Twice Miserable, Curse and Copper.
...And I thought Donald was exaggerating.
That means Hexes by themselves make you read 16 cards. So Vampire, Tormentor, and Skulk all make you read 18 cards. Leprechaun sits at 19.
Edit:
Leprechaun and Tormentor share Vampire's status in also counting the 12 Hexes, 4 associated States, themselves, and a non-Supply card.
If you count Gold as a different card to read, Skulk also shares Vampire's status and Leprechaun surpasses it.
"Gain a card costing up to (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png)" makes you read a large number of cards from the supply also. But that's been around since Feast (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Feast) and Workshop (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Workshop).
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If you count Gold as a different card to read, Skulk also shares Vampire's status and Leprechaun surpasses it.
"Gain a card costing up to (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png)" makes you read a large number of cards from the supply also. But that's been around since Feast (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Feast) and Workshop (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Workshop).
You already have to read the supply. And obv. Gold doesn't count, everyone knows what Gold does.
It's no joke about Vampire. People new to the set will turn over a Hex, and the game stops, everyone has to process it, then do it. Then next turn it's another Hex. The Boons avoid this by mostly being really simple, but the Hexes are attacks.
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At least Nocturne doesn’t have the version of Tormentor that flipped two Hexes and let each opponent choose one to receive.
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At least Nocturne doesn’t have the version of Tormentor that flipped two Hexes and let each opponent choose one to receive.
God help us all
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At least Nocturne doesn’t have the version of Tormentor that flipped two Hexes and let each opponent choose one to receive.
See, that would have actually been flavorful as a "torment". But yes, probably for the best overall.
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So let's say, hypothetically, you decided that boons and/or hexes needed to be in another set sometime in the future. Would you just print the existing ones again, or would you come up with new ones? And, if the latter, how would they work alongside the ones from Nocturne?
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So let's say, hypothetically, you decided that boons and/or hexes needed to be in another set sometime in the future. Would you just print the existing ones again, or would you come up with new ones? And, if the latter, how would they work alongside the ones from Nocturne?
Today I wouldn't do Hexes. They are just too complex for too many players. Like I said, the game stops.
It was hard getting that set of Boons. If I wanted to revisit them, I suspect I would just reprint them. Conceivably the set could have a mechanic that lent itself to adding a Boon, e.g. VP tokens. But we would still need to reprint all the old Boons, it's not like the set would have new mechanics that generated 12 new Boons. So if somehow there was a new Boon, it would just be, if you're playing with Nocturne, well now there are 13 Boons there too.
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So, Coin of the Realm vs Villagers. They both save actions for later. I'm not really sure what my question is...
Could you just explain your design thoughts on this? If you were making CotR today, would it just be a Villagers card, or is it different enough to warrant being a Treasure-Reserve?
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So, Coin of the Realm vs Villagers. They both save actions for later. I'm not really sure what my question is...
Could you just explain your design thoughts on this? If you were making CotR today, would it just be a Villagers card, or is it different enough to warrant being a Treasure-Reserve?
I feel like the difference of not being able to save up more than 1 action per card is a sufficient difference. (Along with it staying out of your deck until you use it).
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So, Coin of the Realm vs Villagers. They both save actions for later. I'm not really sure what my question is...
Could you just explain your design thoughts on this? If you were making CotR today, would it just be a Villagers card, or is it different enough to warrant being a Treasure-Reserve?
I feel like the difference of not being able to save up more than 1 action per card is a sufficient difference. (Along with it staying out of your deck until you use it).
You mean 2 Actions per card. Coin of the Realm gives +2 Actions.
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So, Coin of the Realm vs Villagers. They both save actions for later. I'm not really sure what my question is...
Could you just explain your design thoughts on this? If you were making CotR today, would it just be a Villagers card, or is it different enough to warrant being a Treasure-Reserve?
I feel like the difference of not being able to save up more than 1 action per card is a sufficient difference. (Along with it staying out of your deck until you use it).
You mean 2 Actions per card. Coin of the Realm gives +2 Actions.
What I really mean is 1 use per card; it just so happens that the use gets you 2 actions (but they have to be redeemed at the same time).
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So, Coin of the Realm vs Villagers. They both save actions for later. I'm not really sure what my question is...
Could you just explain your design thoughts on this? If you were making CotR today, would it just be a Villagers card, or is it different enough to warrant being a Treasure-Reserve?
Possibly what you're looking for is: I wasn't going to let Coin of the Realm stop me from doing a good mechanic.
If Reserve cards had come in a later expansion than Villagers, Coin of the Realm wouldn't have been so compelling to do, in the same way that there isn't a Reserve card that's like Coffers tokens.
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Coin of the Realm is pretty nice, though. It's a Copper that takes itself out of your deck but gives you a double Village when you need it and comes back into your deck. It's very different from all the Villagers cards IMO. The only thing wrong with it is that it's maybe too strong.
Those nutty theater kids just love getting stuck in a terminal draw... >:( Not even close to the same...
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Coin of the Realm is pretty nice, though. ... The only thing wrong with it is that it's maybe too strong.
I guess the point in favour is the same as for Chapel: You normally don't want too many of them.
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Now that Dominion is getting bigger and bigger (in scope), has the design philosophy changed about how similar cards can be to existing cards?
Are there any cards or mechanics that you'd want to show up with a higher probability in full random games?
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When designing Acting Troupe and other cards that give out Villagers, did you have data on how many times a (cantrip) Village typically gets played in a game of Dominion?
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Now that Dominion is getting bigger and bigger (in scope), has the design philosophy changed about how similar cards can be to existing cards?
It used to be a thing that, for any given novel idea, it would either be a mechanic and thus on a bunch of cards, or just be on a single card. Like, Tunnel does "when you discard this"; that's that. Even VP tokens were originally one card (Monument), expanded to three later because oops we are providing a pile of metal tokens to handle this.
But there I was working on Nocturne, and like, is it so bad to do another "when you discard this"? It wasn't so bad. It's not like Faithful Hound plays like Tunnel. So sure, having made so many expansions has had an effect.
You are asking this apropos of Ducat. Ducat has a new part; it's a new card in the same way that e.g. Port is. There was a playtester who didn't like that it's strictly better than Candlestick Maker, but it isn't, as pointed out at length in that thread. In your deck it's pretty similar to Candlestick Maker sometimes, but well did I mention it has another ability?
It's possible I would have been less inclined to do it if there weren't so many sets. I expect I said at some point, "man it's the 12th expansion." It was doing a bunch of things I wanted at once though, and we liked the card, and well it's not just the same as Candlestick Maker any which way.
Are there any cards or mechanics that you'd want to show up with a higher probability in full random games?
Possibly +buy should be a little more common.
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When designing Acting Troupe and other cards that give out Villagers, did you have data on how many times a (cantrip) Village typically gets played in a game of Dominion?
No. We just played games with Villagers and saw what happened.
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
When did you stop beating your wife? I don't have misgivings about working with data from the online implementation.
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
When did you stop beating your wife? I don't have misgivings about working with data from the online implementation.
You just don't seem to do it despite having plenty of good opportunities and reasons to do so.
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
When did you stop beating your wife? I don't have misgivings about working with data from the online implementation.
Is it because of never working with data from the online implementation?
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
When did you stop beating your wife? I don't have misgivings about working with data from the online implementation.
You just don't seem to do it despite having plenty of good opportunities and reasons to do so.
Man, I really don't get why people continually antagonize Donald X. It's almost like you all want him to stop answering questions on the forum again.
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
When did you stop beating your wife? I don't have misgivings about working with data from the online implementation.
You just don't seem to do it despite having plenty of good opportunities and reasons to do so.
What data are you referring to even? And heh, isn't those tasks something for, you know, the forum dedicated to the game rather than the creator himself? If we found something worth noting he will notice, but otherwise digging through those kind of things isn't something I would want DXV doing if he isn't enjoying it for some reason. He has more important tasks to do. Like, you know, creating more cards and games..
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
When did you stop beating your wife? I don't have misgivings about working with data from the online implementation.
You just don't seem to do it despite having plenty of good opportunities and reasons to do so.
Man, I really don't get why people continually antagonize Donald X. It's almost like you all want him to stop answering questions on the forum again.
Huh, I think this is an apt reaction, trying to rephrase the observation without the allegation that misgivings might play a role. My reactions to insinuations about how I treat my wife tend to be harsher.
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For those unfamiliar with the reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question
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Man, I really don't get why people continually antagonize Donald X. It's almost like you all want him to stop answering questions on the forum again.
Donald X. is fine, why do people even complain about Donald X. They can't all be the least your-mom-joke-using game designer ever.
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
When did you stop beating your wife? I don't have misgivings about working with data from the online implementation.
You just don't seem to do it despite having plenty of good opportunities and reasons to do so.
Those opportunities are opportunities to either generate work for myself or ask someone for a favor or both, and those reasons don't actually come up.
With Patrol, there was some concern that we were underrating how good it was in boring decks. And I took the opportunity to ask Geronimoo for a favor, and he simulated it for me. In the early days I simulated some cards myself, but Geronimoo has better simulation technology.
With e.g. Acting Troupe, I made a card, we played with it, I tweaked it, we played with it more. We were happy with it; there was no impetus to do more. When a card is working great, I never think, "but wait, I could generate more work for myself or maybe even ask people for favors."
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
When did you stop beating your wife? I don't have misgivings about working with data from the online implementation.
You just don't seem to do it despite having plenty of good opportunities and reasons to do so.
Man, I really don't get why people continually antagonize Donald X. It's almost like you all want him to stop answering questions on the forum again.
Not antagonizing him. If I get an obtuse non-answer I'll clarify why I was asking. Not every question in life is a soft ball.
The matter in question was quite well answered in the post before this one, IMO.
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
When did you stop beating your wife? I don't have misgivings about working with data from the online implementation.
You just don't seem to do it despite having plenty of good opportunities and reasons to do so.
What data are you referring to even? And heh, isn't those tasks something for, you know, the forum dedicated to the game rather than the creator himself? If we found something worth noting he will notice, but otherwise digging through those kind of things isn't something I would want DXV doing if he isn't enjoying it for some reason. He has more important tasks to do. Like, you know, creating more cards and games..
Or spending time with his family.
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
When did you stop beating your wife? I don't have misgivings about working with data from the online implementation.
You just don't seem to do it despite having plenty of good opportunities and reasons to do so.
Man, I really don't get why people continually antagonize Donald X. It's almost like you all want him to stop answering questions on the forum again.
Man, I really don't get why people feel that Donald X. should be shielded from all forms of criticism. It's almost like you all want him to have your babies or something.
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Given that Donald's occupied with developing new cards and not new strategies, there is a point in not using the "big data" from online implementation, since they provide only hindsight. Those data would be much more interesting to other members of the forum. I miss councilroom.
Yet I have the feeling that there are quite a couple of people around here who'd be more than willing to do "favours" to help with development of an expansion, so he should not be afraid to ask. Obviously there are possible issues with confidentiality/trust and relying on someone else's bona fide work to get done what pays his own bills.
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What's your main misgiving about working with big data from the online implementation?
When did you stop beating your wife? I don't have misgivings about working with data from the online implementation.
You just don't seem to do it despite having plenty of good opportunities and reasons to do so.
Man, I really don't get why people continually antagonize Donald X. It's almost like you all want him to stop answering questions on the forum again.
Huh, I think this is an apt reaction, trying to rephrase the observation without the allegation that misgivings might play a role. My reactions to insinuations about how I treat my wife tend to be harsher.
DXV has acknowledged that he can be rude. Like most of us, he's not a rock, and that means that he will react by expressing his immediate emotion from time to time. While this may or may not be considered rude, I can understand that people can react negatively to it. I once asked about something that he answered somewhere, and when I then asked him for specifics that would help me understand why he answered like he did (English is not my first language), I felt that he replied kind of rudely, and I honestly still think he did. BUT he still took the time to reply, AND he answered my follow-up question! I think that speaks to his credit.
As others have pointed out, we're pretty darn lucky to have the game's designer frequent these boards and actually replying to questions that can even be considered dumber than my admittedly stupid follow-up question way back when. He's probably tired of such questions and doesn't always think through the implications of his odd rude replies when people don't understand what he meant initially, or maybe he doesn't care. No, I don't think that he should be immune to criticism, and maybe he even deserves some, but if you're able to read between the lines, he usually answers all questions the first time around.
His reference to people beating their wives is NOT an insinuation that NoMoreFun has ever beaten his/her wife (or even that he/she has a wife). It's to tell NoMoreFun that he asks something that cannot be answered truthfully with a direct reply, because the question implies that DXV has any misgivings about something he clearly hasn't got any misgivings about. The question had fallacies, and he addressed it by referencing the most common question associated with such questions. What I know, is that I want DXV and his occasional hot-headedness around, because the alternative would be way, way worse. Criticize him all you want. That's called freedom of speech, as is his right to reply rudely, if he so chooses. But I don't think it helps if you want replies to your questions in a thread that's called "Interview with Donald X.".
Edits: Fixed some typos (hopefully all of them).
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NoMoreFun's loaded question was crazy rude. My reply to him was pretty friendly given that.
What I should do is just ignore loaded questions. Which as I've said is also rude.
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NoMoreFun's loaded question was crazy rude. My reply to him was pretty friendly given that.
What I should do is just ignore loaded questions. Which as I've said is also rude.
Do you ignore loaded questions because you are just mean, or because you enjoy being rude?
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Not every question in life is a soft ball.
We're not doing investigative journalism in this thread, we are trying to have a friendly conversation with the designer of one of our favorite games.
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Not every question in life is a soft ball.
We're not doing investigative journalism in this thread, we are trying to have a friendly conversation with the designer of one of our favorite games.
I'll phrase things differently next time. DXV gave a good answer
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Given that Donald's occupied with developing new cards and not new strategies, there is a point in not using the "big data" from online implementation, since they provide only hindsight. Those data would be much more interesting to other members of the forum. I miss councilroom.
That's something I disagree with. Big data, for example, could reveal the dominance of certain strategies and ignorance of others, or what kinds of cards have high "ragequit %"s, or trends like the perceived value of Silver and Gold. New cards could be designed to work well with overlooked existing cards, which really adds value to the game. The most popular cards (cards that get bought relatively high compared to their win %, or low rage quit %s) could be revisited to improve their chances of appearing in full random.
There's also immense value in doing simulations for cards that are likely to work well with a Big Money strategy (e.g. Patrol as DXV said) or are otherwise at risk of monolithic strategies, or compare far too favourably with similar cards.
Why not get super feedback and super playtesting? (that's not a question for anyone here)
I'm far more forgiving of duds now that expansions seem to be continuing indefinitely and people like LastFootnote are inside the tent, but when you buy any product you would hope that as much effort as possible has been put in to ensure it's a good quality product.
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Big data, for example, could reveal the dominance of certain strategies and ignorance of others, or what kinds of cards have high "ragequit %"s, or trends like the perceived value of Silver and Gold. New cards could be designed to work well with overlooked existing cards, which really adds value to the game. The most popular cards (cards that get bought relatively high compared to their win %, or low rage quit %s) could be revisited to improve their chances of appearing in full random.
There's also immense value in doing simulations for cards that are likely to work well with a Big Money strategy (e.g. Patrol as DXV said) or are otherwise at risk of monolithic strategies, or compare far too favourably with similar cards.
Why not get super feedback and super playtesting? (that's not a question for anyone here)
We're already doing all of this in the Dominion community with existing cards. (And you won't be getting big data out of playtesting games.) Geronimoo does interesting simulations (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=144.0), while markus attempts to answer interesting questions (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18988.0) about usage of different cards, culling from the stats of thousands of games. Donald X. is aware of all of those discussions, and takes part in them from time to time on Discord. If these "big data" observations aren't influencing him in his card creation, that's mostly because we either haven't generated enough interesting insights or those insights don't indicate anything of relevance to new cards that don't exist yet. I would suspect that the insights have influenced him, though much more subtly than him thinking, "let me see how many times people play Villages they buy on average and set Acting Troupe to give that many Villagers."
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I'm far more forgiving of duds now that expansions seem to be continuing indefinitely and people like LastFootnote are inside the tent, but when you buy any product you would hope that as much effort as possible has been put in to ensure it's a good quality product.
You never stop being able to improve the expansions. You can choose to never release them; you can choose to release them knowing that they could have been better.
A crazy amount of time goes into each expansion. For sure more effort is not possible. If they're not good enough for you, I will just have to live with that.
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I'm far more forgiving of duds now that expansions seem to be continuing indefinitely and people like LastFootnote are inside the tent, but when you buy any product you would hope that as much effort as possible has been put in to ensure it's a good quality product.
You never stop being able to improve the expansions. You can choose to never release them; you can choose to release them knowing that they could have been better.
A crazy amount of time goes into each expansion. For sure more effort is not possible. If they're not good enough for you, I will just have to live with that.
IMO Adventures, Empires and the 2nd editions are excellent so your process is more or less working (Not personally fond of nocturne but it's not "bad")
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IMO Adventures, Empires and the 2nd editions are excellent so your process is more or less working (Not personally fond of nocturne but it's not "bad")
Thanks; we had a lot of fun playtesting Nocturne, but I would change it a lot at this point, which is not true of Adventures or Empires. I would probably split it into two sets, one with Night, Spirits, and Boons, and the other with Heirlooms and some other new mechanic. I wouldn't do Hexes (too slow). I would only do ~5 Fate cards.
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IMO Adventures, Empires and the 2nd editions are excellent so your process is more or less working (Not personally fond of nocturne but it's not "bad")
Thanks; we had a lot of fun playtesting Nocturne, but I would change it a lot at this point, which is not true of Adventures or Empires. I would probably split it into two sets, one with Night, Spirits, and Boons, and the other with Heirlooms and some other new mechanic. I wouldn't do Hexes (too slow). I would only do ~5 Fate cards.
I play casually with a group IRL and Hexes have resulted in some of the most fun games we have played.
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What are your thoughts on people playing Dominion in Tabletop Simulator without having bought a physical copy of Dominion or a Dominion Online subscription?
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IMO Adventures, Empires and the 2nd editions are excellent so your process is more or less working (Not personally fond of nocturne but it's not "bad")
Thanks; we had a lot of fun playtesting Nocturne, but I would change it a lot at this point, which is not true of Adventures or Empires. I would probably split it into two sets, one with Night, Spirits, and Boons, and the other with Heirlooms and some other new mechanic. I wouldn't do Hexes (too slow). I would only do ~5 Fate cards.
For what it's worth, I'm glad it didn't go down that way. The things that are commonly complained about (increased setup complexity, slow down of the game) are obviously real, but I (and those in my game group) have found their impact to be overstated. Some of the reasons for that come down to personal preference or how I choose to organize and setup the game, so I'm not suggesting that those who feel otherwise are wrong. I just want to share that there are those of us out here who think Nocturne is fine how it is.
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IMO Adventures, Empires and the 2nd editions are excellent so your process is more or less working (Not personally fond of nocturne but it's not "bad")
Thanks; we had a lot of fun playtesting Nocturne, but I would change it a lot at this point, which is not true of Adventures or Empires.
I hope that only refers to the changing part, not the fun part.
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What are your thoughts on people playing Dominion in Tabletop Simulator without having bought a physical copy of Dominion or a Dominion Online subscription?
I don't lose sleep over it. There is a publisher, there is an online publisher, I can only come out so strongly in favor of "screw those guys." We let you play Dominion itself for free on ShuffleIT, and with expansions if your opponent has them. If we ever don't have an online version I imagine we will go back to letting people have free ones.
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IMO Adventures, Empires and the 2nd editions are excellent so your process is more or less working (Not personally fond of nocturne but it's not "bad")
Thanks; we had a lot of fun playtesting Nocturne, but I would change it a lot at this point, which is not true of Adventures or Empires. I would probably split it into two sets, one with Night, Spirits, and Boons, and the other with Heirlooms and some other new mechanic. I wouldn't do Hexes (too slow). I would only do ~5 Fate cards.
For what it's worth, I'm glad it didn't go down that way. The things that are commonly complained about (increased setup complexity, slow down of the game) are obviously real, but I (and those in my game group) have found their impact to be overstated. Some of the reasons for that come down to personal preference or how I choose to organize and setup the game, so I'm not suggesting that those who feel otherwise are wrong. I just want to share that there are those of us out here who think Nocturne is fine how it is.
Maybe the other thing that went with Heirlooms would have been great. Stuff happens instead of other stuff happening. It's okay for fun stuff to go into the outtakes due to having problems; I replace it with fun stuff with fewer problems. I mean there would be people defending every fun thing that didn't actually make it into the sets. People defend Alchemy, want more of it. You know.
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IMO Adventures, Empires and the 2nd editions are excellent so your process is more or less working (Not personally fond of nocturne but it's not "bad")
Thanks; we had a lot of fun playtesting Nocturne, but I would change it a lot at this point, which is not true of Adventures or Empires.
I hope that only refers to the changing part, not the fun part.
Communication is tricky but I bet I did okay there.
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People defend Alchemy, want more of it. You know.
Yeah, but those people are just crazy. ;)
Maybe the other thing that went with Heirlooms would have been great. Stuff happens instead of other stuff happening. It's okay for fun stuff to go into the outtakes due to having problems; I replace it with fun stuff with fewer problems. I mean there would be people defending every fun thing that didn't actually make it into the sets.
If I had your perspective, your knowledge of what other option were on the table, I might come to the same conclusion. Alas. I only know what I know.
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Was Nocturne designed especially with full random in mind? To me it's felt like, these are some of my favorite mechanics but it gets a bit overwhelming when you're playing with lots of Nocturne cards. It solves the issue that Dark Ages and Prosperity have of having a really fun mechanic that only 3 cards use, so I can see that being a consideration. But I know you've said you mostly play with two or so expansions at a time.
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Was Nocturne designed especially with full random in mind? To me it's felt like, these are some of my favorite mechanics but it gets a bit overwhelming when you're playing with lots of Nocturne cards. It solves the issue that Dark Ages and Prosperity have of having a really fun mechanic that only 3 cards use, so I can see that being a consideration. But I know you've said you mostly play with two or so expansions at a time.
Yes I playtest mostly with two expansions at once - 5 cards from the new set, 5 from a single older set. So, no, it was not designed for full random specifically.
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Was Nocturne designed especially with full random in mind? To me it's felt like, these are some of my favorite mechanics but it gets a bit overwhelming when you're playing with lots of Nocturne cards. It solves the issue that Dark Ages and Prosperity have of having a really fun mechanic that only 3 cards use, so I can see that being a consideration. But I know you've said you mostly play with two or so expansions at a time.
Yes I playtest mostly with two expansions at once - 5 cards from the new set, 5 from a single older set. So, no, it was not designed for full random specifically.
This is actually how I usually randomize my kingdoms - only cards from two large expansions, or two large and one small (and sometimes some promos). I find that cards within a single expansion tend to interact better, and some sets interact better with specific other sets (like Dark Ages + Alchemy, Properity + Guilds).
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Have you put any thought in what the name of your last Dominion expansion will be?
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Have you put any thought in what the name of your last Dominion expansion will be?
I thought it would be cool to go out with Dark Ages. Given that the odds were I would make more expansions, it at least seemed neat that it would be the last expansion for a bit.
Then it switched places with Guilds due to the Base Cards product, and then I made more expansions.
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Have you put any thought in what the name of your last Dominion expansion will be?
I thought it would be cool to go out with Dark Ages. Given that the odds were I would make more expansions, it at least seemed neat that it would be the last expansion for a bit.
Then it switched places with Guilds due to the Base Cards product, and then I made more expansions.
It would've been cool if Renaissance was the first expansion after Guilds.
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Have you ever thought about doing non-functional promos instead of kingdom cards/events? I mean stuff that has no impact on the game but is cool to have or look at, like a trash mat with different art or special coins or something.
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Have you ever thought about doing non-functional promos instead of kingdom cards/events? I mean stuff that has no impact on the game but is cool to have or look at, like a trash mat with different art or special coins or something.
Jay isn't interested in doing alternate art stuff. A significant argument is: some people are going to feel obligated to get whatever it is, to have everything; we're happier if the thing they feel obligated to get is something worth having.
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Have you ever thought about doing non-functional promos instead of kingdom cards/events? I mean stuff that has no impact on the game but is cool to have or look at, like a trash mat with different art or special coins or something.
Way back, one of the games magazines had some playmats for Dominion (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameaccessory/139661/dominion-playmat), with spaces for your deck and discard pile and a tiny "in play" area.
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Have you ever thought about doing non-functional promos instead of kingdom cards/events? I mean stuff that has no impact on the game but is cool to have or look at, like a trash mat with different art or special coins or something.
Way back, one of the games magazines had some playmats for Dominion (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameaccessory/139661/dominion-playmat), with spaces for your deck and discard pile and a tiny "in play" area.
German base even shipped with those. Ah, the memories.
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As it happens, I've been teaching a lot of new people Dominion in the past week or four. A deck-and-discard mat would actually help a lot, given how easy people find it to get the discard pile confused with in-play. And you have to wait until someone plays a gainer then draw which triggers a reshuffle before it's even apparent to them why it can matter.
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As it happens, I've been teaching a lot of new people Dominion in the past week or four. A deck-and-discard mat would actually help a lot, given how easy people find it to get the discard pile confused with in-play. And you have to wait until someone plays a gainer then draw which triggers a reshuffle before it's even apparent to them why it can matter.
Or trashes down to two Markets.
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As it happens, I've been teaching a lot of new people Dominion in the past week or four. A deck-and-discard mat would actually help a lot, given how easy people find it to get the discard pile confused with in-play. And you have to wait until someone plays a gainer then draw which triggers a reshuffle before it's even apparent to them why it can matter.
I use pencils for that (although any kind of stick-like objects or small, long objects that can be used as dividers could work).
And one horizontal pencil to separate this-turn-discards from future-turn-discards also seems to help a lot. People tend to put Durations and other Actions in the same row, in the same orientation, and end up cleaning them up in the same turn or forgetting whether they played them this turn or in a previous one.
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Hi, I checked the secret history but it didn't quite answer it for me. Why is Seaway different than Pathfinder, Training and Lost Arts? Why doesn't it simply gives +buy to any card? Was it simply too boring for some reason, or was it anything else?
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Hi, I checked the secret history but it didn't quite answer it for me. Why is Seaway different than Pathfinder, Training and Lost Arts? Why doesn't it simply gives +buy to any card? Was it simply too boring for some reason, or was it anything else?
It's because +Buy has a very strange demand curve. The first one is very strong, but then subsequent ones drop down in value a lot.
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Hi, I checked the secret history but it didn't quite answer it for me. Why is Seaway different than Pathfinder, Training and Lost Arts? Why doesn't it simply gives +buy to any card? Was it simply too boring for some reason, or was it anything else?
The Secret History does answer you question. The first version of the Event was without cost restriction and the gaining was conditional:
I had a version that worked on any pile but only gave you a card if it was cheap enough. It was just simpler to tie the token to the gaining.
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The Secret History doesn't directly answer the first question which, I think, is why does it gain you a card at all? (Instead of just placing a token like the others.) That's answered better here:
This might be trivial to say, but I imagine gaining the card makes it better because you want to play it anyway. On the other hand, the cost of the card is restricted to 4, so it balances out. Playtesters, with this one, did you just want to shake things up with the vanilla token events? Or was there a practical reason it couldn't be a direct companion to Pathfinding/Lost Arts/Training?
You tend to want as much +Actions/$/Cards as you can get, but are less likely to want tons of +Buy. So Seaway competes with +Buy cards and so to avoid shutting them out it wanted to cost $5. That meant it had to do something extra, and what it does is get you a copy of the card.
It went back and forth on whether or not it could put the token on a card it couldn't gain. I liked being able to put the token on more expensive cards but it wasn't worth making Seaway more complex.
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How did the recurring card 'themes' find their place into the game (verbs for Remodel variants, magic for Cursing, religious stuff for some Trashing, storage for sifters, village-related things for +2 actions, et cetera)?
Did you already ensure to keep this consistent when you first started? Did it 'just happen'? Did you discover you were doing it and wanted to keep it consistent in later cards?
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How did the recurring card 'themes' find their place into the game (verbs for Remodel variants, magic for Cursing, religious stuff for some Trashing, storage for sifters, village-related things for +2 actions, et cetera)?
Did you already ensure to keep this consistent when you first started? Did it 'just happen'? Did you discover you were doing it and wanted to keep it consistent in later cards?
The related names both help you remember what a card does, and help me name cards. So I had them right away; they were not unintentional. There's a 2nd "village" on the 2nd page of cards; I probably had it within a week of the first one.
I wasn't always consistent though, for random reasons.
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Do you sleeve your own Dominion? Is there playtesting with sleeved cards? Do you use the original boxes or do you have a storage solution?
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Do you sleeve your own Dominion? Is there playtesting with sleeved cards? Do you use the original boxes or do you have a storage solution?
Donald doesn't play with the actual cards.
He plays with his prototype, which are sleeved Magic: The Gathering cards.
He uses plastic binders as his storage solution.
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Do you sleeve your own Dominion? Is there playtesting with sleeved cards? Do you use the original boxes or do you have a storage solution?
Donald doesn't play with the actual cards.
He plays with his prototype, which are sleeved Magic: The Gathering cards.
He uses plastic binders as his storage solution.
Ah. Do sleeved cards actually fit in binders? I'm using Ultra Pro Collector's Albums and put 10 or 12 cards in each pocket. I'm thinking about sleeving (due to Coppers and Estates now having visibly different backs) but I'm not sure if it will fit (in terms of thickness).
Also, which size of sleeves do you need for Dominion cards?
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Did you ever consider putting designated spots for the cubes on the Projects, maybe overlaying the art?
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Do you sleeve your own Dominion? Is there playtesting with sleeved cards? Do you use the original boxes or do you have a storage solution?
Donald doesn't play with the actual cards.
He plays with his prototype, which are sleeved Magic: The Gathering cards.
He uses plastic binders as his storage solution.
They are sleeved Magic cards, but I store them in the long cardboard boxes that some people store Magic cards in.
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Did you ever consider putting designated spots for the cubes on the Projects, maybe overlaying the art?
I didn't.
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"Silver with a bonus for $4" was considered one of the taboos of card design here, but that's what Patron is. Was it ever actually a rule for you?
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"Silver with a bonus for $4" was considered one of the taboos of card design here, but that's what Patron is. Was it ever actually a rule for you?
Yes, I am the source of that idea. The problem is that normal people buy Silver for $4 often enough that they just automatically empty the Silver-plus-for-$4 pile, without regard even for what the bonus is.
Patron does have this issue, though not always. As you can see it seemed like it wasn't enough of a problem to not do the card. And the fact that I hadn't done one of these meant... that I hadn't done one of these.
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Is there a specific reason Canal says "During your turns" instead of "During your buy phase"? (To avoid hurting trash for benefit cards.)
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Is there a specific reason Canal says "During your turns" instead of "During your buy phase"? (To avoid hurting trash for benefit cards.)
It's just lining up with other Bridges. The TFB cards can take the hit.
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Unlike previous sets, it seems like some of the cards/projects that weren't previewed in Renaissance seem more insane than the ones that were. Capitalism comes to mind, but also Scepter, Border Guard, Fleet.
What was the main rationale/process behind which cards get previewed?
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Unlike previous sets, it seems like some of the cards/projects that weren't previewed in Renaissance seem more insane than the ones that were. Capitalism comes to mind, but also Scepter, Border Guard, Fleet.
What was the main rationale/process behind which cards get previewed?
Fleet was teased, Scepter is really cool, but what is insane with Border Guard? Am I missing something? It's surely good and all, but more than that?
I kinda like that the bomb with Capitalism was hidden (almost) all together.
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Maybe this will be mentioned in the secret history... what's the reason for Patron (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Patron) being a reaction? It's wording and function seem very similar to Fortress (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Fortress), which is not a reaction. In general, reactions always do something from a hidden place (almost always your hand); and the blue reminds people that they can do something at a time they normally couldn't. But why are Patron and Fortress different here?
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Interesting!
I'd substitute a related alternative question: how come Fortress isn't a Reaction when Tunnel is? (-8
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Interesting!
I'd substitute a related alternative question: how come Fortress isn't a Reaction when Tunnel is? (-8
Tunnel has the argument that it is revealed from a hidden place (it could be buried in the discard pile). But yeah, we really don't have a consistent definition of "Reaction"; there are no rules attached to it. Donald has said that the reason for the type is the color, and the reason for the color is to make it stand out in your hand.
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Interesting!
I'd substitute a related alternative question: how come Fortress isn't a Reaction when Tunnel is? (-8
Tunnel has the argument that it is revealed from a hidden place (it could be buried in the discard pile). But yeah, we really don't have a consistent definition of "Reaction"; there are no rules attached to it. Donald has said that the reason for the type is the color, and the reason for the color is to make it stand out in your hand.
Aren’t Reactions always supposed to be optional? Fortress isn’t optional. When the card is trashed, it’s returned to your hand. I guess if your Patron is revealed, you can choose not to perform the Reaction. I agree it doesn’t say «may» or anything like that, but couldn’t you choose not to react? I don’t know why you wouldn’t want that +1 Coffers, but that’s another question.
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On-gain and on-trash triggers simply aren't Reactions, probably because they happen automatically. Sure, Patron also happens automatically but this card is an anomaly in more than one respect.
Since Lurker all the on-trash stuff from Dark Ages can also be triggered when the card is in the Supply, not just in your hand and deck, so having them be Reactions would not be that wise.
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Interesting!
I'd substitute a related alternative question: how come Fortress isn't a Reaction when Tunnel is? (-8
Tunnel has the argument that it is revealed from a hidden place (it could be buried in the discard pile). But yeah, we really don't have a consistent definition of "Reaction"; there are no rules attached to it. Donald has said that the reason for the type is the color, and the reason for the color is to make it stand out in your hand.
Aren’t Reactions always supposed to be optional? Fortress isn’t optional. When the card is trashed, it’s returned to your hand. I guess if your Patron is revealed, you can choose not to perform the Reaction. I agree it doesn’t say «may» or anything like that, but couldn’t you choose not to react? I don’t know why you wouldn’t want that +1 Coffers, but that’s another question.
Pretty sure Patron isn't optional; but this is another good rules question...
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Unlike previous sets, it seems like some of the cards/projects that weren't previewed in Renaissance seem more insane than the ones that were. Capitalism comes to mind, but also Scepter, Border Guard, Fleet.
What was the main rationale/process behind which cards get previewed?
It's always nice to save stuff so that the full set isn't disappointing (lots of set highlights weren't previewed in the past - I'll give the Peasant line as an example), but the previews are sure trying to show off cool stuff. But they're hemmed in some too. With half the kingdom cards off-theme this time, there aren't many cards for each theme.
The natural days were off-theme, villagers, coffers, artifacts, projects. You could do it other ways - e.g., every day a Project - but that way looked good.
- There were a lot of options for off-theme. I decided to rule out the Duration cards and Scepter as they stray from the "simplicity" message. I wanted cards that would be fun to see over and over during previews week, which ruled out Witch with its Curses and Inventor with its mega-turns. Hideout was on the list for a while, but I decided Mountain Village would be more fun for previews week. And Improve, well, they couldn't all make it.
- Villagers came ahead of Coffers and so didn't want cards with both; the three I picked were shoe-ins.
- Coffers was hemmed in; I didn't want to show multiple cards with both Coffers and Villagers, and didn't want to show both Ducat and Spices. Silk Merchant was a set stand-out for playtesters, so it made it over Patron. It overlaps some with Lackeys and Spices so I shouldn't show those on their days. And Swashbuckler had an Artifact.
- For Artifacts I just didn't do the card with two Artifacts, that was easy.
- I wanted 3 simple Projects and 3 wackier ones. For preview week considerations I took Fair over Barracks; those are the two simplest. Silos is pretty simple. Citadel gets in something with a big effect that we still all immediately understand. The three wackier ones are all personal favorites. Fleet wouldn't have added as much for previews week. There were playtesters who adored Capitalism, but also ones who didn't like that Capitalism and Patron single out an unusual subset of cards. That doesn't seem to have bothered you people at large, so look at that, playtesters.
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Maybe this will be mentioned in the secret history... what's the reason for Patron (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Patron) being a reaction? It's wording and function seem very similar to Fortress (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Fortress), which is not a reaction. In general, reactions always do something from a hidden place (almost always your hand); and the blue reminds people that they can do something at a time they normally couldn't. But why are Patron and Fortress different here?
The blue reminds you that Patron does something when it shows up from wherever, whether it's your hand or not. Similarly Tunnel is a Reaction and sometimes works from your deck.
Fortress could have been a reaction. It was a decision to make back when. The argument for not making when-trashed cards reactions - and not making when-gain cards reactions too, or giving them their own color - is that the card is involved. You know. You play Militia; Moat isn't involved, but I could use it. You play Venture; Tunnel and Patron are just going by, but they matter. You buy or trash Silk Merchant; it's right there, in on the action. So we don't need to call attention to it as much as we do Moat / Patron / etc.
But, it certainly could have been that when-gain/trash got colors.
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Thanks. So is Patron optional, via some sort of rule that says you never have to "reveal" a reaction for its effect? Or is it not optional, because it doesn't say "may".
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Thanks. So is Patron optional, via some sort of rule that says you never have to "reveal" a reaction for its effect? Or is it not optional, because it doesn't say "may".
It's not optional. And we don't need to keep you honest; it was revealed!
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I remember when I asked Donald X. about it, he had at least 10 dimensions of complexity/simplicity that he considers (some of which would fall under your three), but I expect it's the additional things that Donald X. is trying to optimize that makes it near impossible to satisfy all the types of simplicity.
But seriously, you should ask him about it. The statement that you quoted from me is something I've seen him say many times.
Summoning Donald X. to enlighten us. What are your 10 dimensions of complexity/simplicity? Will number 7 shock us? And when can we expect the secret history for renaissance?
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Is there a specific reason or formula for the order types are written on cards?
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Seems like the color possibilities for card types have just about been exhausted! Have you considered different patterns (zigzags, polka dots, etc.) for when colors can no longer do the trick?
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(zigzags, polka dots, etc.)
Please, please, no.
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There's plenty more colors, just go to http://randomcolour.com/ and use whatever pops up.
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Seems like the color possibilities for card types have just about been exhausted! Have you considered different patterns (zigzags, polka dots, etc.) for when colors can no longer do the trick?
Travellers have a pattern instead of a color, kind of.
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I remember when I asked Donald X. about it, he had at least 10 dimensions of complexity/simplicity that he considers (some of which would fall under your three), but I expect it's the additional things that Donald X. is trying to optimize that makes it near impossible to satisfy all the types of simplicity.
But seriously, you should ask him about it. The statement that you quoted from me is something I've seen him say many times.
Summoning Donald X. to enlighten us. What are your 10 dimensions of complexity/simplicity? Will number 7 shock us? And when can we expect the secret history for renaissance?
I dug up the post where Ben asked me what I meant by complexity, and here's what I said.
The big thing that is *not* a problem is strategic complexity. It's great if a card has lots of strategic complexity, if doing well with it involves thinking about it, and it varies from game to game so that you have to reassess it, and it takes you a while to really come to terms with it.
Complex things include:
- lots of text, like on Noble Brigand (the big one you see me constantly worrying about)
- multiple concepts, like on Jack of All Trades
- making you read additional cards (this is also more text and more concepts), like Vampire
- making you wonder "why would I want that, I must be missing something" like Rats
- having lots of FAQs, like Band of Misfits
- sending you to the rulebook to know what it does, like Candlestick Maker
- invoking rules players don't really know, like "lose track" or what "kingdom card" means
- adding tracking, like Smugglers
- clauses you might mentally edit out, like "non-Victory" on Haggler
- defying expectations mechanically, like uh something
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Is there a specific reason or formula for the order types are written on cards?
The vague idea is to put the ones that determine when you can play the card first, and after that have the ones that don't mean as much. I may have been inconsistent somewhere.
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Seems like the color possibilities for card types have just about been exhausted! Have you considered different patterns (zigzags, polka dots, etc.) for when colors can no longer do the trick?
I haven't considered that.
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The vague idea is to put the ones that determine when you can play the card first, and after that have the ones that don't mean as much. I may have been inconsistent somewhere.
I believe Raider (Night-Duration-Attack) is the only inconsistency; Enchantress, Haunted Woods, and Swamp Hag all list Attack before Duration. Except for Raider, the types have been ordered as follows (types on the same tier have not appeared together):
- Action, Curse
- Gathering, Night, Ruins, Treasure, Zombie
- Attack, Reserve
- Doom, Duration, Fate, Looter, Knight, Prize, Traveller
- Spirit, Victory
- Castle, Heirloom, Reaction
- Shelter
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(types on the same tier have not appeared together)
[...]
Attack, Reserve
Curious, now you mention it: on the face of it, Reserve-Attack seems like fertile ground for interesting cards!
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(types on the same tier have not appeared together)
[...]
Attack, Reserve
Curious, now you mention it: on the face of it, Reserve-Attack seems like fertile ground for interesting cards!
It's really not mechanically different from Attack-Duration. Keep in mind it could never "attack" when it is called; it would have to do its thing on-play.
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Trivial example: Wine Merchant, but with some vicious attack substituted for the +$4, +1 Buy. That would be an entirely practical Action-Attack-Reserve.
Not necessarily a very interesting one, but this isn't the variants forum. (-8
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It's really not mechanically different from Attack-Duration. Keep in mind it could never "attack" when it is called; it would have to do its thing on-play.
There's no reason why it couldn't also hurt the opponent when it's called.
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It's really not mechanically different from Attack-Duration. Keep in mind it could never "attack" when it is called; it would have to do its thing on-play.
There's no reason why it couldn't also hurt the opponent when it's called.
Of course... but that wouldn't be related to the attack type at that point. And in would be better for avoiding rules confusion if it didn't have the attack type. IGG could have the attack type too, but it doesn't because it would mislead people into thinking Moat can do anything about it.
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Of course... but that wouldn't be related to the attack type at that point. And in would be better for avoiding rules confusion if it didn't have the attack type. IGG could have the attack type too, but it doesn't because it would mislead people into thinking Moat can do anything about it.
Yes, it would be confusing if calling a card hurt the other players. Plus it would be more political than regular attacks (e.g. the attack is Militia; how many cards does everyone have, is the person with 5 cards winning).
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What advice can you give for refining game ideas?
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What advice can you give for refining game ideas?
Well I pace a lot. As I like to say, I don't wait for an idea to come to me, I hunt it down. Uh, write what you know? The question is pretty vague and open-ended, but it's not like I'll have good advice if you make it specific and pointy.
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Well I pace a lot.
Is that pace as in take things slowly, or pace as in walk around the room?
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Well I pace a lot.
Is that pace as in take things slowly, or pace as in walk around the room?
Walk around the room.
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Well I pace a lot.
Is that pace as in take things slowly, or pace as in walk around the room?
Walk around the room.
At what pace do you pace? Do you pace your pacing, or are your paces unpaced?
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Well I pace a lot.
Is that pace as in take things slowly, or pace as in walk around the room?
Walk around the room.
At what pace do you pace? Do you pace your pacing, or are your paces unpaced?
New York City?!
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Well I pace a lot.
Is that pace as in take things slowly, or pace as in walk around the room?
Walk around the room.
At what pace do you pace? Do you pace your pacing, or are your paces unpaced?
It's not the case that it's a race or a chase. I just pace in the space at my place.
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Well I pace a lot.
Is that pace as in take things slowly, or pace as in walk around the room?
Walk around the room.
At what pace do you pace? Do you pace your pacing, or are your paces unpaced?
It's not the case that it's a race or a chase. I just pace in the space at my place.
I didn't know you could write like Doc Seuss
I didn't know your words flow so loose
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Now I want to see a rhyming Dominion expansion!
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Now I want to see a rhyming Dominion expansion!
Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker?
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Why were Priest and Inventor worded such that their effects don't apply to their first play? I.e why isn't Inventor " Cards cost $1 less. Gain a card costing up to $3"
Also why aren't they "while this is in play" effects?
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Why were Priest and Inventor worded such that their effects don't apply to their first play? I.e why isn't Inventor " Cards cost $1 less. Gain a card costing up to $3"
Also why aren't they "while this is in play" effects?
Both things are for simplicity. Doing the math for you is simpler than not doing it for you. For a bit there I favored "while in play" but now I think people find it more confusing than "this turn."
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Do you ever playtest with people from other cultures?
I sometimes see you say playtesters preferred A to B, when I prefer B to A, and wonder if my being British has anything to do with it.
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Do you ever playtest with people from other cultures?
I sometimes see you say playtesters preferred A to B, when I prefer B to A, and wonder if my being British has anything to do with it.
I also preferred B. Man, what's up with those guys.
I don't know if there's any cultural bias towards particular kinds of things in Dominion cards. It's an area ripe for study. My playtesters have mostly been American mutts. For Adventures we had isotropic and a few of the online playtesters were Europeans, e.g. Stef, Qvist. A Finnish guy playtested some on my bad online version in the very early days. IRL once in a while a non-US-born Asian person or couple joins my table.
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Have you head of/played Artifact (the online TCG Valve is coming out with, designed by Richard Garfield)?
If so, what's your opinion?
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Have you head of/played Artifact (the online TCG Valve is coming out with, designed by Richard Garfield)?
If so, what's your opinion?
I have not played it. Looking at it now, my first thought is that it sounds like Spectromancer (which you could try now if you wanted on a flash games website; I did like it); my second is hey I think Sir Vander talked to me about this. The big thing I remember is, unlike Magic, he felt like you were never just in control of the game (mentioned as something interesting about it).
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Question about design consideration:
If there was a card that is not in the supply nor next to it, and that still consisted of only one differently named card, would the card still need a unique type? For instance, would one differently named Zombie card need it, or would three identical Shelter cards do?
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Question about design consideration:
If there was a card that is not in the supply nor next to it, and that still consisted of only one differently named card, would the card still need a unique type? For instance, would one differently named Zombie card need it, or would three identical Shelter cards do?
That isn't how types are used. Zombie is there so that Necromancer can refer to the type; there's a certain niceness to having this tag to refer to the cards by, but of course we could call them Zombies from the names alone. The Spirits have that type for Exorcist; Wish doesn't have such a use and is just an Action.
So, I mean with no other information, any random unique card has no special type requirements.
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Question about design consideration:
If there was a card that is not in the supply nor next to it, and that still consisted of only one differently named card, would the card still need a unique type? For instance, would one differently named Zombie card need it, or would three identical Shelter cards do?
That isn't how types are used. Zombie is there so that Necromancer can refer to the type; there's a certain niceness to having this tag to refer to the cards by, but of course we could call them Zombies from the names alone. The Spirits have that type for Exorcist; Wish doesn't have such a use and is just an Action.
So, I mean with no other information, any random unique card has no special type requirements.
Awesome, thank you for taking the time :D
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In one topic you mention the 6 cards that would be replaced if Seaside got upgraded. Have you made lists like that for other expansions?
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In one topic you mention the 6 cards that would be replaced if Seaside got upgraded. Have you made lists like that for other expansions?
No. Well, there's a post from a few years back where I go over things I'd change about expansions, but it didn't specifically consider the update pack scenario, and so was card changes that I can't actually make. When doing the new cards for the main set and Intrigue, it was a question, what about Seaside, and I thought a little about what I'd do. Prosperity could also improve, but Seaside needed it more and couldn't get it, so I didn't worry about Prosperity.
Alchemy just wouldn't be worth the effort; I could spend months getting a nice large set out of it - changing too much to have an update pack - that some people beg for but which many would automatically have no interest in. It is trivial to find a better project than this.
For Hinterlands the changes I want are trouble, they mostly involve making cards slightly worse, and I can't just make the simplified/weaker versions because the update pack that would have to exist would be a truly awful product. I don't want to replace the cards with new ones but that's the best I could do.
And then, Mixed Box and Dark Ages don't have so much to fix. Well overpay is too wordy of a mechanic but uh replacing it completely doesn't sound like a good project when whatever it was could go into a new expansion instead.
One thing I didn't consider at the time that might have been possible is a mixed update pack - seven new cards that were spread around between expansions. I haven't put in any work there either, I just see now that it might have been an option.
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In one topic you mention the 6 cards that would be replaced if Seaside got upgraded. Have you made lists like that for other expansions?
No. Well, there's a post from a few years back where I go over things I'd change about expansions, but it didn't specifically consider the update pack scenario, and so was card changes that I can't actually make. When doing the new cards for the main set and Intrigue, it was a question, what about Seaside, and I thought a little about what I'd do. Prosperity could also improve, but Seaside needed it more and couldn't get it, so I didn't worry about Prosperity.
Alchemy just wouldn't be worth the effort; I could spend months getting a nice large set out of it - changing too much to have an update pack - that some people beg for but which many would automatically have no interest in. It is trivial to find a better project than this.
For Hinterlands the changes I want are trouble, they mostly involve making cards slightly worse, and I can't just make the simplified/weaker versions because the update pack that would have to exist would be a truly awful product. I don't want to replace the cards with new ones but that's the best I could do.
And then, Mixed Box and Dark Ages don't have so much to fix. Well overpay is too wordy of a mechanic but uh replacing it completely doesn't sound like a good project when whatever it was could go into a new expansion instead.
One thing I didn't consider at the time that might have been possible is a mixed update pack - seven new cards that were spread around between expansions. I haven't put in any work there either, I just see now that it might have been an option.
I'd buy that mixed update pack in a heartbeat (and I also hope that it would include a list of cards you would remove, had these new cards been released as part of 2nd edition versions of their respective expansions).
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In one topic you mention the 6 cards that would be replaced if Seaside got upgraded. Have you made lists like that for other expansions?
No. Well, there's a post from a few years back where I go over things I'd change about expansions, but it didn't specifically consider the update pack scenario, and so was card changes that I can't actually make. When doing the new cards for the main set and Intrigue, it was a question, what about Seaside, and I thought a little about what I'd do. Prosperity could also improve, but Seaside needed it more and couldn't get it, so I didn't worry about Prosperity.
Alchemy just wouldn't be worth the effort; I could spend months getting a nice large set out of it - changing too much to have an update pack - that some people beg for but which many would automatically have no interest in. It is trivial to find a better project than this.
For Hinterlands the changes I want are trouble, they mostly involve making cards slightly worse, and I can't just make the simplified/weaker versions because the update pack that would have to exist would be a truly awful product. I don't want to replace the cards with new ones but that's the best I could do.
And then, Mixed Box and Dark Ages don't have so much to fix. Well overpay is too wordy of a mechanic but uh replacing it completely doesn't sound like a good project when whatever it was could go into a new expansion instead.
One thing I didn't consider at the time that might have been possible is a mixed update pack - seven new cards that were spread around between expansions. I haven't put in any work there either, I just see now that it might have been an option.
I'd buy that mixed update pack in a heartbeat (and I also hope that it would include a list of cards you would remove, had these new cards been released as part of 2nd edition versions of their respective expansions).
Me too.
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One thing I didn't consider at the time that might have been possible is a mixed update pack - seven new cards that were spread around between expansions. I haven't put in any work there either, I just see now that it might have been an option.
Unless you were sure people would remove the cards you "replaced", wouldn't that be a miniature version of the treasure-chest expansion people often clamour for?
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One thing I didn't consider at the time that might have been possible is a mixed update pack - seven new cards that were spread around between expansions. I haven't put in any work there either, I just see now that it might have been an option.
Unless you were sure people would remove the cards you "replaced", wouldn't that be a miniature version of the treasure-chest expansion people often clamour for?
Included in every box is a tiny smart incendiary device that seeks out and destroys the removed cards.
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One thing I didn't consider at the time that might have been possible is a mixed update pack - seven new cards that were spread around between expansions. I haven't put in any work there either, I just see now that it might have been an option.
Unless you were sure people would remove the cards you "replaced", wouldn't that be a miniature version of the treasure-chest expansion people often clamour for?
New printings of the various expansions would have the replacements. That's the whole idea; the update pack would just be so you didn't have to buy all the expansions to get the replacements.
Also the cards wouldn't specifically be trying to be a treasure chest; they wouldn't have to get in any particular mechanics.
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Hi Donald!
I've been wondering for some time: Is Dominion Online something you could consider a spinoff interesting enough to do something special for? I'm not talking about new cards really, you haver answered that before, but rather things like tweaks that smooths the online play experience and maybe sideway cards that perhaps only is relevant to have in an online, competitive, environment? Is it something you could see yourself enjoying working on future on?
Also: Have you entertained thoughts on doing some very niched Dominion expansions, biased to a certain element in the game? I realise that there is a money factor there, a niched expansion will have fewer fans, but if enough interest is granted: Would it be fun for you to do, say, a very swingy expansion or an extremely player interaction/attacky one? (Could of course focus on other themes, only mentioned things I could see myself really be hyped about)
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I've been wondering for some time: Is Dominion Online something you could consider a spinoff interesting enough to do something special for? I'm not talking about new cards really, you haver answered that before, but rather things like tweaks that smooths the online play experience and maybe sideway cards that perhaps only is relevant to have in an online, competitive, environment? Is it something you could see yourself enjoying working on future on?
The idea is to keep online Dominion as an implementation of the physical game, that promotes the physical game without e.g. teaching you rules that will be wrong there.
I don't need to rule out extra online content. There were the campaigns and their special rules before.
Also: Have you entertained thoughts on doing some very niched Dominion expansions, biased to a certain element in the game? I realise that there is a money factor there, a niched expansion will have fewer fans, but if enough interest is granted: Would it be fun for you to do, say, a very swingy expansion or an extremely player interaction/attacky one? (Could of course focus on other themes, only mentioned things I could see myself really be hyped about)
I feel like Dominion itself is niche enough to not do something nicher.
There was a player interaction heavy set where Dark Ages is, but I stole cards from it for other sets because all sets needed those cards. I wouldn't call it niche; it was great. An extra-attacky set seems counter to what most players want.
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Why does Improve only work on Actions and not Treasures?
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Why does Improve only work on Actions and not Treasures?
With the "exactly" clause, working on treasures would make it way stronger, as it becomes an already-spent Copper-trasher.
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Why does Improve only work on Actions and not Treasures?
With the "exactly" clause, working on treasures would make it way stronger, as it becomes an already-spent Copper-trasher.
Yes; the whole idea was to make something that gave you some of the fun Procession does. "Exactly" goes that direction and then it's a much different card if it can trash Copper.
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Why can't Miser reserve non-Copper treasures?
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Why can't Miser reserve non-Copper treasures?
I wanted to avoid potential confusion on the Tavern mat. The only card there that isn't a Reserve card is Copper.
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Why can't Miser reserve non-Copper treasures?
I wanted to avoid potential confusion on the Tavern mat. The only card there that isn't a Reserve card is Copper.
Or a Overlord/Band of Misfits
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If Miser let you put any Treasure card on your mat, things could get very confusing indeed with Capitalism.
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If Miser let you put any Treasure card on your mat, things could get very confusing indeed with Capitalism.
There's also Coin of the Realm for Miser shenanigans in that scenario.
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Why the return to Bridge-like cost reduction with Inventor? (rather than Highway-like)
I'm into it.
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Why the return to Bridge-like cost reduction with Inventor? (rather than Highway-like)
I'm into it.
Why were Priest and Inventor worded such that their effects don't apply to their first play? I.e why isn't Inventor " Cards cost $1 less. Gain a card costing up to $3"
Also why aren't they "while this is in play" effects?
Both things are for simplicity. Doing the math for you is simpler than not doing it for you. For a bit there I favored "while in play" but now I think people find it more confusing than "this turn."
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You can also argue that probably any 9th expansion is only for people who bought 8 expansions (or maybe 6-7 leaving out 1-2 that sounded bad to them), no matter what the contents.
300 year old post, but I feel like it didn't really pan out this way. One of the cool things about Dominion (imo) is that any combination of expansions is fine, and no set depends on having experience with any other set. That made it considerably less intimidating to get into for me, knowing that it basically didn't matter what order I bought them in.
A number of your older posts talk about how expansions can only do so much, and that you'd prefer to do more spin-offs. Obviously you thought releasing a recent expansion was a good idea (spoiler: it was :D), but do you still agree with past-DXV re: spin-offs?
Also, thank you to the above poster for quoting Donald's post re: Inventor.
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You can also argue that probably any 9th expansion is only for people who bought 8 expansions (or maybe 6-7 leaving out 1-2 that sounded bad to them), no matter what the contents.
300 year old post, but I feel like it didn't really pan out this way. One of the cool things about Dominion (imo) is that any combination of expansions is fine, and no set depends on having experience with any other set. That made it considerably less intimidating to get into for me, knowing that it basically didn't matter what order I bought them in.
A number of your older posts talk about how expansions can only do so much, and that you'd prefer to do more spin-offs. Obviously you thought releasing a recent expansion was a good idea (spoiler: it was :D), but do you still agree with past-DXV re: spin-offs?
I haven't re-read the old posts but I bet I do.
I think there are plenty of people who bought expansions up to a certain set and then stopped. Sure there are other people who bought the five sets that looked the best, which weren't the first five in order, and may someday get another.
One issue with expansions over spin-offs is that they get more complex over time. This totally happened. Renaissance struggles to be simpler, but it's not like I can just do that every time and get that level of complexity. You really run out of simple stuff. Spin-offs offer the chance to do new simple cards based on whatever other elements the game has.
And they give people the chance to buy real Dominion with a different theme instead of buying a clone. That's nice too. The people who would have preferred a new expansion can still play the spin-off; it just doesn't combine. In exchange it gets to have whatever else it has.
What happened with the spin-offs was, I made one and took the Dominion part out and that's Kingdom Builder. And I made a second and took the Dominion part out and that's Temporum. I still think it would be good to make some.
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Wouldn't Dominion reach "peak complexity" given the limited size of Kingdoms? You can already have "12 unique mechanics" kingdoms.
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Wouldn't Dominion reach "peak complexity" given the limited size of Kingdoms? You can already have "12 unique mechanics" kingdoms.
There's no such thing as peak complexity. As you use up simple ideas, they're used up, and the cards get more complex.
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Wouldn't Dominion reach "peak complexity" given the limited size of Kingdoms? You can already have "12 unique mechanics" kingdoms.
This only makes sense if complexity is narrowly defined as "number of unique mechanics in the same game".
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Wouldn't Dominion reach "peak complexity" given the limited size of Kingdoms? You can already have "12 unique mechanics" kingdoms.
This only makes sense if complexity is narrowly defined as "number of unique mechanics in the same game".
It doesn't even work then, because cards can have more than one mechanic.
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It doesn't even work then, because cards can have more than one mechanic.
Example!
silk merchant - when-gain / when-trash / coffers / villagers
vampire - night / bat / hexes / states
peasant - travellers / reserve / tokens on piles
marauder - ruins / spoils / cause shelters to be added
tracker - heirloom / boons / wisp
treasurer - interact with trash / artifact
bridge troll - duration / -$1 token
contraband - treasure that does something / cause platinum and colony to be added
knights - mixed pile / VP that does something
possession - potion
pilgrimage - event / journey token
mountain pass - landmark / VP tokens / debt / bidding
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It doesn't even work then, because cards can have more than one mechanic.
Example!
silk merchant - when-gain / when-trash / coffers / villagers
vampire - night / bat / hexes / states
peasant - travellers / reserve / tokens on piles
marauder - ruins / spoils / cause shelters to be added
tracker - heirloom / boons / wisp
treasurer - interact with trash / artifact
bridge troll - duration / -$1 token
contraband - treasure that does something / cause platinum and colony to be added
knights - mixed pile / VP that does something
possession - potion
pilgrimage - event / journey token
mountain pass - landmark / VP tokens / debt / bidding
You forgot a card from this kingdom:
Young Witch - setup rules, extra supply pile, types not written on the card
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You have to put progressively more effort into making designs simple as there are more cards, but that doesn't mean simple designs have become impossible. It means you have to decide whether you prefer to spend increasing effort or prefer increasing complexity.
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Well, you can do all kinds of Smithies or Villages with a cherry on top but after some time most good ideas are used up and then you have to add an extra mechanism like e.g. Boons with Blessed Village. That is clearly more complex than Mining Village from the first expansion. Same like e.g. Nomad Camp and Woodcutter. Woodcutter is as simple as it gets so every Woodcutter variant is automatically more complex.
You can try to stick to simple stuff with new mechanisms and while Renaissance is arguably simpler than Adventures, Empires and Nocturne it doesn't do hypersimple, there are on-gain and on-trash triggers, there are States Artifacts and there are permanent Events Projects. This is arguably more complex than the early expansions.
So Donald is right. You can try to keep it as simple as possible but the general trend is naturally towards more complexity.
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You have to put progressively more effort into making designs simple as there are more cards, but that doesn't mean simple designs have become impossible.
Similarly you can keep getting toothpaste from a tube forever; you just need to apply more and more force. http://wondermark.com/776/
Which is to say, I disagree. And I mean there's no way out, there's no, oh there's the secret corner of simple cards. For example, Smithy is +3 Cards. That's the end of the line for that level of simplicity; there's no compelling single + left to do. Whatever hope +4 Cards had vanished when I did +4 Cards with a bonus. I could potentially do one via having a new kind of cost like debt, or a new kind of + like +Coffers... but that's added complexity, I just moved it to the rulebook. I can't make the same argument for e.g. Harbinger's level of complexity, and there is probably stuff left to do at that level. But you definitely run out. It's not just a question of how lazy I am. There is some amount of complexity, that Dominion has already used, where you can keep going long enough to not worry about it; the goal though is to be less complex than that.
I will explain it in detail. Card text is made up of qualified rules atoms strung together by program flow. Rules atoms are the smallest things you can do in the game; qualifiers are the most basic ways of distinguishing things. Program flow is logic for doing things - "do a then b," "if x do a else do b" and so on. There are only so many rules atoms, only so many qualifiers, and only so many ways to have programs flow. For a certain number of steps, there is a finite amount you can do; it's inarguable. And Dominion then drops huge chunks of possibilities by avoiding having cards that are so similar that players wouldn't like it. As well as e.g. by avoiding cards that would just be stupid. It also has very few rules atoms.
It means you have to decide whether you prefer to spend increasing effort or prefer increasing complexity.
Those aren't the only options. There are spin-offs; there are unrelated games.
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I think what Asper meant was that there are still plenty of card ideas that don't add any new complexity to the game, but it's going to be harder to do that than to introduce a new mechanic over time.
Every expansion so far has done both and I like it that way (although Hinterlands' mechanic appears in prosperity, and Empires and Nocturne have very few cards that only use base set mechanics).
Not sure how I'd feel about a new expansion with no new mechanics.
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And Dominion then drops huge chunks of possibilities by avoiding having cards that are so similar that players wouldn't like it
Do you have a standard for this? Has it changed over time?
Unless I did the maths wrong, even if all you own is Base Set (1st Edition), Guilds and Renaissance, the probability of a game with both Ducat and Candlestick Maker is 1 in 43.4 (61C8/63C2), and even then there are several cards that would make them different enough to be interesting. That's the worst case scenario (as long as there are no more small expansions). In my view, that is rare enough that the risk from any new card that's too similar to one from another expansion wouldn't warrant too much hate.
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How much time do you have logged in this forum?
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How much time do you have logged in this forum?
(https://img.aijaa.com/b/00338/14645534.jpg)
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How much time do you have logged in this forum?
(https://img.aijaa.com/b/00338/14645534.jpg)
Looks like I forgot about this feature. Also, congrats on almost 300 days Awaclus!
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I think what Asper meant was that there are still plenty of card ideas that don't add any new complexity to the game, but it's going to be harder to do that than to introduce a new mechanic over time.
You are the one talking about that.
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And Dominion then drops huge chunks of possibilities by avoiding having cards that are so similar that players wouldn't like it
Do you have a standard for this? Has it changed over time?
Unless I did the maths wrong, even if all you own is Base Set (1st Edition), Guilds and Renaissance, the probability of a game with both Ducat and Candlestick Maker is 1 in 43.4 (61C8/63C2), and even then there are several cards that would make them different enough to be interesting. That's the worst case scenario (as long as there are no more small expansions). In my view, that is rare enough that the risk from any new card that's too similar to one from another expansion wouldn't warrant too much hate.
There are already people who don't like Ducat, so it's not great to do lots of that, but I was talking about cards even more similar than that.
I don't have a way to quantify how new the cards have to be; they have to be new.
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I think what Asper meant was that there are still plenty of card ideas that don't add any new complexity to the game, but it's going to be harder to do that than to introduce a new mechanic over time.
You are the one talking about that.
No, this is what I meant. Apparently you were able to do something like Scolar after deciding to do, let's say, Vampire.
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I think what Asper meant was that there are still plenty of card ideas that don't add any new complexity to the game, but it's going to be harder to do that than to introduce a new mechanic over time.
You are the one talking about that.
No, this is what I meant. Apparently you were able to do something like Scolar after deciding to do, let's say, Vampire.
I don't know what you mean at all then. Scholar hadn't been done yet, so I could do Scholar; of course having done Vampire didn't get in the way.
I feel like I've thoroughly addressed the topic of why exactly you run out of simple things to do. If some part didn't make sense, you will have to point it out very precisely for me to able to answer you.
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Apparently you were able to do something like Scholar after deciding to do, let's say, Vampire.
I think it's fine, even preferable, that the cards don't monotonically increase in complexity from expansion to expansion. Imagine how boring Base would be if it had to have all of the simplest cards! And how unrepresentative...
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And they give people the chance to buy real Dominion with a different theme instead of buying a clone. That's nice too. The people who would have preferred a new expansion can still play the spin-off; it just doesn't combine. In exchange it gets to have whatever else it has.
So, it feels like this is the same line of thinking that gave us "Deckbuilder" on the back of Magic cards, and that went... where that went. Do you think Dominion differs from Magic in a way that makes a second game line in the Dominion family feasible? Do you ever wish you'd given Dominion a more generic card back so you could make combinable spinoffs? (not counting Intrigue)
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I think what Asper meant was that there are still plenty of card ideas that don't add any new complexity to the game, but it's going to be harder to do that than to introduce a new mechanic over time.
You are the one talking about that.
No, this is what I meant. Apparently you were able to do something like Scolar after deciding to do, let's say, Vampire.
I don't know what you mean at all then. Scholar hadn't been done yet, so I could do Scholar; of course having done Vampire didn't get in the way.
I feel like I've thoroughly addressed the topic of why exactly you run out of simple things to do. If some part didn't make sense, you will have to point it out very precisely for me to able to answer you.
I think I need to correct myself. I was being hasty to reply and didn't read the conversation throroughly. It's my bad for wasting your time with this. I'll still try to explain my point of view:
The thing with Vampire vs Scholar is, Vampire is complex, and Scholar is simple. You did Vampire before Scholar. So to me this means you didn't do Vampire because you ran out of simple options, as later there were still simple options left.
Sticking with the toothpaste comparison, I agree, of course you can't squeeze infinite amounts of toothpaste out of that thing. What I'm saying is that there's still plenty of toothpaste inside. That toothpaste isn't Smithy levels of simplicity, and it's not like I (or anybody else) wants new cards to be base levels of complexity. But every time you introduce a new submechanic, like Villagers, VP tokens, Durations, Reserves, Events, etc, you can do a bunch of things with them without each individual card being overly complex, and there's still plenty such mechanics in the tube.
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What you seem to mean is that you can view the issue as two-dimensional with one dimension being elementary card categories like terminal draws, villages, trashers, sifters, gainers, junkers and so on and the other dimension being new mechanisms added to it like Durations, Reserves, Night cards, etc.
When combined, they lead to something like a Reserve trasher (Ratcatcher), Duration payload (Merchant Ship) or Coffers militia (Villain). And what you argue for is to not throw too much stuff from the second dimension onto one card as it is the case with 3 above examples.
This is a fair point but as you mentioned Scholar let's stick with the other terminal draw cards from the new expansion that is intentionally as simple as possible: Donald made a nice example with a card that is probably not perceived as overly complex, namely Silk Merchant, which does add FOUR things second-dimension-wise. I seriously doubt that the card would be more fun if you castrated it and put some of those 4 mechanisms out.
Swashbuckler also does 3 extra things: Coffers, Artifacts, interaction with the discard.
Lackeys does 2 things, on gain and Villagers.
Would any of these cards be better if they were simpler like e.g "+x Cards +y Coffers" instead of Swashbuckler? There is only so much you can do without making cards boring (or inexistent, byebye Night-Durations) if one always only does what you seem to advocate: only add one new mechanic at at time.
I wonder whether anybody did protest back in the day when Goons threw Woodcutter, Militia and VPs together.
I think this illustrates that Scholar or Seer-like designs are extremly rare to come up with and that what we might perceive as simple, e.g. Lackeys, actually isn't because we have become used to mechanisms like on-gain from previous expansions. While DXV has shown with this expansion that he cares about keeping complexity creep as low as possible the trend towards more complexity is simply inevitable.
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Personally, I am fine with cards like Silk Merchant, and I don't really consider on-gain effects as such complicated. Swashbuckler does a few too many things for me.
Anyhow, I really don't know why I keep starting this discussion. It's not useful to anyone. I'm sorry for being such a pain, Donald. Pretty surely if I had to bother with a guy like me, I'd explode :P
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And they give people the chance to buy real Dominion with a different theme instead of buying a clone. That's nice too. The people who would have preferred a new expansion can still play the spin-off; it just doesn't combine. In exchange it gets to have whatever else it has.
So, it feels like this is the same line of thinking that gave us "Deckbuilder" on the back of Magic cards, and that went... where that went. Do you think Dominion differs from Magic in a way that makes a second game line in the Dominion family feasible? Do you ever wish you'd given Dominion a more generic card back so you could make combinable spinoffs? (not counting Intrigue)
I don't so much follow you. Yes Wizards thought they'd make a bunch of games and wanted to tie them together with a brand. They actually made those games and they were not successful. I think it would be good to make a bunch of Dominion spin-offs. I haven't done it, we don't know how they'd do yet. The evidence is that there was a market for them though.
Dominion and Magic are different in a ton of ways, but one way is, people can't really play two collectible card games. This is what came out of Wizards making a bunch of them. Some people would try the new game, and then you know, they only have so much money for money-bleeding games, only so much time to spend building decks, and in the end they'd play just one game, and since the big one is Magic, they played Magic. The only way to sell a new CCG was to sell it to an audience that wasn't playing Magic, e.g. Pokemon. Meanwhile Dominion is a regular tabletop game. You buy it and then can invite three people over and you all play with the same copy. It comes with all the cards. It requires none of your time when not playing, and does not bleed you. So it's easy to buy a second one and get value from it; it's just like buying any two board games. Time you spend playing Ra is time you aren't spending playing Clash of Gladiators, but that isn't actually a problem. And again, there are lots of successful Dominion clones.
I don't like the Dominion back; it would be great if it were whatever other prettier thing. The idea to spin-offs isn't to be able to combine cards though.
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I think I need to correct myself. I was being hasty to reply and didn't read the conversation throroughly. It's my bad for wasting your time with this. I'll still try to explain my point of view:
The thing with Vampire vs Scholar is, Vampire is complex, and Scholar is simple. You did Vampire before Scholar. So to me this means you didn't do Vampire because you ran out of simple options, as later there were still simple options left.
Sticking with the toothpaste comparison, I agree, of course you can't squeeze infinite amounts of toothpaste out of that thing. What I'm saying is that there's still plenty of toothpaste inside. That toothpaste isn't Smithy levels of simplicity, and it's not like I (or anybody else) wants new cards to be base levels of complexity. But every time you introduce a new submechanic, like Villagers, VP tokens, Durations, Reserves, Events, etc, you can do a bunch of things with them without each individual card being overly complex, and there's still plenty such mechanics in the tube.
I did Vampire to do a card called Vampire. I was obv. not paying attention to complexity there and should have been. One of the things Renaissance does to be simpler is, it has really dull flavor. There was no point at which I thought, "how can I make this more like a Scholar."
There are two kinds of simple cards in Renaissance. There are cards with no new mechanics (yes counting Coffers as new), like Scholar. And then there are the ones with new mechanics, like Silk Merchant.
Silk Merchant requires a bunch of rules. They are in the rulebook instead of on the card, but they're still there, you still have to learn them. If we put them on the card it would be a mess.
It's this big trick, that you can hide rules in the rulebook, and act like you have something simpler. You do actually have something simpler, in that, you only learn what Villagers are once, and then know what they are for several cards that use them. Six cards with villagers is simpler than six cards with different mechanics. But still, that first card is actually more complex than if it were just loaded up with text explaining the ability; it's that, plus you also have to pick up the rulebook.
It's no coincidence that Renaissance, trying to be simpler, has these rulebook mechanics. Look how sleek and pretty Silk Merchant is. And Villagers and Coffers are two very easy to learn things, they are some of the simplest possible things tokens could mean in Dominion. As these basic things get used up, the rulebook mechanics get less easy to learn, and worse in all other respects too; a classic thing is just, Dominion doesn't give you much to hang effects on, when you want something to be relevant in nearly every game with it. I mean the same logic that says that you run out of simple things to do, extends to stuff that refers you to the rulebook; it just feels like you can get way more complex there because you've hidden the rules. But, the point here is, yes, I leaned on tokens to try to have a simpler set. And that's the big thing you can do to keep making expansions: add rulebook text and components.
But I don't think it's good to have Dominion expansions where every card sends you to the rulebook. The sets need non-rulebook cards too. And you run out of simple things to do there.
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Just a thought from the sideline: Even if Scholar is simple, it really "only" is a Library variant, isn't it? It works different enough to exist and I like it a lot, but the game wouldn't have lost much in terms of.. variety if it didn't came about. Simple new things may indeed be out and done, everything vanilla-ish has to be a variant of something we already have, it seems to me.
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It requires none of your time when not playing
I am doing something terribly wrong, it seems.
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does not bleed you
Speak for yourself, I keep track of my deck contents during the game.
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It requires none of your time when not playing
I am doing something terribly wrong, it seems.
Indeed, I have almost 100 days worth of forum activity that disagrees with that statement.
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Ah, but how much of that time was necessary...
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Ah, but how much of that time was necessary...
To an alcoholic, is drinking "necessary"?
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It requires none of your time when not playing
I am doing something terribly wrong, it seems.
Indeed, I have almost 100 days worth of forum activity that disagrees with that statement.
Plus devising storage solutions and writing Java code to make a kingdom generator. Actually, of all my boardgames, Dominion has taken up the most of my boardgame-related non-playing time.
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Tell this the folks that paint figurines before they play with them. "Seriously? With a card game?"
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Why did Swindler survive the Intrigue re-design? It is hard for new players to understand (in my experience), takes a long time to resolve in many-player games, and (my main complaint) is very luck-swingy.
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Why did Swindler survive the Intrigue re-design? It is hard for new players to understand (in my experience), takes a long time to resolve in many-player games, and (my main complaint) is very luck-swingy.
I haven't had the experience of it confusing people, I've continued to enjoy the card over the years, and some cards get to be swingy.
Swindler was not close to the chopping block. Closer cards included:
- Harem. It's called Harem. It would have left but it shows a real person.
- Baron. It's not so fun to think the move is to open with it and then draw it with no Estates.
- Trading Post. I don't like how it's good turn one and sucks if you get it later.
- Minion. More hated than Swindler.
- Mining Village. It should trigger e.g. at start of buy phase, both for tracking and to save time considering it. But I couldn't just change that and call it Mining Village.
The last card to go was Coppersmith. Some people miss it. Possibly Baron or Trading Post would have been a better call.
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The last card to go was Coppersmith. Some people miss it. Possibly Baron or Trading Post would have been a better call.
I can say definitely that I would have missed Baron more than Coppersmith. There is something quite satisfying about engines that use Baron as payload, and it is feasible on way more boards than Coppersmith. In terms of opening swinginess they are about the same.
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- Minion. More hated than Swindler.
Really? Amongst people I play with, nobody is down on Minion, and it's a favourite card for at least one.
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Mechanics that change the game state to an extent you must completely rethink your move are frowned upon by many. Sometimes in Minion games I don't even bother to look at my hand after draw phase as to not have to think about what to do with it next turn.
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Mechanics that change the game state to an extent you must completely rethink your move are frowned upon by many. Sometimes in Minion games I don't even bother to look at my hand after draw phase as to not have to think about what to do with it next turn.
You should look at it as to know what cards are in your discard pile when you start your turn.
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Did you decide that you shouldn't be able to buy the same project twice for mechanics reasons, and then balance projects around that? Or did the no buying the same project twice rule come about due to needing to limit the power of some projects?
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Did you decide that you shouldn't be able to buy the same project twice for mechanics reasons, and then balance projects around that? Or did the no buying the same project twice rule come about due to needing to limit the power of some projects?
Originally they were states and each player got a copy. So there was no thought of letting you have two of one then; it would have been 6 more cards per state. When they turned into projects, I just kept them at one per player. But I immediately tried a card that let you place a second token on a project, and it was a dud.
In general I like to let people get multiple copies of an ability. It's the same number of rules - people are used to games not letting them have two of the same ability, so you have to spell out that they can. It generates more extreme situations and I like that. It does sometimes limit what you can do - the card phrasings have to all make sense, and it's bad if lots of abilities are now so strong with two copies that you have to cost them for that and then they suck at one copy. Here I didn't really consider it beyond that card. I didn't want to give you more cubes; sure you could have two cubes and be able to go up to two somewhere, but it would have felt like, wouldn't it be more fun to have four cubes. I wanted simplicity; this way I dodged any explanations of "what if you have two of this" (Nefarious didn't get "this twist copies the other twist" because the publisher didn't like the rules questions and phrasing changes that created). But it was not much on my mind.
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Have you ever considered or tested a stackable Enchantress effect?
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Have you ever considered or tested a stackable Enchantress effect?
It's intentionally not stackable. You can stop Enchantress from hurting you by playing with no fun Action cards. When Action cards are punished too heavily, casual players try that no-fun strategy and have no fun.
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Have you ever considered or tested a stackable Enchantress effect?
Village Idiot - Action - $5
Until your next turn, each time each other player plays an Action card on their turn, they get +1 Card and +2 Actions instead of following its instructions.
At the start of your next turn,
+2 Cards
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About Patron - in most translations, 'reveal' hasn't been consistently translated using the same word (probably because noone expected it to matter). Have you considered this when designing Patron?
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About Patron - in most translations, 'reveal' hasn't been consistently translated using the same word (probably because noone expected it to matter). Have you considered this when designing Patron?
I don't know how consistent the translations are, but I knew it was a thing to worry about it, and we checked what we could, and as you can see I went for it.
If Renaissance gets published in e.g. Japanese and a particular card doesn't match, people will play that one wrong... which is probably fine. If someone knows that the English version says "reveal," they can speak up and verify this with a device they carry everywhere.
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if you could play a game of giant Dominion where all the cards were like A4 sized
would you?
and if you could invite 2-3 famous people to play giant dominion with you, would you invite those people or would you opt to play giant dominion with your usual crew?
assume you can only play giant dominion the one time
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if you could play a game of giant Dominion where all the cards were like A4 sized
would you?
and if you could invite 2-3 famous people to play giant dominion with you, would you invite those people or would you opt to play giant dominion with your usual crew?
assume you can only play giant dominion the one time
I don't even want to think about shuffling
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if you could play a game of giant Dominion where all the cards were like A4 sized
would you?
and if you could invite 2-3 famous people to play giant dominion with you, would you invite those people or would you opt to play giant dominion with your usual crew?
assume you can only play giant dominion the one time
Are you Reggie Watts?
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if you could play a game of giant Dominion where all the cards were like A4 sized
would you?
and if you could invite 2-3 famous people to play giant dominion with you, would you invite those people or would you opt to play giant dominion with your usual crew?
assume you can only play giant dominion the one time
Are you Reggie Watts?
after I read it over, I felt that it had a more Chuck Klosterman quality to it
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if you could play a game of giant Dominion where all the cards were like A4 sized
would you?
and if you could invite 2-3 famous people to play giant dominion with you, would you invite those people or would you opt to play giant dominion with your usual crew?
assume you can only play giant dominion the one time
I looked up what A4 is. Man it's just slightly off from eight and a half by eleven. What's up with that.
If e.g. when I went to Essen they had said, here are these giant cards, I would have been a good sport and played a game with them. I have no special interest in them though.
I can already invite famous people to play. The problem is getting them to come. Maybe the A4 size would do the trick, but man, it sounds like a long shot.
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(Digression: A4 is a sensible size of paper used everywhere except North America. Importantly, each size in the A series is half as big as the next and they all have sides in the ratio 1:√2. This means you can cut a sheet of A3 in half to make a sheet of A4, or cut a sheet of A4 in half to make a sheet of A5, and so on. You can also, for example, make an A4 rules booklet out of folded and stapled sheets of A3, which means life is a whole lot simpler for graphic designers and printers.
The reason the dimensions of A4 don't initially look sensible in either metric of US is that the area of a sheet of A0 is exactly 1m². The area of a sheet of A4 is exactly 1/16m².)
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I know there are quite some videogame-related charity events, but I have never seen boardgame-related charity events.
Have you ever participated in boardgame-related charity events? Would you?
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I know there are quite some videogame-related charity events, but I have never seen boardgame-related charity events.
Have you ever participated in boardgame-related charity events? Would you?
They exist... my FLGS had one recently: http://www.gamersforcures.com/category/24-hour-board-game-a-thon/.
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Many FLGSes also use International Tabletop Day as a pretext for raising some money for charity.
And I can't find the details right now, but I remember a big charity drive to bring boardgames to children in developing countries, particularly in Africa. They're social, they help develop all sorts of skills, and they require no electricity. (-8
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I know there are quite some videogame-related charity events, but I have never seen boardgame-related charity events.
Have you ever participated in boardgame-related charity events? Would you?
I was asked once, and I said sure, but they didn't work out how to get the signed stuff from me and then I guess forgot about it.
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Is it a coincidence that no Potion-cost cards give +coin, or was that an intentional design decision?
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Is it a coincidence that no Potion-cost cards give +coin, or was that an intentional design decision?
You mean except Philosopher's Stone?
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Is it a coincidence that no Potion-cost cards give +coin, or was that an intentional design decision?
I wasn't avoiding +$. I was however trying to deal with "what if this is the only potion-coster," which led to a bunch of cantrips, which led to making "likes actions" a sub-theme. So if there had been a +$ action odds are it would have had +1 action too.
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Is it a coincidence that no Potion-cost cards give +coin, or was that an intentional design decision?
You mean except Philosopher's Stone?
(whoops)
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Strictly, Philosopher's Stone is "worth" a certain amount of coin, rather than giving +coin.
Thus far, the difference is pretty subtle, though Capitalism has shown it is there.
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Strictly, Philosopher's Stone is "worth" a certain amount of coin, rather than giving +coin.
Thus far, the difference is pretty subtle, though Capitalism has shown it is there.
The distinction is inconsequential for Capitalism, because it doesn't affect any cards "worth" something anyhow. It exists on Diadem when looking at its numerical value vs. its actual value, however if you imagined Diadem to say "?" instead of "2" in its top corners, you will find that to date there is no way to make this meaningful. In fact, that's exactly what the online version of the game does.
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Strictly, Philosopher's Stone is "worth" a certain amount of coin, rather than giving +coin.
Thus far, the difference is pretty subtle, though Capitalism has shown it is there.
The distinction is inconsequential for Capitalism, because it doesn't affect any cards "worth" something anyhow.
I'm confused; the the fact that Capitalism doesn't affect any cards "worth" something is exactly why IS consequential. Now, it ends up being inconsequential because Philosopher's Stone is a Treasure, not an Action. But crj's point was that Capitalism cares about the difference between "+(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)" and "worth (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)".
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Strictly, Philosopher's Stone is "worth" a certain amount of coin, rather than giving +coin.
Thus far, the difference is pretty subtle, though Capitalism has shown it is there.
The distinction is inconsequential for Capitalism, because it doesn't affect any cards "worth" something anyhow.
I'm confused; the the fact that Capitalism doesn't affect any cards "worth" something is exactly why IS consequential. Now, it ends up being inconsequential because Philosopher's Stone is a Treasure, not an Action. But crj's point was that Capitalism cares about the difference between "+(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)" and "worth (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)".
That's my point. Capitalism doesn't care about Treasures. Therefore, it is unaware of the distinction.
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Strictly, Philosopher's Stone is "worth" a certain amount of coin, rather than giving +coin.
Thus far, the difference is pretty subtle, though Capitalism has shown it is there.
The distinction is inconsequential for Capitalism, because it doesn't affect any cards "worth" something anyhow.
I'm confused; the the fact that Capitalism doesn't affect any cards "worth" something is exactly why IS consequential. Now, it ends up being inconsequential because Philosopher's Stone is a Treasure, not an Action. But crj's point was that Capitalism cares about the difference between "+(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)" and "worth (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)".
That's my point. Capitalism doesn't care about Treasures. Therefore, it is unaware of the distinction.
Ah, the issue here was 2 different ways to read "because it doesn't affect any cards 'worth' something anyhow." I read it as "it only cares about '+(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png)'; it doesn't care about 'worth (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png)'." But I see now you meant it as "in the set of things it cares about, none of them say 'worth (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png)'."
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"Worth $x" will only ever exist on Treasures, because it's a way of referring to the coin value on Treasures (like the "$2" on Silver). So the way this is phrased is irrelevant for Capitalism.
Actually, it has been somewhat inconcistent. Coppersmith says "produce"; Envious says "make"; lately Treasures like Charm and Scepter use the Action card terminology "+$x". I suspect if Philosopher's Stone, Bank and Fool's Gold were made today, they would also say "+$x" instead of "worth".
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Philosopher's Stone said "worth" because it was sneaking in ahead of Prosperity, so I didn't have "when you play this" Treasures yet. Then a few cards got in on that wording.
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While we're on the subject of strange treasures, am I the only person bugged by Fortune saying "x2" in the corner instead of "×2"? Lower-case X and a multiplication sign are not the same!
*twitch*
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While we're on the subject of strange treasures, am I the only person bugged by Fortune saying "x2" in the corner instead of "×2"? Lower-case X and a multiplication sign are not the same!
*twitch*
My prototype had the correct symbol.
Don’t ever trust Matthias Catrein to do something correctly. He does not care.
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Did you consider putting a "+" sign on treasures to help avoid "Market gives you Coppers" confusion?
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It looks like the Japanese version of Renaissance still uses Coin token to refer to what are now Coffers, although it does now say "+1 Coin token" instead of "Take a coin token". On the other hand, Villagers are called "Villager tokens". Was there discussion about changing the name of Coffers in other language versions to remain consistent with English?
For reference:
Coin token = コイントークン koin tōkun
Villager = 村人トークン murabito tōkun
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Did you consider putting a "+" sign on treasures to help avoid "Market gives you Coppers" confusion?
It was a long time ago, but I don't think so. We did not have that confusion ourselves.
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It looks like the Japanese version of Renaissance still uses Coin token to refer to what are now Coffers, although it does now say "+1 Coin token" instead of "Take a coin token". On the other hand, Villagers are called "Villager tokens". Was there discussion about changing the name of Coffers in other language versions to remain consistent with English?
When foreign publishers ask me questions, I answer them. When they don't, they just do whatever they do. In this case, there were no questions; I didn't even know there was a Japanese version.
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Don’t ever trust Matthias Catrein to do something correctly. He does not care.
Where's this coming from? Is he known to be unreliable?
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Don’t ever trust Matthias Catrein to do something correctly. He does not care.
Where's this coming from? Is he known to be unreliable?
Matthias has done the layout for all of the Dominion expansions. You can go look at what made it out back when we didn't endlessly correct everything. http://dominion.diehrstraits.com/
These days we have pass after pass of corrections, which LastFootnote has participated in for Adventures through Renaissance. Despite that, 24 cards in Renaissance have the wrong color frames.
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While we're on the subject of strange treasures, am I the only person bugged by Fortune saying "x2" in the corner instead of "×2"? Lower-case X and a multiplication sign are not the same!
*twitch*
If you think that's bad, don't look too closely at your Curse cards.
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Curses are allowed to look horrible!
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While we're on the subject of strange treasures, am I the only person bugged by Fortune saying "x2" in the corner instead of "×2"? Lower-case X and a multiplication sign are not the same!
I don't get it. What's the difference between a lowercase x and a multiplication sign?
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I don't get it. What's the difference between a lowercase x and a multiplication sign?
Times New Roman Italic: (http://madforest.com/twoxfour.JPG)
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I don't get it. What's the difference between a lowercase x and a multiplication sign?
Times New Roman Italic: (http://madforest.com/twoxfour.JPG)
I'd argue but I don't want to derail the thread (any worse than it already is).
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I don't get it. What's the difference between a lowercase x and a multiplication sign?
Times New Roman Italic: (http://madforest.com/twoxfour.JPG)
(https://i.imgur.com/eCetFoQ.png)
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Hey Donald, i haven`t played Dominion for over 2 years and came back to it since one week. So the expansions Empires, Nocturne, Renaissance and Base 2nd Ed. are totally new for me.
Before i stopped playing, Dominion was already the best game around and i got pretty addicted. But with the recent expansions it came to another level. The new cards, game mechanics and possibilities are mindblowing!! It is so much fun to play. For me it was not imaginable, that the game would be able to get improved by that margin.
Maybe the biggest difference is the feel that almost every card has a huge impact now regularily, when before more cards were almost always neglectible (chancellor, adventurer,...).
Just wanted to give you that feedback. Fantastic work!
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While we're on the subject of strange treasures, am I the only person bugged by Fortune saying "x2" in the corner instead of "×2"? Lower-case X and a multiplication sign are not the same!
*twitch*
If you think that's bad, don't look too closely at your Curse cards.
What's wrong with the Curse cards?
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While we're on the subject of strange treasures, am I the only person bugged by Fortune saying "x2" in the corner instead of "×2"? Lower-case X and a multiplication sign are not the same!
*twitch*
If you think that's bad, don't look too closely at your Curse cards.
What's wrong with the Curse cards?
They cost you -1 (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png) each and they clog up space in your deck that could be better occupied by more useful cards, or by nothing at all.
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What's wrong with the Curse cards?
It looks like they use the hyphen-minus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen-minus) rather than the minus sign. Maybe a hyphen. Maybe the "-" and the "1" aren't even in the same typeface.
A hyphen "‐1", a hyphen-minus "-1", and a minus sign "−1" are all different.
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Just wanted to give you that feedback. Fantastic work!
Thanks!
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While we're on the subject of strange treasures, am I the only person bugged by Fortune saying "x2" in the corner instead of "×2"? Lower-case X and a multiplication sign are not the same!
*twitch*
If you think that's bad, don't look too closely at your Curse cards.
What's wrong with the Curse cards?
They cost you -1 (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png) each and they clog up space in your deck that could be better occupied by more useful cards, or by nothing at all.
Awaclus just got Awaclused.
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While we're on the subject of strange treasures, am I the only person bugged by Fortune saying "x2" in the corner instead of "×2"? Lower-case X and a multiplication sign are not the same!
*twitch*
If you think that's bad, don't look too closely at your Curse cards.
What's wrong with the Curse cards?
They cost you -1 (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png) each and they clog up space in your deck that could be better occupied by more useful cards, or by nothing at all.
Some people consider them worse than Silvers.
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Despite that, 24 cards in Renaissance have the wrong color frames.
Which? I glanced through them and didn't see anything suspicious.
(Also, Renaissance is amazing. Nocturne left me a bit cold, but I got Renai over the holidays and played it quite a bit with friends, and we enjoyed the heck out of it. I'm consistently amazed that you still find new not-overly-complex design space to mine. Thanks for continuing to put out high-quality expansions, a decade plus in. I really appreciate it.)
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Despite that, 24 cards in Renaissance have the wrong color frames.
Which? I glanced through them and didn't see anything suspicious.
All kingdom cards except Research. Compare Research to Cargo Ship, that's the easy one. The Renaissance cards are lighter than normal.
(Also, Renaissance is amazing. Nocturne left me a bit cold, but I got Renai over the holidays and played it quite a bit with friends, and we enjoyed the heck out of it. I'm consistently amazed that you still find new not-overly-complex design space to mine. Thanks for continuing to put out high-quality expansions, a decade plus in. I really appreciate it.)
(Thanks; it's not getting easier, but having tokens helps a lot.)
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All kingdom cards except Research. Compare Research to Cargo Ship, that's the easy one. The Renaissance cards are lighter than normal.
Ahh, I thought you meant something like "it should have been blue but we forgot to put the Reaction color." Yeah, we noticed that the cards seemed a bit washed-out color-wise. Fortunately it doesn't affect gameplay.
Dracs* like Donate and Keep (and cards like Chapel) pretty dramatically change the way the game plays at the table in what I believe to be an intentional way. (Unlike, say, Rebuild, which often dominates Kingdoms in a way I suspect was less intentional.) I'm not sure anything in Renaissance comes quite to that level, although Capitalism might be close. Do you intentionally look for/design a "big splash" or two for your sets, or is it just a result of exploring the design space, or...?
(* I was explaining Race for the Galaxy the other day and needed to differentiate between the role-selection Card Shaped Objects and regular cards, and my childhood habit of reversing words came to the rescue. It's a dumb word, but one people seem to immediately get. I expect it to catch on with exactly zero other people... but very soon!)
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Dracs* like Donate and Keep (and cards like Chapel) pretty dramatically change the way the game plays at the table in what I believe to be an intentional way. (Unlike, say, Rebuild, which often dominates Kingdoms in a way I suspect was less intentional.) I'm not sure anything in Renaissance comes quite to that level, although Capitalism might be close.
Cathedral is probably pretty close to Donate.
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Dracs* like Donate and Keep (and cards like Chapel) pretty dramatically change the way the game plays at the table in what I believe to be an intentional way. (Unlike, say, Rebuild, which often dominates Kingdoms in a way I suspect was less intentional.) I'm not sure anything in Renaissance comes quite to that level, although Capitalism might be close.
Cathedral is probably pretty close to Donate.
Agree.
I think Cathedral is a lot closer than Capitalism to Donate's warping power.
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Ahh, I thought you meant something like "it should have been blue but we forgot to put the Reaction color." Yeah, we noticed that the cards seemed a bit washed-out color-wise. Fortunately it doesn't affect gameplay.
The context was LastFootnote complaining about the layout guy.
Dracs* like Donate and Keep (and cards like Chapel) pretty dramatically change the way the game plays at the table in what I believe to be an intentional way. (Unlike, say, Rebuild, which often dominates Kingdoms in a way I suspect was less intentional.) I'm not sure anything in Renaissance comes quite to that level, although Capitalism might be close. Do you intentionally look for/design a "big splash" or two for your sets, or is it just a result of exploring the design space, or...?
I'm always trying to dramatically change the game, but not every card needs to do that. I don't normally worry about having especially exciting cards, because I have them; I would worry about it if I didn't.
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I am really amazed over how the game is balanced, for instance in ways the Journey token has about similar significance for all applications (so there's no no-brainer strategy to get Guide only for preparing the next Pilgrimage) and in that Lurker warps but won't break the game. How Old Witch is a thunderstorm to your deck and a soothing Sun afterwards, how Saunavanto nets actions during midgame with little payload and loses the draw-your-deck ability once payload is added.
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I picked up Renaissance this week week and I loved it! I've always been a fan of the simpler sets, my favorite being Seaside and my wife's being the Base set, so getting a new expansion somewhere around that complexity has been fun for us. You said in the secret history that expansions have gotten too complex and that this one was made intentionally simple. Where do you think future expansions will fall on the complexity scale?
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Oh boy, another question about complexity and expansions. Well sadly any future expansions will have to resort to complexity. Here are some Donald X quotes from a couple months ago.
One issue with expansions over spin-offs is that they get more complex over time. This totally happened. Renaissance struggles to be simpler, but it's not like I can just do that every time and get that level of complexity. You really run out of simple stuff. Spin-offs offer the chance to do new simple cards based on whatever other elements the game has.
You have to put progressively more effort into making designs simple as there are more cards, but that doesn't mean simple designs have become impossible.
Similarly you can keep getting toothpaste from a tube forever; you just need to apply more and more force. http://wondermark.com/776/
Which is to say, I disagree. And I mean there's no way out, there's no, oh there's the secret corner of simple cards. For example, Smithy is +3 Cards. That's the end of the line for that level of simplicity; there's no compelling single + left to do. Whatever hope +4 Cards had vanished when I did +4 Cards with a bonus. I could potentially do one via having a new kind of cost like debt, or a new kind of + like +Coffers... but that's added complexity, I just moved it to the rulebook. I can't make the same argument for e.g. Harbinger's level of complexity, and there is probably stuff left to do at that level. But you definitely run out. It's not just a question of how lazy I am. There is some amount of complexity, that Dominion has already used, where you can keep going long enough to not worry about it; the goal though is to be less complex than that.
I will explain it in detail. Card text is made up of qualified rules atoms strung together by program flow. Rules atoms are the smallest things you can do in the game; qualifiers are the most basic ways of distinguishing things. Program flow is logic for doing things - "do a then b," "if x do a else do b" and so on. There are only so many rules atoms, only so many qualifiers, and only so many ways to have programs flow. For a certain number of steps, there is a finite amount you can do; it's inarguable. And Dominion then drops huge chunks of possibilities by avoiding having cards that are so similar that players wouldn't like it. As well as e.g. by avoiding cards that would just be stupid. It also has very few rules atoms.
There are two kinds of simple cards in Renaissance. There are cards with no new mechanics (yes counting Coffers as new), like Scholar. And then there are the ones with new mechanics, like Silk Merchant.
Silk Merchant requires a bunch of rules. They are in the rulebook instead of on the card, but they're still there, you still have to learn them. If we put them on the card it would be a mess.
It's this big trick, that you can hide rules in the rulebook, and act like you have something simpler. You do actually have something simpler, in that, you only learn what Villagers are once, and then know what they are for several cards that use them. Six cards with villagers is simpler than six cards with different mechanics. But still, that first card is actually more complex than if it were just loaded up with text explaining the ability; it's that, plus you also have to pick up the rulebook.
It's no coincidence that Renaissance, trying to be simpler, has these rulebook mechanics. Look how sleek and pretty Silk Merchant is. And Villagers and Coffers are two very easy to learn things, they are some of the simplest possible things tokens could mean in Dominion. As these basic things get used up, the rulebook mechanics get less easy to learn, and worse in all other respects too; a classic thing is just, Dominion doesn't give you much to hang effects on, when you want something to be relevant in nearly every game with it. I mean the same logic that says that you run out of simple things to do, extends to stuff that refers you to the rulebook; it just feels like you can get way more complex there because you've hidden the rules. But, the point here is, yes, I leaned on tokens to try to have a simpler set. And that's the big thing you can do to keep making expansions: add rulebook text and components.
But I don't think it's good to have Dominion expansions where every card sends you to the rulebook. The sets need non-rulebook cards too. And you run out of simple things to do there.
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I picked up Renaissance this week week and I loved it! I've always been a fan of the simpler sets, my favorite being Seaside and my wife's being the Base set, so getting a new expansion somewhere around that complexity has been fun for us. You said in the secret history that expansions have gotten too complex and that this one was made intentionally simple. Where do you think future expansions will fall on the complexity scale?
They will try to be as simple as Renaissance, but I don't know how well I'll do there. I'll have to put in the work to know for sure though.
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I picked up Renaissance this week week and I loved it! I've always been a fan of the simpler sets, my favorite being Seaside and my wife's being the Base set, so getting a new expansion somewhere around that complexity has been fun for us. You said in the secret history that expansions have gotten too complex and that this one was made intentionally simple. Where do you think future expansions will fall on the complexity scale?
They will try to be as simple as Renaissance, but I don't know how well I'll do there. I'll have to put in the work to know for sure though.
There are plenty of simple game mechanics so far untouched by Dominion, such as dexterity and social deduction. Clear opportunity to incorporate the mythical nose-stealing competition into the game.
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I picked up Renaissance this week week and I loved it! I've always been a fan of the simpler sets, my favorite being Seaside and my wife's being the Base set, so getting a new expansion somewhere around that complexity has been fun for us. You said in the secret history that expansions have gotten too complex and that this one was made intentionally simple. Where do you think future expansions will fall on the complexity scale?
They will try to be as simple as Renaissance, but I don't know how well I'll do there. I'll have to put in the work to know for sure though.
There are plenty of simple game mechanics so far untouched by Dominion, such as dexterity and social deduction. Clear opportunity to incorporate the mythical nose-stealing competition into the game.
Dominion: Catapult
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Clear opportunity to incorporate the mythical nose-stealing competition into the game.
There should be Nose and False Nose Artifacts. When you have both, an Attacker can secretly steal one or the other, and you have to figure out whether or not they've really stolen your nose.
The case for an Un* Dominion expansion grows ever stronger. I still want to see Socks (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18090.msg739875#msg739875) printed.
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I don't get it. What's the difference between a lowercase x and a multiplication sign?
Times New Roman Italic: (http://madforest.com/twoxfour.JPG)
(https://i.imgur.com/eCetFoQ.png)
2(4) imo
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A curious question a friend's just asked, which I don't think I've ever seen addressed:
Is Dominion set on Earth?
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There's The Earth's Gift, and The Moon's Gift, so there's that.
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There's The Earth's Gift, and The Moon's Gift, so there's that.
"Earth" could be used as another word for soil, and plenty of planets have moons.
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"Earth" could be used as another word for soil
In that case, most of Dominion is set on Earth, exceptions being e.g. Tunnel going through it and Magpie flying over it.
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A curious question a friend's just asked, which I don't think I've ever seen addressed:
Is Dominion set on Earth?
One could argue that the existence of the supernatural, such as Werewolf, Witch, etc; dictates that it must be set in some other fantasy world, similar to Middle Earth.
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One could argue that the existence of the supernatural, such as Werewolf, Witch, etc; dictates that it must be set in some other fantasy world, similar to Middle Earth.
Is magic real?
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One could argue that the existence of the supernatural, such as Werewolf, Witch, etc; dictates that it must be set in some other fantasy world, similar to Middle Earth.
Is magic real?
We should totally make a thread to discuss such a question! (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18422.0) ;D
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One could argue that the existence of the supernatural, such as Werewolf, Witch, etc; dictates that it must be set in some other fantasy world, similar to Middle Earth.
Is magic real?
This question got me thinking: what is a curse thematically? They seem to imply magic, but lots of non-magical stuff gives them out: Mountebanks, Jesters, Hideouts, etc.
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A curious question a friend's just asked, which I don't think I've ever seen addressed:
Is Dominion set on Earth?
Dominion is set on Earth, mostly in medieval times, though Empires has ancient Rome and Renaissance is the end of the period.
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One could argue that the existence of the supernatural, such as Werewolf, Witch, etc; dictates that it must be set in some other fantasy world, similar to Middle Earth.
Is magic real?
They Might Be Giants - Science Is Real
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One could argue that the existence of the supernatural, such as Werewolf, Witch, etc; dictates that it must be set in some other fantasy world, similar to Middle Earth.
Is magic real?
This question got me thinking: what is a curse thematically? They seem to imply magic, but lots of non-magical stuff gives them out: Mountebanks, Jesters, Hideouts, etc.
Initially the idea was to have a hint of magic with no clear demonstration of it being real magic. I decided to make Alchemy anyway, it had pure fantasy things. Then when the main set was published, Witch was shown with magic despite me specifying otherwise, so so much for that. In the end the game is set in the medieval Europe of many stories, not just fairy tales but you know, Shakespeare plays and so on; it's mostly the real world, but with some magical stuff. People believed in ghost ships and there's a ghost ship, you know. Except Alchemy has some flat-out fantasy stuff, and then Nocturne has tons of it, it's Celtic fairy tales.
With magic not being clearly real, Witch and Mountebank are the same kind of thing. With actual magic, well Curses I guess are both magical and non-magical things that are in your way.
Sir Bailey had the second copy of Dominion, and took the name Castle Builder to heart, changing Curse to Rubble and having those attacks be siege weapons. I considered Rubble but stuck with Curse.
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Sir Bailey had the second copy of Dominion, and took the name Castle Builder to heart, changing Curse to Rubble and having those attacks be siege weapons. I considered Rubble but stuck with Curse.
Well, Catapult came out eventually
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Sir Bailey had the second copy of Dominion, and took the name Castle Builder to heart, changing Curse to Rubble and having those attacks be siege weapons. I considered Rubble but stuck with Curse.
Well, Catapult came out eventually
And it Rocks.
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I considered Rubble but stuck with Curse.
That one Dominion clone with a map (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1024702/will-trains-obsolete-dominion-strange-assembly-rev) chose the term "waste".
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Do you do any sort of numerical estimate of how often a card or card-shaped-thing will be relevant when designing it?
I was thinking specifically of Capitalism, but I suppose this could also apply to many reaction cards.
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Do you do any sort of numerical estimate of how often a card or card-shaped-thing will be relevant when designing it?
I was thinking specifically of Capitalism, but I suppose this could also apply to many reaction cards.
For most cards, not at all. Most cards are trying to be potentially relevant all the time; obv. this means that e.g. a trasher is competing with other trashers, a village with other villages, and I mean they try to.
For narrow cards, ideally the card is not ever nothing. Obv. in game after game some cards aren't good enough because of the other cards; that's fine, that's not what I'm saying. But if a card interacts with e.g. Duration cards, well not every game will have them. So that's a concern. In Dark Ages, the when-trashed cards all try to be compelling without that ability, so that if you can't trash them, the card isn't stupid. Patron can't always be revealed, but it's still relevant as +$2 +1 Villager.
Tomb got to exist despite maybe there's no trashing, and Capitalism despite maybe it does nothing, because they're landscape cards, they aren't counting against the ten cards that give you something to do. They would have been even more to do but aren't, which isn't as bad as a blank kingdom card. But some cards like that, e.g. a Project that cared about Duration cards, didn't survive, and that was part of it.
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Did you ever consider having Idol give out a Hex on the second play instead of a Curse? The symmetry there is appealing to me.
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Did you consider another use for Villagers, like how Butcher is another use for Coffers?
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Did you ever consider having Idol give out a Hex on the second play instead of a Curse? The symmetry there is appealing to me.
It was an obvious idea, but I didn't want anything making you put out both stacks. So it was always Curse.
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Did you consider another use for Villagers, like how Butcher is another use for Coffers?
I tried to find something else like Butcher, especially with Coffers, but nothing worked out. Whatever stories are in the secret history.
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Are there any new tabletop games from the past year or so (that you haven't made) that you've really liked?
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Are there any new tabletop games from the past year or so (that you haven't made) that you've really liked?
I have to go by, what I tried within the last year, rather than when they came out. I looked through the reports and these are highlights:
Fabled Fruit: You have a hand of fruit, there are six action-locations to pick from, but it's worse to go where someone else is. Instead of doing an action you can turn in a hand of fruit that has whatever some location wanted... and then we take out that action card, and add a new one (though there are like 4 in a pile, so the original pile isn't immediately gone). So after the first time someone scores, there are 7 action-locations (and probably still 7 for a while then, because the new card you add also has 4 copies). After the game (someone scores enough times), you start the next game where you left off, with new actions. The actions of course all just muck with hands of fruit. It's a pretty light game, but the gamers enjoyed several games of it, and it's a good game to play with kids. I'm unlikely to play any particular not-being-playtested game all that many times unless I can play it with the kids, and they liked this one for a while, so I played this way more than the other games I'm listing.
London: You draw and play cards, and build up a tableau, which can be as big as you want, but punishes you for how big it is. The cards in the tableau just sit there, and then periodically you "run your city" and execute the cards (most things only execute once ever normally, though some keep doing stuff). There's economy and VP, and poverty which is anti-VP based on how much you have compared to other players. There's another card for your city that you can replace, that isn't part of the tableau and can keep doing things. The card mix needed work - it has pick-who-to-hose, like it's a game from the 80s, and also could have had more variety and combos - but uh it was fun. It may be too solvable without a better card mix or other variety-adding tweaks, but it held up for the games we played.
Istanbul the Dice Game: A light dice game. It copies the parts of Istanbul that aren't the interesting parts, but I liked it so I guess that was fine. You can go for rolls that build you up or that score various ways. You have to wait for your turn, but you know, it's the start of the evening, someone isn't here yet, you can chat while rolling dice. I've considered getting this one to try with the kids, but it would be competing for play time with King of New York (which they like).
Orleans: A bag-building game, reminiscent of both The Village and Eminent Domain. Your bag has vanilla chits representing people. Each turn you draw some and position them on your playmat, where abilities take certain sets of chits to activate (then those guys go back in the bag). The early abilities all both do something, and gain you a certain guy for your bag (this is the Eminent Domain part). One area of scoring is building and collecting on a map, like the outside part of The Village. You can send guys away forever like in The Village, to a mat where they give you some small one-time bonus, or complete a set of sent-away guys for a bigger bonus (this has a dots problem - you hope someone sets you up when you'll get first shot at it). There are special abilities to gain that no-one else will have. Each turn an event happens that messes with the game. There are a bunch of ways to score.
We played the base game and then with an expansion (I think there are multiple expansions and multiple options per expansion, and well we did not play with the hose-people stuff). The expansion did a few nice things. The event deck was still "randomly screw you over" but was more fun; the sent-away guys board gave bigger more interesting bonuses.
This game was fun, and for gamers this is my top pick of the year. But it needs work and I'm here to tell you about that.
- When you gain an ability (the unique ones), it's your choice from any of them. Well first of all, turn one, to figure out what to do, read this giant pile of, wait they're all icons, get out the rulebook. This is just ludicrous, I don't know what to tell you. It's fun to have a game where sadly you have to read 12 cards turn one, e.g. Greed, and 11 cards turn two, man I'll cop to it, but you know, this big pile of abilities, why would you inflict this on players. I think def. you want to either have a line to buy from and replace them as they get bought, or deal out some to each player at the start ala Agricola. The line to buy from has the problem of, maybe I want to wait to see what other people are doing so that I don't pick that action unless the thing I want will be there. But we tried one game with dealt out abilities and it seemed fine.
- Some of the unique abilities sure seem strong next to others. I would at least try, after you play, take out the winning abilities for next game, and keep that up until it doesn't feel like the abilities were the whole game (we did this for that one game). I would consider not letting you put cogs on them (cogs permanently fill a guy slot, so that that ability is cheaper).
- I would get rid of the complete-a-set-of-sent-away-guys thing, as it has a dots problem (you know, the kids game, dots, you put your initials in a square). It's already plenty good to send away guys, both to get rid of them and get the bonuses, again preferring the non-hosing expansion board. On late turns you can have to wait for someone else's playmat decisions (you always could but normally do not care and save time by all going at once), because maybe they will complete a thing ahead of you but you'll know if they're sending the right guys away. So, get rid of that too.
- The event deck is sure random. I would at least go through and pick out the best ones, from the main set plus expansion.
But I mean, it's worth fixing up, it was fun.
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I bought Fabled Fruit based on what I read here and played it last night with two friends. It is super simple and entertaining. We actually could hardly stop playing. Great recommendation!
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I played the full "campaign" for Fabled Fruit. I think it works even better when you consider it all one multi-session game instead of individual, separate games. There is more interesting politics involved; since you are often forced to attack/hurt specific players, the strategically correct target could be player A if you were only considering the current game; but instead it's player B if you consider the full campaign. As in, sometimes it could be the right thing to purposefully take a loss in the current game, if it means that the winner of the current game is the player who is behind in the overall campaign.
Oh, and if you want the Fabled Fruit experience in a one-evening package; Friese also has the Fast Forward series, which has you jump into a game with no information whatsoever, and play through a legacy-style deck with an ever-changing game. Fortune is a lot of fun. Fear was a neat concept, but not as good.
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Agreed. We played a multi-session game with the suggested cumulative point scoring. So far we've worked through about 70% of the campaign (in one sitting).
Donald got one thing wrong in his description, there are only 4 cards of each type except for the final one. Thoroughly enjoyable game. I bought the expansion which is a separate campaign but haven't played it yet.
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Agreed. We played a multi-session game with the suggested cumulative point scoring. So far we've worked through about 70% of the campaign (in one sitting).
Donald got one thing wrong in his description, there are only 4 cards of each type except for the final one. Thoroughly enjoyable game. I bought the expansion which is a separate campaign but haven't played it yet.
Oops, sorry, fixed. At 8 it would be much slower getting to the new cards, but somehow I typed it up as 8.
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Thank you for the write-up of the game. It is one of my new favorites.
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Are there any Dominion themes or mechanics (aside from Potions) that you wouldn't consider ever using again or is it all fair game for future expansions?
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Are there any Dominion themes or mechanics (aside from Potions) that you wouldn't consider ever using again or is it all fair game for future expansions?
On a similar note (I guess this is just a more specific version of that question), would you ever consider using another card that changes the types or abilities of other cards, similarly to Capitalism, Inheritance, or the vanilla bonus tokens from Adventures?
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Are there any Dominion themes or mechanics (aside from Potions) that you wouldn't consider ever using again or is it all fair game for future expansions?
Not happening:
- Potions - There are always people who speak up to say how they want more, but mostly people didn't like them, and they don't do anything essential for me.
- Hexes - They are just asking too much, horrendously slowing down games with casual players.
Unlikely:
- Ruins - You need to include 50 cards to handle 6 players. That's a lot to ask of an expansion.
- Heirlooms - Naturally there can only be 7. Of course I could add a rule for "what if there are 8 of these" in order to do more.
- Boons - I think they were worth doing but I should have only done say 5 cards with them. They weren't received well enough to want to try to find more to do with them.
- Artifacts - They sound fine, but it was work to get 5 I could live with.
The space for possible new Events, Projects, and Landmarks is not impressive. However any new expansion could also have some other new thing that adds some space, e.g. if Renaissance had had Events there could have been ones that involved the tokens or an Artifact.
Overpay is unlikely except that I could do like one overpay card somewhere. It sets you up to have a way-too-wordy card, but if the top can be vanilla then it could be okay.
A lot of the set mechanics can just appear in any set on a few cards, and have: victory cards that do things, choose ones, durations, $7's, treasures that do things, care about variety or provide it, when-gain, when-trash, care about the trash, split piles. Then there are mechanics that require tokens or extra cards or mats, which will only appear as larger hunks of a set. And well then there's Night, I would want to have a bunch of that in order to include rules for it.
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On a similar note (I guess this is just a more specific version of that question), would you ever consider using another card that changes the types or abilities of other cards, similarly to Capitalism, Inheritance, or the vanilla bonus tokens from Adventures?
Something like Capitalism or Inheritance is fine, provided that all copies of a card are the same at all times. Band of Misfits, Overlord, and Inheritance break that rule, and well I still may errata them, they cause problems.
The Adventures tokens aren't out of the question, but in retrospect I don't like how many different tokens Adventures has, it's annoying pawing through them looking for the boot or whatever. I should have tried to get more use out of a smaller set of tokens. But, with that approach, that kind of thing in the future is okay.
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in retrospect I don't like how many different tokens Adventures has, it's annoying pawing through them looking for the boot or whatever
Am I the only person who stores the tokens sorted by type, not by colour? You need the Journey tokens for a game; you fetch the journey tokens. Especially if you spend five dollars on a compartmented plastic storage box, setting them up becomes trivial.
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Compartmented plastic storage box
$5 Action
Turn your journey token whichever way you want it.
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in retrospect I don't like how many different tokens Adventures has, it's annoying pawing through them looking for the boot or whatever
Am I the only person who stores the tokens sorted by type, not by colour? You need the Journey tokens for a game; you fetch the journey tokens. Especially if you spend five dollars on a compartmented plastic storage box, setting them up becomes trivial.
I do that. I didn't sort it fully by type (the vanilla bonuses are together, the ones with pictures are together, and the -1 Card, -1 coin, and +2 cost are together) but I still end up only having to look through three or four rather than all 10.
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I started out sorting by color, but I realized sorting by type makes more sense.
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On a similar note (I guess this is just a more specific version of that question), would you ever consider using another card that changes the types or abilities of other cards, similarly to Capitalism, Inheritance, or the vanilla bonus tokens from Adventures?
... Inheritance is fine ... and Inheritance ..., they cause problems.
I am confused.
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... Inheritance is fine ... and Inheritance ..., they cause problems.
I am confused.
Note that he actually wrote:
Something like [...] Inheritance is fine, provided that [...]
The "something like" and "provided that" are kinda important.
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@ipofanes To further clarify what crj is saying, Donald's first use of "Inheritance" refers to a card that changes the type of other cards--Donald says a card like that is fine provided that all copies of a card are the same at all times. However, the second "Inheritance" is an example of such a card that changes whether or not all copies of a card are the same at all times (e.g., my inherited estate is a certain card and your inherited estate is a different card--this can result in problems with cards that change the types of other cards).
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e.g., my inherited estate is a certain card and your inherited estate is a different card
Or more relevant, my Estate is a certain card right before I trash it and a different card right after.
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Or more relevant, my Estate is a certain card right before I trash it and a different card right after.
I don't think that's actually a problem. It's fine for Estates to change their nature from one moment to the next; I think the problem Donald X. is alluding to is, at a given moment, one indistinguishable Estate-shaped bit of cardboard having a different nature from another.
Suppose there was a landmark which said "whenever an Estate is trashed, until the end of the current turn Estates become treasures that give $1 when played". While that would be a pretty dull effect, it's easy to see how it would be applied and there aren't many corner cases.
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I don't think that's actually a problem. It's fine for Estates to change their nature from one moment to the next; I think the problem Donald X. is alluding to is, at a given moment, one indistinguishable Estate-shaped bit of cardboard having a different nature from another.
Yes, many things can cause confusion, but having two cards with the same name do different things is the most severe problem.
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Well, almost all the rules confusion that has stemmed from Inheritance and Band of Misfits has been because of cards changing in the middle of a turn (which is avoided with Capitalism and Necromancer, for different reasons). Crj's hypothetical Landmark has the same problem with Transmute, Ironworks etc.
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Well, almost all the rules confusion that has stemmed from Inheritance and Band of Misfits has been because of cards changing in the middle of a turn[...]
Would Inheritance work better if it was worded "(During your turns, all Estates gain the abilities and types of that card.)"?
It would make Inheriting most Reaction cards useless, but other than that it would mostly do the same thing as the original (except for when-gain shenanigans).
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Would Inheritance work better if it was worded "(During your turns, all Estates gain the abilities and types of that card.)"?
IMHO, yes - much better. If you clarified to "gain the abilities and types, but not name or cost, of that card" it would work better still. The only remaining wrinkle I can think of is what happens with tokens on the Estate and/or Inherited pile.
(Though I believe Donald X. has already said if he was updating Inheritance he'd actually use the Necromancer trick. "During your turns, Estates are Actions. When you play one, play the set-aside card, leaving it there." or similar. That even clarifies the tokens question, and is more intuitive on the matter of the name and cost of Estates.)
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Would Inheritance work better if it was worded "(During your turns, all Estates gain the abilities and types of that card.)"?
It would make Inheriting most Reaction cards useless, but other than that it would mostly do the same thing as the original (except for when-gain shenanigans).
That was considered (first) and is no good. I Inherit Caravan Guard. On my turn I play an attack and you have an Estate in hand. It's a Caravan Guard! You react with it and now it's in play. On your turn you have an Estate in play and it's just an Estate, though you still get +$1. Or it's whatever you inherited (let's make it a Ferry'd Bridge Troll); either way it's a mess. I don't like even just, it's Moat and other players can Moat with their Estates. These aren't exotic edge cases either, they are two-card combos that people must do sometimes.
The Necromancer approach means yeeha with Death Cart but is otherwise great (and if I'm errata-ing three cards I could always consider errata-ing Death Cart too, which wouldn't change anything about it except for these interactions where it isn't in play). You don't get the joy of triggering when-gains but it's clear that you don't, and there's still plenty of fun to be had.
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A related concept to Inheritance could be a card that trashed itself. That way it could be Heir today, gone tomorrow.
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So, I heard, a promo card based on a church in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany is coming soon. Is there already a planned release date?
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So, I heard, a promo card based on a church in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany is coming soon. Is there already a planned release date?
There are two promos coming. Altenburger asked for two, one for the winner of a tournament (it was RTT), the other for the winning province - people picked a province and something something one of them won. Altenburger forgot about the tournament winner promo, but we didn't, so they're both happening sometime this year. I don't have more of a release date yet; there isn't art yet so they're months away. I don't know if they will come out at the same time or what.
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in retrospect I don't like how many different tokens Adventures has, it's annoying pawing through them looking for the boot or whatever
Am I the only person who stores the tokens sorted by type, not by colour? You need the Journey tokens for a game; you fetch the journey tokens. Especially if you spend five dollars on a compartmented plastic storage box, setting them up becomes trivial.
I do that. I didn't sort it fully by type (the vanilla bonuses are together, the ones with pictures are together, and the -1 Card, -1 coin, and +2 cost are together) but I still end up only having to look through three or four rather than all 10.
I use a coin album page with sliding strips, like this:
(https://www.robinhooddirect.com/images/sliding-strip-album-pages-42-rhd.jpg)
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So, I heard, a promo card based on a church in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany is coming soon. Is there already a planned release date?
For the "Stralsunder" part Altenburger dropped out of their ASS?
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I don't have more of a release date yet; there isn't art yet so they're months away. I don't know if they will come out at the same time or what.
But we've already got art for one of them (https://i.imgur.com/3brkNzN.jpg).
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So, I heard, a promo card based on a church in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany is coming soon. Is there already a planned release date?
For the "Stralsunder" part Altenburger dropped out of their ASS?
Oh man, I really hope it's only going to reference the church by art. Naming a card after one particular building seems really out of place.
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So, I heard, a promo card based on a church in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany is coming soon. Is there already a planned release date?
For the "Stralsunder" part Altenburger dropped out of their ASS?
Oh man, I really hope it's only going to reference the church by art. Naming a card after one particular building seems really out of place.
In German, Walled Village is called "Carcassonne" ::)
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In German, Walled Village is called "Carcassonne" ::)
Not anymore!
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In German, Walled Village is called "Carcassonne" ::)
Not anymore!
Alright, because ASS Altenburger does not own the rights for Carcassonne. But this is not the first renamed card. Soothsayer was translated with “Wahrsager” (masculine form) first, but because Fortune Teller was already “Wahrsagerin” (feminine form), they renamed the card to “Hellseherin”. Yes, German job titles are weird and they became even more weird, because of the third gender introduced this year (2019). Bard and Wandering Minstrel are also swapped. They should have been “Bardin” and “Minnesänger”, but Bard became “Minnesängerin” and Wandering Minstrel became “Barde”. And it is too bad, that Dismantle was translated as “Abbruch” instead of “Abbau”, because traditionally Remodel variants end with “-bau” in their German name.
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Yes, German job titles are weird and they became even more weird, because of the third gender introduced this year (2019).
That third option stuff is a legal thing, not a grammatical one. It's first and foremost goal is to make life easier for people who cannot accurately be assigned to one sex, for instance because they have two sets of genomes in their body, or for other medical reasons. Those absolutely don't come up often, but it means those people don't get in trouble with official documents and what not, and it's not like the country breaks by looking out for its minorities. It has nothing to do with how you are supposed to talk.
In fact, German nouns always have a grammatical sex, which doesn't necessarily imply gender (a "male person" is still grammatically female, for instance) so the idea that a legal gender introduced the need for a new occupation expression is malformed.
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And it is too bad, that Dismantle was translated as “Abbruch” instead of “Abbau”, because traditionally Remodel variants end with “-bau” in their German name.
Tell me about it. (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4581.msg754801#msg754801)
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I recently found a copy of Infiltration in excellent condition, and I can see that changing it to be closer to your Factory Job prototype would greatly benefit the gameplay. This has naturally gotten me curious about precisely how the prototype played.
I know you've been reluctant—and contractually obligated in the past—to giving the full Secret History due to issues with the publishing process, which is fine.
However, I'd like to know more about the prototype rules so I can play the game in basically its submitted prototype form, using the published components if possible. I've read every post I could find that you've made on the subject and I'm still having to guess a lot.
Would you compare and contrast the precise differences (outside of theming) between the prototype and published versions, with the expectation that this wouldn't include the reason behind the changes?
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I recently found a copy of Infiltration in excellent condition, and I can see that changing it to be closer to your Factory Job prototype would greatly benefit the gameplay. This has naturally gotten me curious about precisely how the prototype played.
I know you've been reluctant—and contractually obligated in the past—to giving the full Secret History due to issues with the publishing process, which is fine.
However, I'd like to know more about the prototype rules so I can play the game in basically its submitted prototype form, using the published components if possible. I've read every post I could find that you've made on the subject and I'm still having to guess a lot.
Would you compare and contrast the precise differences (outside of theming) between the prototype and published versions, with the expectation that this wouldn't include the reason behind the changes?
I couldn't tell you the reasons for their changes if I wanted to - I wasn't involved at all. Well actually they said they might want to add 5 items, did I have 5 more, and I made 5 more items and they didn't use them, which I found out when I got my copies. But beyond that, I wasn't involved at all. I handed over a prototype and they published a game.
The biggest thing is that in Factory Job it isn't any player's turn. We all pick actions or items, put them face down, reveal. Items go first, in alphabetical order (for a published game they would be e.g. numbered as alphabetic order isn't constant between languages), then actions go in a particular order (move in, move out, special, loot). Everyone doing an action does it at the same time (if you play an item that loots, you still loot when everyone else does). The normal cap on looting in a room is $100 a turn; if multiple people loot there at once they split the $100 evenly, leaving any remainder in the room (yes the numbers are all bigger).
The easiest way to get closer to Factory Job is to use the first three variant rules. "Extract" is closer to Loot than "Download" is; Factory Job has players draft items at the start, "Heist-style" (after another game of mine, Heist); there's just one deck of room cards so anything could be first or the basement (in theirs, the secret room).
For me the dilemma of action selection was the core of the game; it was bizarre that they changed that. The contract let me take my name off the game and I mean I considered it.
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Thanks for responding! It's great to learn more about how the game could/should have been. I'd love to pick up a copy if you ever manage to get it published for real.
A few more questions about the prototype vs Infiltration:
Special action ordering (i.e. "Interface" in Infiltration): In Infiltration, many of these are one-shots and some grab loot or change shared state. How do you resolve ordering here?
Looting uneven splits: In Infiltration this is done per DF token, so there can be uneven splits (e.g. 3 players loot with 4 tokens or 5 players loot with 3 tokens). How did you resolve this in the prototype? Did you just split the amount by making change? Or were there tokens there as well? Or some kind of catch-up mechanic where player in last gets dibs?
Loot to DF token conversion: You said the max looting was $100 per round and round in the prototype. What would be the closest amount this would correspond to in Infiltration? (I'm guessing 4 DF tokens based on the Extract card, making each DF token about $25 in prototype terms.)
Loot randomization: In Infiltration, the DF tokens are worth random amounts from 1-3. Based on your description, it seems this might not have been the case in the prototype. Was there some kind of loot randomization process?
2 loot lock types seem a bit redundant (Lab Workers and Tech Locks in Infiltration): Was there a corresponding mechanic in the prototype? If so, why two types?
Random NPCs: Were each of them tied to a room like in Infiltration or were they randomized as well, as suggested in Infiltration's Scattered NPCs variant?
Concerning the end-game: Did you ever have or consider other methods of luck pushing near the end, such as: a faster method of retreat at a cost (e.g. dropping loot to be able to retreat 2 rooms at a time); or losing loot per round that players are still in the factory after reaching 99 proximity?
Game end timing: Did the prototype end at 99 proximity immediately like in Infiltration or at the end of the round reaching 99?
Specialist variant: Infiltration lists a Specialist variant where you start the game with 2 specific items per player character (and randomize/draft the other two) to make them seem differentiated. Did the prototype have such a mechanic?
Secret room / basement: In Infiltration there's one secret room from three special cards. Was the entrance to the basement via up to two specific rooms like in Infiltration? Seems like that wouldn't work as well if the card drawn for the basement was one of the go-to-basement rooms. What was the design goal here?
Room differences: How much were the rooms changed from the prototype? Were they just sorted into the three decks? Or were there massive changes?
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Out of the card ideas you come up with, approximately what percentage of them never make it into the game? How many don't even make it to the table for play-testing? Did this percentage increase over the years because of less idea space? Did it decrease because you got more skilled at designing? Or did these cancel out and it stayed the same? You mention neglected ideas a lot in your secret histories, so I was curious.
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Special action ordering (i.e. "Interface" in Infiltration): In Infiltration, many of these are one-shots and some grab loot or change shared state. How do you resolve ordering here?
Interface was Special. Within one room, two people playing Special do it at the same time. For people doing the same action in different places, start with the first room and work your way in. Some rooms in Factory Job have things like "if you're the only person playing Special here..." Obv. they could drop that since they added a turn order.
Looting uneven splits: In Infiltration this is done per DF token, so there can be uneven splits (e.g. 3 players loot with 4 tokens or 5 players loot with 3 tokens). How did you resolve this in the prototype? Did you just split the amount by making change? Or were there tokens there as well? Or some kind of catch-up mechanic where player in last gets dibs?
The numbers are way bigger and the remainder stays in the room. If the room has $80 and 2 items and 3 people loot there then each gets $26 and no items and the room is left with $2 and the 2 items. There is no catch-up mechanic; I vastly prefer "make sure it's fun to lose."
Loot to DF token conversion: You said the max looting was $100 per round and round in the prototype. What would be the closest amount this would correspond to in Infiltration? (I'm guessing 4 DF tokens based on the Extract card, making each DF token about $25 in prototype terms.)
The room with the most $ has like $400. I'm not looking through the Infiltration cards to see what they did; man it's not a game I play and you are asking a lot of questions.
Loot randomization: In Infiltration, the DF tokens are worth random amounts from 1-3. Based on your description, it seems this might not have been the case in the prototype. Was there some kind of loot randomization process?
There is no random token thing in Factory Job and $ is public. A room will have e.g. $150 and a safe with $100.
2 loot lock types seem a bit redundant (Lab Workers and Tech Locks in Infiltration): Was there a corresponding mechanic in the prototype? If so, why two types?
Factory Job has locks, boxes, and people, three types. It's just how I represented the kinds of objects you were breaking.
Random NPCs: Were each of them tied to a room like in Infiltration or were they randomized as well, as suggested in Infiltration's Scattered NPCs variant?
They are all tied to rooms. The rooms are randomized; that's all the randomization you need there.
Concerning the end-game: Did you ever have or consider other methods of luck pushing near the end, such as: a faster method of retreat at a cost (e.g. dropping loot to be able to retreat 2 rooms at a time); or losing loot per round that players are still in the factory after reaching 99 proximity?
I made Factory Job in 2003. So "did I ever consider" is not a question I can really answer. However I bet not; the cops showing up and catching everyone still in the building was the premise from the start. If you want to get out faster, turn back earlier or don't go in as far.
Game end timing: Did the prototype end at 99 proximity immediately like in Infiltration or at the end of the round reaching 99?
The game ends when the cops hit 100, even mid-turn. I guess they wanted a 2-digit number or something; mine goes to 100.
Specialist variant: Infiltration lists a Specialist variant where you start the game with 2 specific items per player character (and randomize/draft the other two) to make them seem differentiated. Did the prototype have such a mechanic?
No, just item drafting.
Secret room / basement: In Infiltration there's one secret room from three special cards. Was the entrance to the basement via up to two specific rooms like in Infiltration? Seems like that wouldn't work as well if the card drawn for the basement was one of the go-to-basement rooms. What was the design goal here?
The design goal was the joy of having a different branch you could take, even though the game depended on a linear map. I made two rooms that got you to the basement; both get you there with Special, and then Move In exits to the one room and Move Out to the other, hence two such rooms. The basement could be any card at all, the joy of the basement being any card at all. Many games there would be no way to the basement, and some games only one, but if you had two, yeeha, you could take that other route. A rare thing. The joy of rare things. Yes the basement could be one of the ways to get to the basement. That doesn't break anything and we would probably all get a laugh out of it.
Room differences: How much were the rooms changed from the prototype? Were they just sorted into the three decks? Or were there massive changes?
This question is beyond the scope. I'd have to find a box and paw through it to know what they had; I don't play that game, I play Factory Job. One thing I remember is, Factory Job had one room with computers, and they used them in more places. Factory Job had two identical security guards and I think they changed one of them.
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Out of the card ideas you come up with, approximately what percentage of them never make it into the game? How many don't even make it to the table for play-testing? Did this percentage increase over the years because of less idea space? Did it decrease because you got more skilled at designing? Or did these cancel out and it stayed the same? You mention neglected ideas a lot in your secret histories, so I was curious.
The junk file for Renaissance is 165K, if that does anything for you. It's ideas removed from the main file because I don't want to look at them anymore (the main file at any moment has the current cards and then whatever I'm working on). Some of it is lists of one-line ideas, some of it is fully-worded cards with stats. That is as close as I am going to get to approximating these things for you. "A lot" of ideas never make it; "a lot" don't get playtested. There is a giant file of ancient ideas, that I've picked through repeatedly so that it's all bad now. But I'm pickier now and that requires generating more ideas, and at first I could just do the low-hanging fruit and did, so it's harder to get somewhere now and so more work goes into it. So overall the %'s have gone up.
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A data point that might be interesting, and is hopefully really easy to answer: how big was the corresponding "finished" file for Renaissance?
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A data point that might be interesting, and is hopefully really easy to answer: how big was the corresponding "finished" file for Renaissance?
There is no such file. The main file is 8K. Half of that is a terse list of the cards, one line per card; a fourth is cards by category; a fourth is final work being done - bad ideas for projects and wordings for Lantern. The list bit would have been copied to the other file but there was no point.
Okay I made a file of just the final card texts (but the full form, with exact wordings and card types and stuff), and that's 7K.
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If I understand correctly, that suggests that only approximately one idea in every twenty-five ended up as a published card? That's surprisingly (and impressively) low!
I guess some of the junk ideas are reworking of other junk ideas, but even so...
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For the number of cards that get to me for playtesting, I can tell you that way less than half of them end up being the last version of a card. There's no line though between a card that's been tweaked and a card that's been replaced entirely. It's a big gray area. But any which way you slice it, the number of outtakes dwarfs the number of finished cards by leaps and bounds.
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Random NPCs: Were each of them tied to a room like in Infiltration or were they randomized as well, as suggested in Infiltration's Scattered NPCs variant?
Oh man, there are so many random changes from Factory Job to Infiltration, it's insane. So many of them are pointlessly making the game worse as well. Like you know there's this one NPC that always moves out and then dials up the cops number (or whatever it's called in Infiltration) when they leave the building? In Factory Job, that NPC only moves if they're alone, which is both more flavorful and more interesting mechanically.
The one thing I think Infiltration possibly does better is the money/data. Having large discrete chunks of it makes it a lot easier to divvy up loot in a room. It's a pain having $100 in room and giving each of three players $33, leaving $1 in the room that nobody will ever want. I also like the amounts being secret and randomized, but honestly I don't think it's worth the extra setup. Having to turn all those data tokens upside down and mixing them up is a huge pain.
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Maybe this has been addressed somewhere, but I can't find it. Why does Royal Carriage have a clause that it can't replay a card that has left play, while Citadel does not have that clause?
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Maybe this has been addressed somewhere, but I can't find it. Why does Royal Carriage have a clause that it can't replay a card that has left play, while Citadel does not have that clause?
I don't know if it was the only reason, but without that clause, you could play Royal Carriage infinitely, calling it to reply itself each time. One could argue that this is no different than how you can reveal Moat infinitely for no effect; though it actually matters with Conspirator or any of the token bonuses.
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I don't know if it was the only reason, but without that clause, you could play Royal Carriage infinitely, calling it to reply itself each time. One could argue that this is no different than how you can reveal Moat infinitely for no effect; though it actually matters with Conspirator or any of the token bonuses.
That is a very good point. Citadel has a built-in limit of once.
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Maybe this has been addressed somewhere, but I can't find it. Why does Royal Carriage have a clause that it can't replay a card that has left play, while Citadel does not have that clause?
I don't know if it was the only reason, but without that clause, you could play Royal Carriage infinitely, calling it to reply itself each time. One could argue that this is no different than how you can reveal Moat infinitely for no effect; though it actually matters with Conspirator or any of the token bonuses.
It also gives you infinite +Actions.
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Are there any outtakes which got to the table for playtesting, but which you wonder why you ever considered them in retrospect?
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Are there any outtakes which got to the table for playtesting, but which you wonder why you ever considered them in retrospect?
If you don't playtest things that look crazy, you'll never have published cards that look crazy. Still I've certainly playtested cards that had no real chance of working out. I don't shy away from mentioning them in the secret histories.
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Talking about play testing. Is there any new upcoming expansion this year? I really look forward to!
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Talking about play testing. Is there any new upcoming expansion this year? I really look forward to!
There's no expansion this year, though there were two promos.
There will probably be an expansion in 2020, probably earlier rather than later.
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Will small expansions (a la Guilds/Alchemy/Cornucopia) ever be "in the cards" again? or will it likely be just medium/large expansions?
Another one could happen someday, but people like the large expansions better, so those are more likely.
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(for those looking for what's being quoted, I had deleted my post bc I thought "wait maybe this has been asked before, better read 187 pages of forum posts before asking" and sure enough, right there on p85. I'm about halfway through);
I've got some followup questions though; ignore any you dont feel like answering:
1: do you ever revisit old mechanics in light of new mechanics? Like specifically the idea of a coffer-potion - play a card, get a token that's spendable during your buy phase for a potion? Or did the response to alchemy sour you on the idea of ever revisiting potions as a mechanic in the way you have durations, events, etc?
1a: probably not a good fit for Dominion, but what do you think of games with secondary/commodity currencies?
1b: Did you ever try tossing potion on to Storyteller (as a valid target for generating draw akin to each $1)? Sort of a "won't matter but will make the people who have/like that set happy" type deal?
2: maybe this is a Jay/RGG question but: did you pick the euro-sized cards, or did you playtest w MtG sized cards + sleeves? any insight into why this size?
3: this is probably definitely a set of RGG questions but: why are the tavern mats so much thicker than literally all the other mats? why weren't the (2E) Guilds/Cornucopia Coffer mats the size of like, the VP-chit mats in Prosperity?why no VP mats in Empires*?
* actually this i can guess at: empires had A Lot already
4: might definitely also be an RGG question: Have you considered partnering with a print-on-demand cardmaker like Drivethru or GameCrafter to let people make their "own" dominion fancards? like, ya'll get a cut, the printer gets a cut, and the fan can have something they designed that looks/feels/plays like a regular dominion card without having to sleeve their collection?
4a: could even toss the removed 1st Edition cards from main/intrigue on there so the completionists can complete
4b/sarc/aside: where's the "Ask RGG" thread?
5: Have you ever considered writing a book about game design? I feel like you've got some unique insights and perspectives, at least based on your forum posts/secret histories/bible subforum. (and uh if you're asking who'd read a book on game design, there's dozens of us)
6:
... Governor ...
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Jay originally asked for a Power Grid tie-in, which also had an anniversary, but I didn't have any good ideas there. Plus it had to be a victory card, because of Friese's green theme. Puerto Rico was easy.
Hey with it being five more years down the line, power grid's probably got another anniversary; could you do a Landmark promo?
7: Kind of an abstract/doesn't matter rules question from the Variants Forum but with like... Capitalism, if you had an Action-Treasure card whose action chunk was involved +$, does that become an Action - Treasure - Treasure card?
Or uh in programming terms, is the collection of types a Set or an Array?
8: Do you ever use conversations (not fan-cards) on the forum as a spark for an idea? I'm reading reply #1431 in this thread (which pre-dates reserve cards) and
I actually specifically suggested no playmat. My housemate and I tried a mat. It made it really easy to forget to do our Princed Actions.
Out of curiosity, what did you do sans mat that made it easier to remember? I would think as long as the actions are somewhere noticeable in your space, any marker indicating they are Princed (the Prince card, a distinctive mat, etc) would make it equally easy to remember to play them.
In your play area they're noticeable. Island and Native Village have trained us to ignore stuff on mats until a card we play alludes to them. Your mileage may vary.
that cause me to metal gear solid a "!" over my head when i connected it to reserve cards
9: Have you ever tried to do a board game of Heroes of Might & Magic III/Dudes? How'd it work out?
10: Is Dame Sylvia named after the Heroes III character?
11: (this is probably addressed circa p140, which i haven't read yet, but whatev) Was there ever an Attack/Hexes version of Druid (ie, set three hexes aside at the start, this card can do one of them when you play it)?
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(for those looking for what's being quoted, I had deleted my post bc I thought "wait maybe this has been asked before, better read 187 pages of forum posts before asking" and sure enough, right there on p85. I'm about halfway through);
In case you aren't aware, you can change the posts-per-page in your settings. This thread is only 94 pages for me.
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1: do you ever revisit old mechanics in light of new mechanics? Like specifically the idea of a coffer-potion - play a card, get a token that's spendable during your buy phase for a potion? Or did the response to alchemy sour you on the idea of ever revisiting potions as a mechanic in the way you have durations, events, etc?
It's unlikely I will revisit potions. When a mechanic appears in a new set it's different due to what that set offers, e.g. the Events in Empires can give VP tokens.
1a: probably not a good fit for Dominion, but what do you think of games with secondary/commodity currencies?
I don't like it when there are 5 identical resources. It's fine if the resources are really distinct. Dominion has one resource so that you don't draw a bad mix of resources.
1b: Did you ever try tossing potion on to Storyteller (as a valid target for generating draw akin to each $1)? Sort of a "won't matter but will make the people who have/like that set happy" type deal?
No, I never considered tossing a potion on [any non-Alchemy card].
2: maybe this is a Jay/RGG question but: did you pick the euro-sized cards, or did you playtest w MtG sized cards + sleeves? any insight into why this size?
Jay picked the size as just a normal card size he'd worked with a lot already. He didn't anticipate the size being an issue due to sleeves.
3: this is probably definitely a set of RGG questions but: why are the tavern mats so much thicker than literally all the other mats? why weren't the (2E) Guilds/Cornucopia Coffer mats the size of like, the VP-chit mats in Prosperity?why no VP mats in Empires*?
I didn't think the VP mat was needed, since the tokens are different. Jay agreed, so there's no VP mat in Empires. I don't know about the Tavern mat thickness or Coffers mat size.
4: might definitely also be an RGG question: Have you considered partnering with a print-on-demand cardmaker like Drivethru or GameCrafter to let people make their "own" dominion fancards? like, ya'll get a cut, the printer gets a cut, and the fan can have something they designed that looks/feels/plays like a regular dominion card without having to sleeve their collection?
No, I have not ever considered this.
4a: could even toss the removed 1st Edition cards from main/intrigue on there so the completionists can complete
For me it's a feature that those cards are out of print.
5: Have you ever considered writing a book about game design? I feel like you've got some unique insights and perspectives, at least based on your forum posts/secret histories/bible subforum. (and uh if you're asking who'd read a book on game design, there's dozens of us)
No; in the 90s I wrote a bunch of essays about game design, but man I don't think there's a market for them.
6: Hey with it being five more years down the line, power grid's probably got another anniversary; could you do a Landmark promo?
It would be an acceptable way to make the card green.
7: Kind of an abstract/doesn't matter rules question from the Variants Forum but with like... Capitalism, if you had an Action-Treasure card whose action chunk was involved +$, does that become an Action - Treasure - Treasure card?
Or uh in programming terms, is the collection of types a Set or an Array?
It's just an Action - Treasure; a card either has a type or doesn't.
8: Do you ever use conversations (not fan-cards) on the forum as a spark for an idea? I'm reading reply #1431 in this thread (which pre-dates reserve cards) and
That is not where reserve cards came from, and I know nothing of "metal gear solid." I don't think any mechanics have come from public forum conversations; you can read about where some of them came from in the secret histories.
9: Have you ever tried to do a board game of Heroes of Might & Magic III/Dudes? How'd it work out?
I've written notes up but haven't made the game. I made a game of building up fantasy heroes, not so much related to Heroes; it was called Spirit Warriors and the sequel I never made is where I got the idea for Dominion.
10: Is Dame Sylvia named after the Heroes III character?
No, http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4318.0
11: (this is probably addressed circa p140, which i haven't read yet, but whatev) Was there ever an Attack/Hexes version of Druid (ie, set three hexes aside at the start, this card can do one of them when you play it)?
No.
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Thank you for responding and spending time answering questions; your answers are insightful.
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Any specific reason why "under/on this" (as seen on Crypt, Cargo Ship, Research, 2E Gear and 2E Haven) is dropped from Church? Just space problems?
I find the phrase a bit problematic, because it somewhat muddies the distinction between "cards in play" and "cards set aside". There might also be some confusion of what happens with Procession + Gear, because now there is no "under this" anymore. (I know that the set-aside cards stay.)
EDIT: Thanks to Spineflu - Research and Cargo Ship say "on this"
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On a note related to Jeebus' question, I noticed that Research says "on this" instead of "under this" like most of the set-cards-aside Durations do. Is there a reason for this?
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The reason why there’s no attack that can inflict a specific hex each time is presumably that some of the hexes wouldn’t work if you could reliably inflict them every turn. For example, Delusion prevents a player from buying actions for their next buy phase. If it was easy to build a deck that inflicted Delusion every turn, that would be no fun.
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Any specific reason why "under/on this" (as seen on Crypt, Cargo Ship, Research, 2E Gear and 2E Haven) is dropped from Church? Just space problems?
I find the phrase a bit problematic, because it somewhat muddies the distinction between "cards in play" and "cards set aside". There might also be some confusion of what happens with Procession + Gear, because now there is no "under this" anymore. (I know that the set-aside cards stay.)
It's just space for text on Church.
Saying e.g. "under this" felt helpful; there's no "under this" in exotic cases but I felt like people wouldn't blow it there.
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On a note related to Jeebus' question, I noticed that Research says "on this" instead of "under this" like most of the set-cards-aside Durations do. Is there a reason for this?
We may have talked about it but there's no real reason there. The cards try to be phrased well and are not all phrased at once.
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The reason why there’s no attack that can inflict a specific hex each time is presumably that some of the hexes wouldn’t work if you could reliably inflict them every turn. For example, Delusion prevents a player from buying actions for their next buy phase. If it was easy to build a deck that inflicted Delusion every turn, that would be no fun.
Yes some of them are things that a regular card couldn't always do. You could maybe substitute some other way of limiting the damage (e.g. Torturer's choice), but whatever; at this point I wouldn't do the hexes at all, they were just way too complicated.
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I have questions but no Dominion-related ones. If you like them, I will continue posting more. (I'll just post more after each is answered, as long as people continue to benefit.)
Mana screw is a great scapegoat. In fact, one of the best roles that it serves, is if you want to blame your game on your mana, you can. Even if it has nothing to do with your mana. Someone would come up to a player after they’re done and go “How’d it go?” So much of the time they would just say “Oh, I got bad mana or bad draws". But I watched the match. They didn’t have bad mana or they didn’t have bad draws. They just lost. They made bad decisions or whatever. But it’s a nice excuse that anybody can give. And that is important.
Let's focus on the notion of a scapegoat. When someone wins, they want to feel it's fair and they won against a good opponent. When someone loses, they want to believe that RNG screwed them over and nothing is their fault. These two needs create tension. So in a game with public and private information, someone's disadvantages should all be private information and his advantages should all be public. (This is for ideal scapegoat design, ignoring all other considerations.) So a player sees all the things screwing him over and goes, "wow, I'm so unlucky". But he doesn't see the things screwing his opponent over, only the ways his opponent got lucky. He has the perfect scapegoat.
The one consideration I have with this model is, someone sees all the crappy stuff happening to him and so after he loses a game, he wants to complain about it big time. Because nobody knows his suffering, and he needs to let everyone know that he is actually a great player who is just very unlucky. If I make him keep his mouth shut (such as disconnecting him from his opponent after the match ends), will he explode with resentment? Or if I don't make him keep his mouth shut, will his complaining undermine the feeling of victory that his opponent has? Will it create toxicity in the community if everyone is constantly complaining about how unlucky they all are and how their match records don't reflect their greatness?
Also, should the scapegoat be easy to summarize and communicate? (For example, a simple thing like mana screw is easily described to other people, such that the listener might believe it's a valid excuse.) Or, should the scapegoat be a complex mishmash of hard-to-summarize interactions, such that even if he tries to complain, his complaints won't be believable or communicable? (For example, if pieces can form sets of many combos, such as in Big 2, missing combo pieces aren't describable except by the general notion of "bad draws". A better player might find valid combos anyway, but this player hasn't found the combos he's looking for so it's legitimate for him to complain that combo pieces are missing.)
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Mana screw is a great scapegoat. In fact, one of the best roles that it serves, is if you want to blame your game on your mana, you can. Even if it has nothing to do with your mana. Someone would come up to a player after they’re done and go “How’d it go?” So much of the time they would just say “Oh, I got bad mana or bad draws". But I watched the match. They didn’t have bad mana or they didn’t have bad draws. They just lost. They made bad decisions or whatever. But it’s a nice excuse that anybody can give. And that is important.
Let's focus on the notion of a scapegoat. When someone wins, they want to feel it's fair and they won against a good opponent. When someone loses, they want to believe that RNG screwed them over and nothing is their fault. These two needs create tension. So in a game with public and private information, someone's disadvantages should all be private information and his advantages should all be public. (This is for ideal scapegoat design, ignoring all other considerations.) So a player sees all the things screwing him over and goes, "wow, I'm so unlucky". But he doesn't see the things screwing his opponent over, only the ways his opponent got lucky. He has the perfect scapegoat.
The one consideration I have with this model is, someone sees all the crappy stuff happening to him and so after he loses a game, he wants to complain about it big time. Because nobody knows his suffering, and he needs to let everyone know that he is actually a great player who is just very unlucky. If I make him keep his mouth shut (such as disconnecting him from his opponent after the match ends), will he explode with resentment? Or if I don't make him keep his mouth shut, will his complaining undermine the feeling of victory that his opponent has? Will it create toxicity in the community if everyone is constantly complaining about how unlucky they all are and how their match records don't reflect their greatness?
Also, should the scapegoat be easy to summarize and communicate? (For example, a simple thing like mana screw is easily described to other people, such that the listener might believe it's a valid excuse.) Or, should the scapegoat be a complex mishmash of hard-to-summarize interactions, such that even if he tries to complain, his complaints won't be believable or communicable? (For example, if pieces can form sets of many combos, such as in Big 2, missing combo pieces aren't describable except by the general notion of "bad draws". A better player might find valid combos anyway, but this player hasn't found the combos he's looking for so it's legitimate for him to complain that combo pieces are missing.)
I don't try to have scapegoats. I try to make it fun to lose; if it's fun to lose I'm set, I don't need to add more wrinkles there, e.g. making sure you feel like you could win, or a scapegoat. This is one of those cases where I cite Scrabble. You can start a game of Scrabble knowing that the other player will beat you, that they are simply better at anagramming than you are, and still have fun. You can blame your draw in Scrabble, if it's close, but when they beat you up, man, you know, they were just better. And that's fine, it doesn't make the game no fun. It's not something that needs fixing in Scrabble (what needs fixing is downtime, and people have fixed it, e.g. with Boggle, which provides no scapegoat at all).
I would not cite mana screw as serving an important scapegoat role in Magic either. You can always blame all the other aspects of your draw, e.g. drawing early-game cards late and vice-versa. Mana screw is one of the two giant flaws Magic has (the other is that the rules are too complex). When e.g. Mark says how great mana screw is for Magic, he's either towing the company line, or suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Mana screw is: sometimes you don't get to play. In 1993 that was not unusual; these days we know that games are better when everyone gets to play. It's not some impossible dream; there are tons of games now where you always get to play.
I think people get way angrier about online games than real-life games. A huge difference is that you're up against friends irl, and often strangers online. But well, if people complaining online is toxic, then all those communities are toxic; there will always be something to complain about. The players are all humans.
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I don't try to have scapegoats. I try to make it fun to lose; if it's fun to lose I'm set, I don't need to add more wrinkles there, e.g. making sure you feel like you could win, or a scapegoat. This is one of those cases where I cite Scrabble. You can start a game of Scrabble knowing that the other player will beat you, that they are simply better at anagramming than you are, and still have fun. You can blame your draw in Scrabble, if it's close, but when they beat you up, man, you know, they were just better. And that's fine, it doesn't make the game no fun. It's not something that needs fixing in Scrabble (what needs fixing is downtime, and people have fixed it, e.g. with Boggle, which provides no scapegoat at all).
I would not cite mana screw as serving an important scapegoat role in Magic either. You can always blame all the other aspects of your draw, e.g. drawing early-game cards late and vice-versa. Mana screw is one of the two giant flaws Magic has (the other is that the rules are too complex). When e.g. Mark says how great mana screw is for Magic, he's either towing the company line, or suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Mana screw is: sometimes you don't get to play. In 1993 that was not unusual; these days we know that games are better when everyone gets to play. It's not some impossible dream; there are tons of games now where you always get to play.
I think people get way angrier about online games than real-life games. A huge difference is that you're up against friends irl, and often strangers online. But well, if people complaining online is toxic, then all those communities are toxic; there will always be something to complain about. The players are all humans.
You are correct about mana screw being a flaw; I just wanted to cite a concrete example of something being scapegoated. (The cognitive bias underlying Mark's perspective is that he's invested in it. It's post-purchase rationalization, but with 20 years of design replacing the purchase.)
Scrabble is a different effect. Using Mark's language, it is a Timmy experience. Even if you lose a game of Magic, it might be fun if you got to build a 200/200 creature (a fun experience!). But Spike will be unhappy. Scapegoats are for Spike. Timmy doesn't need scapegoats, and a game creating its value through Timmy things will have no trouble with losing. Here's an example similar to Scrabble: people don't mind losing Oregon Trail or wargames, because they have no mechanics anyway and it's all about the experience. Another example is Monopoly:
Monopoly has no mechanics. And usually no winners or losers either - the game drags on and everyone quits. But it's still a strong Timmy experience because of the theme and story.
Creating good Timmy experiences is quite hard though. Some Spike action is helpful in supplementing the shortfalls that a design will inevitably have.
Here's another question:
Players hate self-milling, and they will hate this. As one of many examples, look how little Arc-Slogger is worth compared to how powerful he is. Just stop submitting it - everyone
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As it turns out, players generally hate hate hate self-milling so much that we would never actually do that
You found a similar effect with Tribute.
Some people feel like it's attacking them, since it can flip over good cards; I think it tends to help as much as hurt, but so what, I don't need people to feel bad over a non-attack
Logically, it makes no difference when something is milled - they just draw the card below that. But people hate milling anyway because of loss aversion. They weigh the loss of a discarded good card far higher than the benefit of a discarded bad card. So even though their emotional reaction makes no logical sense, they can't help it anyway.
The natural thought experiment is: suppose the milled card was face down, so they don't see which card was milled. I think this wouldn't create the impression of an attack. Is that true? Do you have experience with cards in either Dominion or other games that have this face-down-mill effect? How do players react to them? (Face down mill isn't possible for Tribute because of cheating issues.)
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I don't know magic well, but self-milling is discarding your own cards from the deck to get a powerful benefit, right?
Unlike discards in Dominion, discards in Magic are quite permanent.
If so, I think a better comparison might be trash-from-top-of-deck effects, which are some of the most polarising attacks in Dominion.
An analogue of self-milling would then be Leprechaun or Cursed village hitting War or Locusts, which while occasionally hilarious can lead to some negative experiences (I'm still trying to recover from the time I killed my own goat with locusts).
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I don't know magic well, but self-milling is discarding your own cards from the deck to get a powerful benefit, right?
Unlike discards in Dominion, discards in Magic are quite permanent.
If so, I think a better comparison might be trash-from-top-of-deck effects, which are some of the most polarising attacks in Dominion.
An analogue of self-milling would then be Leprechaun or Cursed village hitting War or Locusts, which while occasionally hilarious can lead to some negative experiences (I'm still trying to recover from the time I killed my own goat with locusts).
It's true the comparisons aren't entirely accurate, but they're inaccurate in the other direction.
Removing random cards from your deck doesn't make any difference unless your entire deck gets depleted — there is a number of random cards that you don't get to draw because they're at the bottom of your deck, and if you mill some cards from the top, the number of random cards that you don't get to draw stays the same, only some of them are a different bunch of random cards that are now in your graveyard instead of being at the bottom of your deck. That's how it works in Magic because you typically only draw 10-15 cards per game from your deck that has 60 cards in it, and when it doesn't work like that, it's because your opponent is playing a deck that can force you to mill your entire deck and doesn't particularly care how many cards you have in it. In addition, Magic has a ton of reasons why it's good to have more things in your own graveyard, such as cards that give you benefits based on what's in your graveyard and cards that can be played from your graveyard.
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Scrabble is a different effect. Using Mark's language, it is a Timmy experience. Even if you lose a game of Magic, it might be fun if you got to build a 200/200 creature (a fun experience!). But Spike will be unhappy. Scapegoats are for Spike. Timmy doesn't need scapegoats, and a game creating its value through Timmy things will have no trouble with losing. Here's an example similar to Scrabble: people don't mind losing Oregon Trail or wargames, because they have no mechanics anyway and it's all about the experience. Another example is Monopoly:
I don't see how Scrabble is for Timmy, not at all, and it isn't mechanic-less. Scrabble is about the joy of anagramming. That joy isn't tied to your score, that's the key thing.
Here's another question:
Players hate self-milling, and they will hate this. As one of many examples, look how little Arc-Slogger is worth compared to how powerful he is. Just stop submitting it - everyone
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As it turns out, players generally hate hate hate self-milling so much that we would never actually do that
Whatever that card was, they still do self-milling all the time; an example from the most recent expansion: https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=466856
You found a similar effect with Tribute.
Some people feel like it's attacking them, since it can flip over good cards; I think it tends to help as much as hurt, but so what, I don't need people to feel bad over a non-attack
Logically, it makes no difference when something is milled - they just draw the card below that. But people hate milling anyway because of loss aversion. They weigh the loss of a discarded good card far higher than the benefit of a discarded bad card. So even though their emotional reaction makes no logical sense, they can't help it anyway.
The natural thought experiment is: suppose the milled card was face down, so they don't see which card was milled. I think this wouldn't create the impression of an attack. Is that true? Do you have experience with cards in either Dominion or other games that have this face-down-mill effect? How do players react to them? (Face down mill isn't possible for Tribute because of cheating issues.)
Milling in Magic and milling in Dominion are really unrelated. In Magic you give yourself a resource - cards in the graveyard - while maybe feeling bad - I would have drawn that. If you don't run out of cards, it's a positive effect, that some people don't enjoy. In Dominion you don't draw that card that shuffle - it's good or bad depending on the card. [And in Dominion, "milling" refers to lowering piles without gaining cards, e.g. Remodel Province to Province.]
I don't see what I would get out of secretly moving a card from your deck to your discard. I don't flip over cards just to flip them over; I look at the card and care what it is. Just moving the card isn't harmful enough to be an attack or penalty, or beneficial enough to be a bonus. It's busywork. I think it would feel like busywork; not an attack or benefit, but stupid. In Magic e.g. "put the top card of your library on the bottom" (if it goes to your graveyard, we'll know what it is) would be completely meaningless. Okay sometimes you'd have some information about your deck order, but aside from that, it's just shuffling a shuffled deck.
Tribute isn't self-milling; you do it to your opponents! Lots of cards can flip over your opponents' cards; what was special about Tribute was that it didn't say "attack" on it, and people didn't like that they couldn't Moat it. This is why Chariot Race doesn't discard the opponent's card (which some people then dislike for different reasons).
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I don't see what I would get out of secretly moving a card from your deck to your discard. I don't flip over cards just to flip them over; I look at the card and care what it is. Just moving the card isn't harmful enough to be an attack or penalty, or beneficial enough to be a bonus. It's busywork. I think it would feel like busywork; not an attack or benefit, but stupid. In Magic e.g. "put the top card of your library on the bottom" (if it goes to your graveyard, we'll know what it is) would be completely meaningless. Okay sometimes you'd have some information about your deck order, but aside from that, it's just shuffling a shuffled deck.
Tribute isn't self-milling; you do it to your opponents! Lots of cards can flip over your opponents' cards; what was special about Tribute was that it didn't say "attack" on it, and people didn't like that they couldn't Moat it. This is why Chariot Race doesn't discard the opponent's card (which some people then dislike for different reasons).
You're correct that it's a pointless mechanic. I'm interested in how players respond because it helps me understand the overall design space. Some of the ideas I'll mention will be quite bad, but illustrative of concepts. Your comment that "it would feel like busywork; not an attack or benefit, but stupid" is perfect.
I didn't realize that players disliked Tribute because of the lack of the "Attack" word on it; thanks for that insight.
Here's my next question.
Start the game with a few easy options and slowly raise the number of choices as the game progresses.
In particular, Mark says that that a game's first few choices should be easy. We can look at how other games handle it.
Heroes of the Storm, a multiplayer action game: your actions at the beginning of the game make little difference. Respawns are instant, so killing your opponents barely matters, and dying also barely matters. You can't push towers or affect the board meaningfully. Early game is like warmup.
Dream Quest, a single-player deck-building game: equipment you pick up early can't be removed easily. That means early equipment decisions will clog your run later. So early decisions matter as much as late decisions.
Drafting games: all deck decisions are made up front before the game starts. The performance of your deck is mostly decided early.
Consider the balance between early/late decisions as a general concept, untied to the specifics of these examples. If early decisions are easy to make, it reduces the impact of those decisions. Should the consequences of early decisions weigh the same as late decisions, or should early decisions be weighted less? What about how obvious those choices should be? What are the underlying things that Rosewater sees, that make him feel his statement is correct?
(Let's pretend that early/late weighting, or early/late obviousness of choices, is a tunable knob that doesn't affect anything else in the game. For example, early decisions having outsize impact is an unavoidable downside of drafting games. It can't be changed without fundamentally altering the nature of the game, but we could close our eyes and pretend it can!)
Scumming is a consequence of early decisions mattering, but it can sometimes be solved, so let's ignore it. For example, if you are playing a multiplayer physical board game and you do poorly early, you won't flip the board and reset the game. Your friends would be mad at you.
As for what counts as early vs late, clock time seems like the most logical scale, since it's the scale on which you think and interact, as long as there is zero downtime.
One aspect I considered for this problem was Spike. If Spike fucked up early, then he will be suffering for the rest of the game and will want to flip the table. He doesn't care how fun the flavor is and how great the building-up feels. He wants to win, and feeling like a loser for a long time will make him miserable, and he wants it to end quickly. (You prefer to make games that avoid this problem. But let's assume the person is hyper-competitive; he will quit playing and find another game if he thinks he's losing, no matter what.)
However, Spike may not be the relevant factor that matters for early/late. In designing which choices are worthwhile to have in a game, my document states:
The purpose of choices is to promote learning. You make a choice and then receive feedback on that choice, learning about the quality of your decision.
If choices are too obvious, then you already know the right decision and so you don't learn.
If choices are confusing or nonintuitive, with unclear connection between the choice and the consequence, then it's hard to evaluate your decision.
The player should make a decision whose correct answer is not obvious, and should be able to relate future consequences to that decision. A decision being high-impact will make the connection between consequences and decision easier to see, but the impact is otherwise not important. What's important is the clarity of the connection.
The player judges quality of a presented choice by how much he expects it to teach him about something he cares about. Obvious choices will teach him nothing, and meaningless choices will also teach him nothing (or nothing that he cares about).
He may perceive an obvious correct answer, and later discover his "obvious" answer was wrong. This is a strong and excellent learning event, but it requires that later discovery to happen. Otherwise, his initial judgment of obviousness, and hence uninterestingness, will stand. (See: healing)
Note that if connections are clear, the player will learn very fast. That's good if you have lots of things to teach the player. If you run out of teachable things because the player has learned everything, the game becomes dead.
Teaching everything in a short time is not a good thing for a designer, even if it delivers all the same learning value in a shorter time. Because player perception of what they learned is not decided by how much they learned, but how much time they spent learning. So stretching out the learning is useful in tricking players to see a game as "deep".
Having fewer choices makes them more obvious and less confusing (by eliminating ones that the player shouldn't consider).
In particular, as the game progresses, the player should have some feeling of how the ongoing events are related to what he did before, helping him evaluate whether he made the right decision. If a choice is a black box, then the game designer should remove that choice. Is this the correct framework in which to evaluate why Rosewater wants early decisions to be more obvious? How come early choices require different treatment from late ones? Perhaps because they affect more duration of the game, and hence require a clearer connection between the choice and its consequences?
Perhaps the correct framework is instead clock time between information and the choice given. For example, in Heroes of the Storm, playing a new character is like a large burst of information. Then, you need some time to digest this information and form good decisions. Early/late weighting is a true tunable knob for Heroes that doesn't affect any other aspect of the game. So its early game being a warmup is a conscious decision by the game's designers, and they feel it's best this way. Its early decisions are not "easy" so much as "unimpactful". The connections are still clear, but they don't matter for victory.
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Do you use any sort of tracking/sorting/project/"productivity" type software for working on your games (like trello or hack2plan or whatever)?
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Start the game with a few easy options and slowly raise the number of choices as the game progresses.
In particular, Mark says that that a game's first few choices should be easy. We can look at how other games handle it.
I don't know what Mark meant, but what I would mean by that is, a game should start low-information and progress to more information. The early decisions are easy in the sense that you have fewer decisions with fewer options, not in the sense that you obviously know what choice to make.
I have this problem in many of my games. In Dominion you have to read 10 cards on turn one. That's a lot to ask of players. Many of course don't do it, they just read the $4's if they have $4, even though to play well you want to read them all and think about them. It's better to present less information turn one; I just didn't because well I had ideas that involved lots of reading turn one.
Dominion does at least give players fewer decisions per turn early on.
Drafting games: all deck decisions are made up front before the game starts. The performance of your deck is mostly decided early.
You mean drafting e.g. Magic. "Drafting games" are games where you draft all game, like Greed; when the drafting is done the game is over.
Consider the balance between early/late decisions as a general concept, untied to the specifics of these examples. If early decisions are easy to make, it reduces the impact of those decisions. Should the consequences of early decisions weigh the same as late decisions, or should early decisions be weighted less? What about how obvious those choices should be? What are the underlying things that Rosewater sees, that make him feel his statement is correct?
I think Mark is just talking about something else. If someone actually thinks early decisions should be trivial, well, I don't see any reason for that.
However, Spike may not be the relevant factor that matters for early/late. In designing which choices are worthwhile to have in a game, my document states:
For me, Spike is not a relevant factor period. I just never think about the Magic psychographs when working on a game.
The game has to start out interesting me enough to work on it. Then I have to enjoy it enough to want to keep working on it, and the players who try it have to like enough too. If I pass those hurdles I will eventually think, okay, who is the audience for this game, and how can I make it better for them specifically. I'm never thinking, "but what about Spike."
The purpose of choices is to promote learning. You make a choice and then receive feedback on that choice, learning about the quality of your decision.
If choices are too obvious, then you already know the right decision and so you don't learn.
For me the purpose of choices is to have a fun game. You can only maximize one variable; I am maximizing fun. I don't need to teach anyone anything, or simulate the experience of learning, or any such thing. Fun.
I don't like having trivial choices; they waste time (which is no fun). In certain cases a trivial choice makes sense because it accomplishes something else, e.g. having "you may" on Moneylender so that we don't need to keep you honest (what if you want to play it but don't want to trash a copper, a rare situation but not an impossible one).
You can get some fun from exploring the strategic space of a game, which can include learning about choices. That's just not the root perspective I have though; I am maximizing fun, not learning. A choice can be fun with no exploring-strategic-space element.
Teaching everything in a short time is not a good thing for a designer, even if it delivers all the same learning value in a shorter time. Because player perception of what they learned is not decided by how much they learned, but how much time they spent learning. So stretching out the learning is useful in tricking players to see a game as "deep".
Making a game "deep" is trivial. It's never a focus for me because I can always get as much of that as I want.
I do think you need to sometimes push stuff in the players' faces that they want to be there but might miss. There were all those people who tried Temporum, didn't change history, and then said, "well changing history was sure nothing." The box doesn't include a good player to show you how they make out from changing history. So it wasn't enough that it had strategic value; it was too subtle for some players (and could have been less subtle).
In particular, as the game progresses, the player should have some feeling of how the ongoing events are related to what he did before, helping him evaluate whether he made the right decision.
In this day and age, it's "What they did before, helping them evaluate whether they made the right decision." Yes I am actually correcting you there.
If a choice is a black box, then the game designer should remove that choice.
It's not great to have decisions where players don't have a basis for deciding what to do, yes. It's also bad if they can "do the math," and you end up just sitting there doing the math all game. You want choices that are clear in how they matter but still don't let you easily tell what's better.
It's especially a problem with bidding games, though I've enjoyed some anyway.
Is this the correct framework in which to evaluate why Rosewater wants early decisions to be more obvious? How come early choices require different treatment from late ones? Perhaps because they affect more duration of the game, and hence require a clearer connection between the choice and its consequences?
I suspect he was just talking about how you want players to get to ease into the game. If you read a card a turn for 8 turns, at that point you've read 8 cards, and it's way less demanding of the player than reading 8 cards turn one.
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Do you use any sort of tracking/sorting/project/"productivity" type software for working on your games (like trello or hack2plan or whatever)?
No.
In the 90s I used the Borland Pascal editor to make text documents of ideas, then wrote little programs in Pascal to make card images. These days I use Wordpad to make the text documents, and Paint to make the card images. I shrink google'd art in Gimp because Paint just takes every nth pixel, if you can believe that. Paint sucks, and in the future I have big plans to use e.g. Paint.net instead, but you know, haven't sat down and checked it out yet.
For Dominion, looking at Renaissance, there's a main file where I keep a list of the cards and work on ideas, a junk file that I move ideas into when I don't want to see them anymore, a file of the full card texts as they stand and all updates to it that I made along the way, a file with the recommended sets of 10 and some notes on those, and a file of articles - teaser, preview, secret history, artist notes, work on the funny paragraph. There is also a rulebook, but I have that in another directory where I have stuff that involves the publisher. And then I have the prototype card images files, grouped by normal/landscape and then just in the order I made the images.
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You mean drafting e.g. Magic. "Drafting games" are games where you draft all game, like Greed; when the drafting is done the game is over.
You are right. I was not aware of Greed's mechanic.
For me the purpose of choices is to have a fun game. You can only maximize one variable; I am maximizing fun. I don't need to teach anyone anything, or simulate the experience of learning, or any such thing. Fun.
My "learning" comes from my analysis of the word "fun"; I'll provide a more careful description. If you look at things that are fun vs not fun, I think it comes close to "players have fun when something improves the way their minds organize things. Like realizing something new that matters, or a worldview-changing experience". I haven't seen examples that contradict this definition. Non-interactive things are fun too: books, movies, music, art, humor. A game has choices, which allows the realizations to be tailored to that person's individual profile.
The only reason to use this definition is if it allows us to analyze what is fun vs not fun. I hope it captures the behavior in a clearly understandable way. I'm also looking for better ways to think about fun, and ways to describe it more clearly.
Here's an example of fun:
In 2007, I attended the World Championship. One of my responsibilities was to play in a free-for-all multiplayer game and subtly show off a preview card from an upcoming set that no one knew I had in my deck. That card was Chameleon Colossus, and I wasn't particularly subtle...doubling its power eight times, I attacked with my Chameleon Colossus for 27,648 damage and gained 55,296 life.
A game designer shows up in your game, uses a card that doesn't even exist yet, creates a giant creature, and steamrolls everyone with it. All these things are new and unusual experiences, changing how people's minds organize things and the world - showing them something they didn't expect. So we expect it to be extremely fun. If Rosewater repeated it 10 minutes later, the impact of the fun would be way smaller, because the changes in everyone's minds have already happened. It won't change anyone's mental organization much further than it already did.
For me, Spike is not a relevant factor period. I just never think about the Magic psychographs when working on a game.
That's a very interesting perspective, and I think an ideal one. (Yes, I want to be that kind of designer too.) I think the reason you don't take Rosewater's psychographics seriously is that his psychographics are not totally correct, so they have unusual bits that don't make sense. Instead, I'll redefine them. Vorthos is part of Timmy. Melvin fits along with Timmy and Spike. Johnny doesn't exist; he is a different dimension and partially applies to all three. Here's the correct psychographics:
Timmy wants to have fun. Anything which shows him something fun is great.
Melvin wants to have fun, just like Timmy. But his learning is from inside, not outside. He figures out the solution, instead of the solution being presented to him. The realization is introspective. (Comparison: Timmy can have fun netdecking, but Melvin will have fun with deck creation.)
Spike wants to prove to others how great he is. Any effects on himself are a byproduct and not the direct cause - he might value winning, but only in the sense that it makes other people realize how great he is. Everything is in the eyes of others, and how he estimates others will see him. He may even take actions that reduce his chances of winning if he thinks it will improve how others view him, because winning is not the direct goal.* "Stuck in the Middle with Bruce" described seeing it happen:
He claims innocence by being unaware. While he may have had his head buried in the sand, Bruce had his eyes wide open...I'm referring to plays that you make that you know are incorrect. I'm talking about finding an excuse to lose. Ah there is no problem losing when you have a good excuse. Heck when you are all set with a battery of excuses it is so much easier to swallow the bitter pill of defeat.
Why care about psychographics? Because people are linear combinations of these three. In particular, the fact that Spike is such an extreme caricature doesn't affect the analysis; there's no threshold at which any of the Spike effects disappear. Everyone has a proportion of that extreme caricature. If someone is 10% Spike, he will have 10% of Spike's consequential properties - his low proportion of Spike-ness doesn't make him immune to Spike-related feelings. That makes it useful to extract the Spike-ness from him and analyze it separately. Spike is a consequence of how human friend selection works, although that's going out of scope for game-design discussion.
Why do I think your perspective on not designing for Spike is an ideal one? Because designing for Spike creates unpleasant design choices. I design for Spike for business purposes; I want a larger audience. To illustrate, one type of Spike exists on forums: in an internet argument, Spike will pick over small grammar and wording mistakes, argue over definitions, and argue over what everyone exactly said. He wants to win the argument and prove to others that he is better than his opponent. Discovering anything is not his main goal. He will spend many pages arguing about pointless minutia, and others will say, "why the fuck did you waste so much time on that", but it makes perfect sense to Spike. (If you see people like that on this forum, they are also purchasing and playing your game.)
Or think about Sirlin: his Playing to Win article wants to show others how he is better than the common house-rules crowd. In public self-descriptions, he hypes up his own games as receiving recognition beyond what they actually received, projecting himself as a genius designer. He didn't credit Matthan, because he wants to be respected as Puzzle Strike's sole creator. Sirlin has a strong Spike component. Whether his Matthan gambit was successful is separate from what his intention was. (I think it worked. People are rarely aware of the history behind Puzzle Strike; Steam reviews don't mention it.) So then, should Sirlin feel ashamed about stealing from Matthan? (Ok, he was caught.) But he probably sees credit-stealing as humanizable, because he views things through a Spike lens. Thinking that others are like him, he expects them to empathize with his action. That's why he feels less shame about being caught than someone less Spikey would.
Spike also gets in the way of Timmy. Spike is partially the cause of time overruns - long after Spike has a reasonable decision, he wants to double check and triple check everything to maximize his chances of winning. Timmy will say, "this is boring" and play quickly, so the stopwatch is not for him; it's for Spike. Online, at least. In person, friends can leave Spike out of the next game. But it's helpful to have some in-game mechanism that reduces it.
Johnny is for choices made from a huge selection, culling out many useless options to find the right one. Anti-Johnny is for choices made from a tiny selection, making accurate estimations better than others. In Magic, this usually manifests in a deck-origination vs piloting split. As an example of why my definition is more accurate, Gifts UngivenCabal Therapy feels closer to Johnny than anti-Johnny, despite being piloting. It gives that same freedom and will evoke that same feeling. Johnny and anti-Johnny are dimensions of all three of Timmy, Melvin, and Spike.
Making a game "deep" is trivial. It's never a focus for me because I can always get as much of that as I want.
I have trouble doing so. One obstacle to depth is randomness: in a random event, connections are no longer clear in the before and after, creating a barrier to learning. I've never played Ascension, so let's pretend my following description of it is true, even if it isn't. In Ascension, random events happen regularly. Nobody is able to predict the future very well, so when players make decisions, their future performance is not connected to their past in any clear way. After a game ends, how should they change their behavior? They don't know. Even though there is certainly room for them to improve their decisions, they are not able to, and hence the game is not deep. The depth is there, but they can't achieve it, so it effectively doesn't exist. Poker is like this: depth is there, but learning is slow, and many people stop learning before they hit the maximum.
How to solve the randomness obstacle and improve depth? One way is to unrandomize. Flip future cards upside-down. Instead of seeing the next 6 cards in the Ascension buy-pile, now they see 30. (Ignore the massive reading problem this creates, for now.)
And it creates a triviality problem: depth only matters for ways that people care about. This same unrandomization technique applies to many games. For example, in a card game, you can make everyone turn three cards face-up from their library each turn. They only learn 3 new cards per draw, solving the reading problem. When stuff happens in late game, they can trace consequences back to previous bad choices, since the information is available. But players start thinking, "this is just a memorization game where people compete to see how many increasingly trivial and irrelevant things they can keep in mind, who cares about that?", and it's not deep in a way anyone likes.
A really good game like Go manages to create depth in a way that people can keep improving; in addition, players continue to care about what they are learning. But I've never designed anything as good as Go.
After unrandomization, the read-many-things problem can often be solved. But it's hard to create depth in a way that people think, "this type of depth matters". Often designers veer into the "this game is deep because people can't keep 100 things in their head, and they need to" territory. Or veer into "this game is deep because people can't add 100 numbers". Or "people can't read 100 things quickly". Different players care about different things too. Clicking quickly on pixels sounds like stupid-type depth to many players, but other players like FPS games and Osu. The type of depth players care about is significantly influenced by how it's framed within theming and drama.
As an actual illustration, imagine if Dominion used 10 cards the first game, then added another 10 cards the next game, 20 total. Then every game, rotate out the most stale 10 cards and add in 10 more cards, so it stays at 20 until the group breaks up. Whether Dominion works with 20 cards is not my point, I have no idea if it does (I haven't played Dominion either). But note what happened - the "I don't want to read 20 cards" problem has been solved - they're still only reading 10 cards at a time. But now we have the "players don't like needing to keep 20 cards in their heads" problem. Maybe some do.
Another illustration is graveyards. After playing a card, it goes in your graveyard instead of being shuffled back into your deck. Only when the draw pile empties is the graveyard shuffled in. This improves consistency and creates depth, but counting and remembering cards in graveyards is "stupid-depth" for many players. The main benefit is really the consistency. (And also, the fact that constant deck shuffling is not possible. Bags and videogames can continuously shuffle, but things in bags have limited text and art.)
I do think you need to sometimes push stuff in the players' faces that they want to be there but might miss. There were all those people who tried Temporum, didn't change history, and then said, "well changing history was sure nothing." The box doesn't include a good player to show you how they make out from changing history. So it wasn't enough that it had strategic value; it was too subtle for some players (and could have been less subtle).
Wow, that theme is great. I thought you sucked at theming but now I completely changed my mind. Temporum's theme is really well-chosen, and is still strong even as a theme chosen before mechanic.
I agree, it's not nice when the player just doesn't see something. Rosewater told a story about Magic:
During the first such playtest, we noticed that when players got an Eldrazi out, they wouldn't attack with it. R&D had quickly realized the power of the annihilator mechanic, but the less experienced players didn't seem to feel safe throwing their giant creatures into the fray.
We took notes and talked about it, but changed nothing. The next playtest the same thing happened, and the playtest after that... we added the text "CARDNAME attacks each turn if able." Once players saw how much damage the Eldrazi did when they attacked, hopefully that would encourage them to attack with the other Eldrazi.
Basically, when players don't realize something, the designer forces them to do it and see the fun. It's hard to predict when this is needed without newcomer playtesting. Magic's huge financial base really helps them here.
Healing is a personal example: after playing 5 games of Magic, I didn't yet realize that late game I would have sufficient mana to do whatever I wanted. So if I had spare mana to heal and nothing else to do: I would heal. It didn't cross my mind that there was even the decision to be made, of delaying my heal to obscure the opponent's reach. Someone had to tell me. So my judgment was, "healing is trivial". But I was wrong. It looks nice after I learned it, but if I hadn't learned it, I would still keep thinking, "it's trivial".
In this day and age, it's "What they did before, helping them evaluate whether they made the right decision." Yes I am actually correcting you there.
Sure. I don't follow that for my own writing, but I understand both the cultural context and the linguistic context of your choice. You're not wrong. Related is my preference for writing "publically" and singular "data" despite them not being common. I switch some of these choices depending on the audience I'm writing for. I keep Spike strictly masculine because he is strongly associated with negative connotations; this is from awareness of a cultural context. Otherwise, I often switch between random he and she for uncertain third parties.
It's not great to have decisions where players don't have a basis for deciding what to do, yes. It's also bad if they can "do the math," and you end up just sitting there doing the math all game. You want choices that are clear in how they matter but still don't let you easily tell what's better.
This relates to the "I don't want to add 100 numbers" type of depth. Unrandomizing things makes connections clearer, but the created depth should be interesting, not pointless math. (I heard that Mage Knight is like this.)
I suspect he was just talking about how you want players to get to ease into the game. If you read a card a turn for 8 turns, at that point you've read 8 cards, and it's way less demanding of the player than reading 8 cards turn one.
Thanks, that fits in with "clock time between information and the choice given...to digest this information and form good decisions." But your perspective is better, because the player sees interactions play out to help make a better choice, not just spending time internally introspecting on the choice.
Here's my next question.
if players are taken out of the bidding by say winning an auction, they will get screwed over by the other players turning out to undervalue things; ideally good players can stay in the auction as long as possible
I played a multiplayer game called Offworld Trading Company. In this game, there are exclusive locations, each accommodating one player only, and some locations are better. Players choose exclusive locations, one at a time, so later choosers get locked out of the best locations. To determine the choosing order, an auction system is used: a clock ticks down saying "if you choose now, you will get $X debt", and X ticks down over time. Players decided how much debt each choice was worth, then pressed the "choose now" button when it was worth it. The final chooser got 0 debt, to remove collusion between the final two players. However, the issue you described came up: players only have the ability to influence one of the auction slots, and then were taken out of the auction.
The model can be summarized as: many options, players bid on the privilege of choosing first, then on the privilege of choosing second, etc. What auction systems improve on the one described, of bidding one at a time for each successive slot? (Such as reversing choice order, or bidding on differences between choice prices instead of absolute choice prices.) How do I make the most confident (best) price-estimator arbitrage his estimate against others, to give more input on prices? This was a major problem in Offworld, that new players did not know how to value things, lacked confidence in their estimates, and hence felt shut out from the very beginning. Offworld's designer Soren Johnson originally had an exploration mechanic to replace this auction one. However, the competitive community strongly advocated for the auction mechanic, so Soren removed the exploration mechanic, leaving new players in the dirt. The experienced players had no issue with auctions, and Soren had no ability to receive feedback from newcomers (they weren't in his Discord), so this caused problems that he could not see. The exploration mechanic was terrible, but it was more newbie-friendly.
*Note that winning tournaments for prize money is also desired. But we'll accept Rosewater's definition of a game as including no real-world consequences. I think it's a very accurate definition.
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I feel like you may want to make your posts a bit shorter. But maybe that’s just me.
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In designing which choices are worthwhile to have in a game, my document states:
Is this referring to a document you're writing?
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I don't know magic well, but self-milling is discarding your own cards from the deck to get a powerful benefit, right?
Unlike discards in Dominion, discards in Magic are quite permanent.
If so, I think a better comparison might be trash-from-top-of-deck effects, which are some of the most polarising attacks in Dominion.
An analogue of self-milling would then be Leprechaun or Cursed village hitting War or Locusts, which while occasionally hilarious can lead to some negative experiences (I'm still trying to recover from the time I killed my own goat with locusts).
[. .]
In addition, Magic has a ton of reasons why it's good to have more things in your own graveyard, such as cards that give you benefits based on what's in your graveyard and cards that can be played from your graveyard.
I wasn't aware of this, thanks. That being the case, I really can't see the problem with self-milling...
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From the Time Machine series, we know about the mechanical stuff you'd change if you had full power to change the already-released, already sold sets.
Is there anything non-mechanical in Dominion that you'd change - or ask RGG to consider changing? I'm thinking about stuff like card names, card art, card sizes, layouts, box size or shape, even marketing strategies, sale model, theme, whatever. For instance, would you change the card backs if you could?
We already know about Harem and the Event back miscoloration blunder. Is there anything else?
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I don't know magic well, but self-milling is discarding your own cards from the deck to get a powerful benefit, right?
Unlike discards in Dominion, discards in Magic are quite permanent.
If so, I think a better comparison might be trash-from-top-of-deck effects, which are some of the most polarising attacks in Dominion.
An analogue of self-milling would then be Leprechaun or Cursed village hitting War or Locusts, which while occasionally hilarious can lead to some negative experiences (I'm still trying to recover from the time I killed my own goat with locusts).
[. .]
In addition, Magic has a ton of reasons why it's good to have more things in your own graveyard, such as cards that give you benefits based on what's in your graveyard and cards that can be played from your graveyard.
I wasn't aware of this, thanks. That being the case, I really can't see the problem with self-milling...
The problem is purely psychological. When you put a card you wanted or needed to draw into your graveyard, you feel bad. Even though your chances of drawing that card were exactly the same if you put cards from your library into your graveyard or not.
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My "learning" comes from my analysis of the word "fun"; I'll provide a more careful description. If you look at things that are fun vs not fun, I think it comes close to "players have fun when something improves the way their minds organize things. Like realizing something new that matters, or a worldview-changing experience". I haven't seen examples that contradict this definition. Non-interactive things are fun too: books, movies, music, art, humor. A game has choices, which allows the realizations to be tailored to that person's individual profile.
I don't think fun is so tied to mind organizing. Eating a chocolate bar is fun. Some games are about the joy of making decisions; many are not. The first chapter of Knizia's Dice Games Properly Explained is all games with no decisions.
If Rosewater repeated it 10 minutes later, the impact of the fun would be way smaller, because the changes in everyone's minds have already happened.
I personally am a big fan of novelty. But it's not the only fun thing.
I think the reason you don't take Rosewater's psychographics seriously is that his psychographics are not totally correct, so they have unusual bits that don't make sense.
I think it's reasonable to say, some Magic fans like combos, let's make sure there are combos for them; some like big creatures, let's have some big creatures. You can give names to those people if you want, and maybe that helps you have conversations, so they did. Which psychograph likes 1/1's and lifegain, that's what I want to know.
I am not working on Magic though. In Dominion, like, there are players who especially like attacks, and players who hate attacks. It's not Timmy Johnny Spike, none of those hit on this. I should try to make attacks for the players who like them and non-attack interaction to have interaction in games where the players decide not to have attacks. I don't have enough of the relevant conversations to name the players who like and hate attacks.
I design for Spike for business purposes; I want a larger audience.
I don't get that; consider that for Magic, something like 1/3 of the players are Spikes (from some article I barely remember - I'm not picking 1/3 because there are three psychographs). They buy more total cards than non-Spikes, despite there being fewer of them. But you know, if your game doesn't bleed your customers, you'll make more money selling to non-Spikes. And like, the classic mass market hit genre is party games, not thinky euros.
Making a game "deep" is trivial. It's never a focus for me because I can always get as much of that as I want.
I have trouble doing so.
I am always pursuing variety and interacting cards (or other elements with rules interactions), and that just naturally makes it take longer to learn everything there is to know. For a simple abstract, it's harder, you have to find a way to generate the variety and interactions out of your simple system.
As an actual illustration, imagine if Dominion used 10 cards the first game, then added another 10 cards the next game, 20 total. Then every game, rotate out the most stale 10 cards and add in 10 more cards, so it stays at 20 until the group breaks up.
For a while at first we actually tended to play with 10 cards, then swap out just 2-4 for new ones for the next game.
To determine the choosing order, an auction system is used: a clock ticks down saying "if you choose now, you will get $X debt", and X ticks down over time.
That's called an auction clock or Dutch auction clock. The Dutch used them!
What auction systems improve on the one described, of bidding one at a time for each successive slot?
I think bidding games are fundamentally flawed. I've had fun playing them though so what does that matter. I don't have a perfect system, but I did make a bidding game, Gauntlet of Fools, and can tell you about that.
The basic bidding is based on Evo's, just slightly tweaked. We take turns bidding on heroes. If you have a hero already you don't bid. If you don't you can either outbid someone and take their hero, or bid on an unclaimed hero and take it. When someone takes the last hero (for free unless they're really boasting) we're done.
This still has the issue of, I can place the perfect bid on a hero, expecting perfect play from my opponents, only to find they underbid on everything remaining. Or I can place a minimal bid on a hero, and then watch everyone else place perfect bids. But in practice, it worked well; you can start out cautious and see how things go.
You could make something much more complex that went further. Everyone could have a bid on each hero, all starting at zero. We take turns, on your turn you either raise a bid on one of your heroes to be the highest bid on it now, or pass. When we all pass, we go around and claim a hero we have the highest remaining bid on (someone could win multiple heroes but I'm assuming we still want each player to just have one).
Gauntlet of Fools had another wrinkle to its bidding. Instead of bidding VP as is most common, you bid rules that made your hero worse. I can win with one arm tied behind my back! One Arm Tied Behind Your Back made your 1's and 2's into 0's; With a Hangover gave you worse attack and defense until you'd killed a monster, and so on. So a bid would vary in value from hero to hero - a hero with 5 dice is hurt more from tying the arm than one with 3 dice. And you could saddle a hero with a bid, not expecting to get that hero, just wanting that hero to be weaker whoever gets it. You could put a bid on a hero that you thought would make that hero look bad to someone else, to try to get it cheaper. And sometimes the bids interacted between heroes, e.g. one hero (weapon, they were class/weapon combos) can finagle which monster we're facing a few times, which really hurts anyone With a Hangover... unless that hero also has With a Hangover.
Gauntlet of Fools was a dud and is out of print; reviews would tend towards, we didn't know what we were doing so we didn't bid, in this bidding game, and then the person with the best hero won, that was stupid. As if you would play Medici without bidding and that would tell you how good Medici was. In retrospect I combined two game elements I enjoyed, bidding and rolling lots of dice, that tend to be liked by different people. I should have made it an economic game instead. It was clear that it was a direction, I just was enamored with the boasting flavor - "I can win while juggling and without breakfast."
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From the Time Machine series, we know about the mechanical stuff you'd change if you had full power to change the already-released, already sold sets.
Is there anything non-mechanical in Dominion that you'd change - or ask RGG to consider changing? I'm thinking about stuff like card names, card art, card sizes, layouts, box size or shape, even marketing strategies, sale model, theme, whatever. For instance, would you change the card backs if you could?
We already know about Harem and the Event back miscoloration blunder. Is there anything else?
I didn't have any authority on most stuff in the early days. I would certainly change the name of the game (it sounds like a war game), the logo, the card back, all the art I don't like. The card size worked out okay, Magic size would have been nice but I don't know if it would make the game more expensive or what, and people can now get sleeves for this size. The box size, man, it's addressing a problem while looking good on a shelf. I'm not even interested in marketing stuff. The theme is fine. I'd probably change some names, sure, it's something I didn't spend much time on in the early days. In the prototype the VP symbol is a crown, which is just better than a shield, man, shields are for defense. The frames could be prettier for sure.
I'm not sure what you mean about Harem, unless it's just, why is there a card called Harem. Yes Events were supposed to match randomizers, though these days I would probably ditch randomizers and have you use a card from each pile like I do.
It would have been great to go straight to some real established company for online Dominion. It would have been better to not make small sets, although then there would be a larger Alchemy set that some people didn't like. The rulebook could have been better but hey now it is. I should have devoted some time in the early days to making spin-offs without requiring them to be much different from Dominion.
I would at least try out icons for the basic +'s. I didn't at the time because I didn't have good ones and it's not much different. The space savings now that I have a bigger font would be great though, cards can use up so much space on the +'s, meaning that some ideas just don't leave space for them, and are stuck with e.g. "can this be +$3 or +3 Cards." But as icons I could put them all on one line (and have it look nicer than it would if we did that with the text ones).
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Gauntlet of Fools had another wrinkle to its bidding. Instead of bidding VP as is most common, you bid rules that made your hero worse. I can win with one arm tied behind my back!
In retrospect I combined two game elements I enjoyed, bidding and rolling lots of dice, that tend to be liked by different people. I should have made it an economic game instead. It was clear that it was a direction, I just was enamored with the boasting flavor - "I can win while juggling and without breakfast."
I personally don't particularly enjoy bidding games or dice rolling, but I really like the sound of this idea conceptually.
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Hey Donald! Just wondering, will there ever be any good head-way made with a Dominion phone app? Been itching to play it on the go for ages now. Thanks heaps!
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Rosewater talks a lot about market research and focus groups. In Drive to Work 333, he describes some of the starter questions he asks: "how do you feel about X", where X can be important mechanics of a block, overall flavor, or certain defining cards. (This episode is not too worthwhile.) At the end of a focus group, the question asked is, "Would you buy this product", as a more-objective overall indicator of performance, even as a Yes/No single bit of information. Their market research isn't very sophisticated, but its sheer volume creates significant and valuable information.
You don't have focus groups, but you do a lot of playtesting. Players usually don't bring up things until prompted. Even when asked Rosewater-style questions, they're not coherent in expressing their underlying emotions. For example, people might dislike attacks, or enjoy certain feelings like going infinite, or feel that complexity is too much, or feel discouraged by certain choices required of them. But they'll usually point to some concrete and specific symptom rather than the underlying true issue.
Usually, starter questions reveal an initial symptom. Then careful followup questions guide players to discover the core issue, helping them realize why they feel a certain way. After they realize the source of their feelings, they can then tell that insight to the interviewer.
What starter questions are useful in finding the initial indication of an issue, when players may not understand it or be able to articulate it? Followup questions are easy and situation-specific, but I find that the initial discovery of those issues is the hard part, so my question focuses on starter questions.
Example: Magic's market research found a pattern that players don't like downsides on large creatures. Individual players point out specific cards they don't like, usually as vague feelings, but can't express why they feel that way. Then Magic connected the dots and found the underlying pattern. (I'm simplifying; the pairs are more subtle than just "large creatures", and some types of downsides are ok.)
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I feel like you may want to make your posts a bit shorter. But maybe that’s just me.
It also feels like it might be better to fork off the detailed compare-and-contrast with Magic into its own thread.
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Hey Donald! Just wondering, will there ever be any good head-way made with a Dominion phone app? Been itching to play it on the go for ages now. Thanks heaps!
Yes, there has been no formal announcement, but someone is working on it now, a real company with published games.
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You don't have focus groups, but you do a lot of playtesting. Players usually don't bring up things until prompted. Even when asked Rosewater-style questions, they're not coherent in expressing their underlying emotions. For example, people might dislike attacks, or enjoy certain feelings like going infinite, or feel that complexity is too much, or feel discouraged by certain choices required of them. But they'll usually point to some concrete and specific symptom rather than the underlying true issue.
Usually, starter questions reveal an initial symptom. Then careful followup questions guide players to discover the core issue, helping them realize why they feel a certain way. After they realize the source of their feelings, they can then tell that insight to the interviewer.
What starter questions are useful in finding the initial indication of an issue, when players may not understand it or be able to articulate it? Followup questions are easy and situation-specific, but I find that the initial discovery of those issues is the hard part, so my question focuses on starter questions.
Some playtesters are more talkative than others. Some just don't want to say bad things, and you have to glean what you can from how the game went. Some will say, I hate that card, I love this one. You only have so much choice of who playtests, so you just have to get what you can from who you've got. Things like "they hate attacks" are never subtle though.
I find out how much people like things by playing games. Sometimes I'll ask them what they think, but generally I can tell when people are having fun. For external groups, I get what they volunteer, and then sometimes say, okay can everyone say a sentence about each card, can you rate them. For a new game, even if people aren't talkative, you will get a measure of how much people want to play it.
It's easy to find out what's hard to understand, at least for the caliber of player that's playtesting. Players will not understand it. In my games they will ask, wait what; for the external groups, they'll say, hey we have a rules question. It's harder to know what very casual players will find tricky; you have to find some and play with them. You can stare at the cards though, and try to see, how could you misread this. Head playtester LastFootnote plays some with more casual players.
My operation is just not at the level of a big company with focus groups. "Starter questions," I have no such thing. "Let's play some Dominion" is where I start.
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Do you have playtesters of different calibers? Is it important to have greener players to ensure that wording and gameplay are “dumbed down” enough?
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Do you have playtesters of different calibers? Is it important to have greener players to ensure that wording and gameplay are “dumbed down” enough?
The playtesters have a range of skill levels. This isn't because I carefully picked them out; I'm playing with the people who want to play. It's great to get in some games with some more casual players, when it's possible. The Hexes in Nocturne were too complex, and this wasn't obvious until the release party, where I saw those players having to deal with them.
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I just noticed that Empires has no events that are once per turn, or once per game; while Adventures had several. Was this a specific design decision; something you didn't like about how the once per turn played out in Adventures?
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I just noticed that Empires has no events that are once per turn, or once per game; while Adventures had several. Was this a specific design decision; something you didn't like about how the once per turn played out in Adventures?
There's no specific draw to doing either, is the main thing; I'd rather let you keep paying for the Events to keep doing them. I'd only use either if it seemed the only way to do something, which for a few of those it did. "Once per game" is especially exotic and just didn't come up for Empires. "Once per turn" did have an issue in Adventures - some Events had both "once per turn" and "+1 Buy" and I notated this poorly, so that it confused people. You can just notate it correctly though as the later printings do.
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Why does Hideout have Curse gaining when trashing a Victory card rather than just a prohibition on trashing Victory cards?
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Um... because that way you can use Hideout a second time to trash the Curse? And because it buffs Hideout when the Curses run out?
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I think the idea is to make its utility last longer by giving you more stuff to trash.
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Um... because that way you can use Hideout a second time to trash the Curse? And because it buffs Hideout when the Curses run out?
I think the idea is to make its utility last longer by giving you more stuff to trash.
Thanks Donald X!
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Why does Hideout have Curse gaining when trashing a Victory card rather than just a prohibition on trashing Victory cards?
It was part of the premise, a cool idea for a card. "Takes two plays to trash Estate," isn't the same as "can't trash Estate," it's some new card, like I was trying to make. Then it worked out, you sometimes consider whether it's better to trash Copper or Estate, and it keeps the village part working longer.
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Hey Donald! Just wondering, will there ever be any good head-way made with a Dominion phone app? Been itching to play it on the go for ages now. Thanks heaps!
Yes, there has been no formal announcement, but someone is working on it now, a real company with published games.
Will it be possible to play against each other if one player uses dominion.games web and another uses this new mobile application?
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and it keeps the village part working longer.
That's what I liked most about it when I saw it first.
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Hey Donald! Just wondering, will there ever be any good head-way made with a Dominion phone app? Been itching to play it on the go for ages now. Thanks heaps!
Yes, there has been no formal announcement, but someone is working on it now, a real company with published games.
Will it be possible to play against each other if one player uses dominion.games web and another uses this new mobile application?
I don't know, but I recommend pessimism there.
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Have you been keeping up with Eldraine previews? In particular, have you seen the "on an adventure" token?
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Have you been keeping up with Eldraine previews? In particular, have you seen the "on an adventure" token?
I have been keeping up with previews, but haven't seen that token.
- Adventures look great, like a twist on ETB, or sometimes kicker-ETB, and ETB is a great mechanic.
- Food looks good, every set can benefit from something like that, a token that cards can make and refer to that does whatever, whether a creature with a non-evergreen ability, or not.
- Adamant is utterly dull, it does nothing. It must be there to tie in with devotion in upcoming Theros, but devotion is way better.
- I'm not big on tribal themes; the Knight cards so far are not exciting. I don't know if they really go for Faerie tribal or not.
- There is a minor saboteur theme and well they will probably do this better than they have in the past.
- WU has a "care about both enchantments and artifacts" theme and well it will be as interesting as the cards are, and obv. is there to tie in with Theros.
- two cards turn an artifact into a 4/4. Maybe it's just those two though. uh who doesn't enjoy animating artifacts.
The flavor premise is great, though the Knights sure don't hold up their end there. So far they're just some Knights. The round table card doesn't remotely make me think of a round table.
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Have you been keeping up with Eldraine previews? In particular, have you seen the "on an adventure" token?
I have been keeping up with previews, but haven't seen that token.
- Adventures look great, like a twist on ETB, or sometimes kicker-ETB, and ETB is a great mechanic.
- Food looks good, every set can benefit from something like that, a token that cards can make and refer to that does whatever, whether a creature with a non-evergreen ability, or not.
- Adamant is utterly dull, it does nothing. It must be there to tie in with devotion in upcoming Theros, but devotion is way better.
- I'm not big on tribal themes; the Knight cards so far are not exciting. I don't know if they really go for Faerie tribal or not.
- There is a minor saboteur theme and well they will probably do this better than they have in the past.
- WU has a "care about both enchantments and artifacts" theme and well it will be as interesting as the cards are, and obv. is there to tie in with Theros.
- two cards turn an artifact into a 4/4. Maybe it's just those two though. uh who doesn't enjoy animating artifacts.
The flavor premise is great, though the Knights sure don't hold up their end there. So far they're just some Knights. The round table card doesn't remotely make me think of a round table.
The token is here, it made me think of Dominion: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/d074nh/eld_on_an_adventure_token/
The round table definitely seems to be a flop. (Personally I like Adamant, I think there's a lot of cool design space in which-colors-you-spend-to-cast-this-matters effects. Food and Adventures are cooler though.)
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Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?
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Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?
"THE INITIAL DESIGN
...
How should money work? There are a bunch of options. A key thing was that I wanted money in your deck, but didn't want you to trivially get a tiny deck by playing all of your money. So money is really income; you play a treasure and get some coins and then at end of turn it's in your discard pile ready to be reshuffled back in.
You draw 5 cards a turn. This was so that you'd see your whole deck during the game; it was a problem I'd already addressed in Spirit Warriors II. If you just drew one card a turn you wouldn't so much be playing the deck you were building, unless the game lasted forever. So, draw 5 each turn, discard everything you didn't play. Let's churn through some cards. This meant lots of shuffling and well there was no-one to tell me how crazy that was.
It's hard to shuffle a tiny deck. I felt the minimum I could ask was about 10 cards, and at the same time I liked getting two turns before the first shuffle, so 10 it is. I didn't want your initial cards to really be your deck, to feel like they were key players; the cards you bought were supposed to do that. So you start with junk. Day one it was 5 Coppers, 5 Estates. The Estates could have been blank, but it seemed cute to have them be worth a VP, and it meant I didn't need to make another card for that slot."
Source: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8619.0
The bold emphasis is mine. If you take that into consideration, drawing 5 cards a turn makes it exactly 2 turns before your first shuffle.
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Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?
I wanted to draw a lot of cards each turn, and just picked 5. As noted it goes into 10 twice, but of course the starting deck could have been e.g. 12 with drawing 6 per turn.
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Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?
I think it's pretty obvious... my hand has five fingers, so my Dominion hand has five cards.
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Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?
I think it's pretty obvious... my hand has five fingers, so my Dominion hand has five cards.
Only people with 15-finger hands can play engines.
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Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?
I think it's pretty obvious... my hand has five fingers, so my Dominion hand has five cards.
Only people with 15-finger hands can play engines.
Your ableism is transparent. You're completely overlooking people with three arms, or with particulary flexible feet.
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Were non uniform piles considered for any other expansions, or just Empires (and Knights)?
Do you have stats on how often cards are bought to assess opportunities for split piles? (Eg cards that often get bought 2-4 times per game, but rarely more than 5)
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Were non uniform piles considered for any other expansions, or just Empires (and Knights)?
Do you have stats on how often cards are bought to assess opportunities for split piles? (Eg cards that often get bought 2-4 times per game, but rarely more than 5)
Varying piles are a thing I could reuse if I ever wanted. They were an obvious idea from early on, and the Knights are from 2007. I didn't think of specifically going half and half until Empires. The varying VP pile idea was sitting in the file for years before LastFootnote wanted to try it for Empires. So in some sense it was considered for earlier expansions.
I don't have stats, just experience. How many copies you'd buy isn't the whole story; if we'll buy 2-4, we won't see the bottom card.
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Do you have stats on how often cards are bought to assess opportunities for split piles? (Eg cards that often get bought 2-4 times per game, but rarely more than 5)
I don't have stats, just experience. How many copies you'd buy isn't the whole story; if we'll buy 2-4, we won't see the bottom card.
I think that's the point of the question--if you know that there are certain cards where each player only buys at most 1-2 of them, a split pile with that card on top won't be great if you never get to see the bottom card. I think for most of the 5/5 split pile cards in Dominion, the top card is something you wouldn't mind having even 3-5 of, with gladiator being an exception but having an easy to trash the rest of the pile. The only split pile top card that I would say is an exception to one of those is catapult--with no +1 action, players often only get 1-2 each. Of course it sometimes is still correct to each buy 2-3 and get to the rocks below.
All that said, I remembered after I finished typing that all of the above refers more to a 2 player game and that the cards are balanced more for 3-4 players. With 3-4 players, if each player buys 1-2 copies of a card, going through 5 cards of any pile can be very easy.
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I don't have stats, just experience. How many copies you'd buy isn't the whole story; if we'll buy 2-4, we won't see the bottom card.
I suggested those numbers for cards that are popular but where people wouldn't resent there only being 5.
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I don't have stats, just experience. How many copies you'd buy isn't the whole story; if we'll buy 2-4, we won't see the bottom card.
I suggested those numbers for cards that are popular but where people wouldn't resent there only being 5.
They'll resent never seeing the bottom card though. Now if you only want 2-4 of the bottom card, that's okay.
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I don't have stats, just experience. How many copies you'd buy isn't the whole story; if we'll buy 2-4, we won't see the bottom card.
I suggested those numbers for cards that are popular but where people wouldn't resent there only being 5.
They'll resent never seeing the bottom card though. Now if you only want 2-4 of the bottom card, that's okay.
Unless it's good and/or works super well with the top card, then they'll buy more of the card than usual to see the lower card instead of it being a waste of cards that never gets bought.
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Speaking of which, do you generally aim to design cards where the pile would feasibly be emptied in at least some games?
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Speaking of which, do you generally aim to design cards where the pile would feasibly be emptied in at least some games?
It's not a concern. It doesn't come up either; with 5 players that's just 2 copies each, and there are very few cards you'll overwhelmingly stop at one of.
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There are very few cards you'll overwhelmingly stop at one of.
That's the sort of thing you could test with statistics. I am guessing that from the base set, Chapel and Moneylender don't often get bought more than once - but I'm just guessing.
Do you still design cards around 5 and 6 player games, even after the new Intrigue? My assumption was that there was a general acknowledgement that it doesn't really work so it was being phased out, but from the previous response, it isn't?
What % of players do you anticipate will buy an extra set of base cards so they can play 5-6 player games?
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Speaking of which, do you generally aim to design cards where the pile would feasibly be emptied in at least some games?
It's not a concern. It doesn't come up either; with 5 players that's just 2 copies each, and there are very few cards you'll overwhelmingly stop at one of.
inb4 Awaclus
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There are very few cards you'll overwhelmingly stop at one of.
That's the sort of thing you could test with statistics. I am guessing that from the base set, Chapel and Moneylender don't often get bought more than once - but I'm just guessing.
There aren't so many playtest games played to really know what's going on from statistics, and well here we are despite that, it didn't work out so badly.
There are statistics on the discord (type e.g. "!stats chapel").
Do you still design cards around 5 and 6 player games, even after the new Intrigue? My assumption was that there was a general acknowledgement that it doesn't really work so it was being phased out, but from the previous response, it isn't?
I try to aim the game at 3 players, so that I'll get as close as possible to working well with 2-4. I don't want to mess up 5, but if I haven't messed up 4 I probably haven't messed up 5. I don't care at all about 6. We do support 5-6 with components though, e.g. 6 Tavern mats.
What % of players do you anticipate will buy an extra set of base cards so they can play 5-6 player games?
I do not anticipate a particular number there. It's also possible to buy the current Big Box to support 5-6.
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On reddit you mentioned wanting to update some cards, but being unable to do so because RGG couldn't sell the product. Is there any chance you could bring these updated cards to the online implementation, similar to what you did with the errata?
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On reddit you mentioned wanting to update some cards, but being unable to do so because RGG couldn't sell the product. Is there any chance you could bring these updated cards to the online implementation, similar to what you did with the errata?
Not without them being physical too - the online game is the online version of the physical game. The online game could conceivably have a promo that couldn't be a physical card.
The issue with, let's give as an example dropping the reaction from Fool's Gold, is, that if we don't sell it separately some people will be mad, and if we do it's a horrible product, that most players would have no interest in buying. I haven't really discussed it at length with Jay. Obv. for online play it's great, you just immediately have whatever fixes. We move the +Buy from Margrave to Cache and it's nothing but positive, except for people worried that it causes trouble for whatever tournament that's going on right then. But we have to match the physical game.
Ideally people wouldn't get mad and I could fix more cards. We snuck a few fixes in on the grounds that they were important for some reason and mostly didn't matter (the big one is the Masquerade pin fix, but also e.g. "you may" on Moneylender). Dropping the reaction from Fool's Gold is a lot more noticeable.
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How come that Projects, Landmarks and Events don't delve too deep into the realm of attacks/hurting opponents? (I can only think of Annex, Tax which hurts everyone alike, and Cathedral as a self-attack when gone wrong.) Which considerations played a role before dismissing landmarks like "Any player can discard a gold during their action phase for <Militia effect>"?
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How come that Projects, Landmarks and Events don't delve too deep into the realm of attacks/hurting opponents? (I can only think of Annex, Tax which hurts everyone alike, and Cathedral as a self-attack when gone wrong.) Which considerations played a role before dismissing landmarks like "Any player can discard a gold during their action phase for <Militia effect>"?
The fact that cards like Moat (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Moat) and Lighthouse (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Lighthouse) would be worthless as protection against such things comes to mind as one obvious reason.
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How come that Projects, Landmarks and Events don't delve too deep into the realm of attacks/hurting opponents? (I can only think of Annex, Tax which hurts everyone alike, and Cathedral as a self-attack when gone wrong.) Which considerations played a role before dismissing landmarks like "Any player can discard a gold during their action phase for <Militia effect>"?
The fact that cards like Moat (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Moat) and Lighthouse (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Lighthouse) would be worthless as protection against such things comes to mind as one obvious reason.
This is a pretty good reason. Masquerade is already kind of one exception to an "attack" not being able to be countered, though.
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How come that Projects, Landmarks and Events don't delve too deep into the realm of attacks/hurting opponents? (I can only think of Annex, Tax which hurts everyone alike, and Cathedral as a self-attack when gone wrong.) Which considerations played a role before dismissing landmarks like "Any player can discard a gold during their action phase for <Militia effect>"?
The fact that cards like Moat (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Moat) and Lighthouse (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Lighthouse) would be worthless as protection against such things comes to mind as one obvious reason.
This is a pretty good reason. Masquerade is already kind of one exception to an "attack" not being able to be countered, though.
As is IGG; but I've seen a lot of newer players confused in thinking that they should be able to reveal Moat when someone buys in IGG.
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How come that Projects, Landmarks and Events don't delve too deep into the realm of attacks/hurting opponents? (I can only think of Annex, Tax which hurts everyone alike, and Cathedral as a self-attack when gone wrong.) Which considerations played a role before dismissing landmarks like "Any player can discard a gold during their action phase for <Militia effect>"?
By Annex you meant Raid?
I tried to get attacks into the Events; I didn't so much for Projects or Landmarks because that isn't so true to what they are. Landmarks are about VP and are already interactive. Projects give you an ability and well sure it could be an attack, but that isn't where they were aimed. Events though sounded like a good fit for attacking.
One issue is that some optional attacks are political. There's an Event that Militias, in a 4-player game. I could buy it. The player to my right just bought it, so I'd only be attacking Kevin. Well, is he winning? Another issue is, it's not so fun to be attacked every turn. It happens naturally eventually if you have enough players or you can draw your deck, but I don't want to push that, I want to delay it. Raid dodges these issues by having the upside be conditional, and by being bad. It's not like I want bad attacking Events though.
I tried some other attack Events, including a Locusts attack in Adventures. They didn't work, and hey I didn't need them to. It was fine not to have any, and I managed Raid anyway. Attacks are hard, and Events didn't solve any problems they have.
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How come that Projects, Landmarks and Events don't delve too deep into the realm of attacks/hurting opponents? (I can only think of Annex, Tax which hurts everyone alike, and Cathedral as a self-attack when gone wrong.) Which considerations played a role before dismissing landmarks like "Any player can discard a gold during their action phase for <Militia effect>"?
By Annex you meant Raid?
Yes, sorry. I am a bit uncertain about some English card names.
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I'm a big fan of Dominion, and have been amazed that the latest expansions have been some of my favorites (Renaissance, Adventures, and Empires are all in my top five fav expansions). I think the main reason is that they all include "sideways" cards--events, landmarks, and projects. These cards dramatically increase variety in the game because so many of them can be included in each box. Any possibility we will see more new types of sideways cards in future expansions, or have all the good ideas been taken already?
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I'm a big fan of Dominion, and have been amazed that the latest expansions have been some of my favorites (Renaissance, Adventures, and Empires are all in my top five fav expansions). I think the main reason is that they all include "sideways" cards--events, landmarks, and projects. These cards dramatically increase variety in the game because so many of them can be included in each box. Any possibility we will see more new types of sideways cards in future expansions, or have all the good ideas been taken already?
The sideways card premise is pretty open-ended; there will always be a chance for more while there are more expansions.
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I'm a big fan of Dominion, and have been amazed that the latest expansions have been some of my favorites (Renaissance, Adventures, and Empires are all in my top five fav expansions). I think the main reason is that they all include "sideways" cards--events, landmarks, and projects. These cards dramatically increase variety in the game because so many of them can be included in each box. Any possibility we will see more new types of sideways cards in future expansions, or have all the good ideas been taken already?
The sideways card premise is pretty open-ended; there will always be a chance for more while there are more expansions.
Have you or RGG ever had concern about people avoiding buying an expansion because it is super easy to play with any sideways card without actually owning the set? (The physical components act as a reminder; but nothing stops a casual Dominion fan from just saying "this game, we'll have Keep in the Kingdom" even if they don't own Empires.)
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I'm a big fan of Dominion, and have been amazed that the latest expansions have been some of my favorites (Renaissance, Adventures, and Empires are all in my top five fav expansions). I think the main reason is that they all include "sideways" cards--events, landmarks, and projects. These cards dramatically increase variety in the game because so many of them can be included in each box. Any possibility we will see more new types of sideways cards in future expansions, or have all the good ideas been taken already?
The sideways card premise is pretty open-ended; there will always be a chance for more while there are more expansions.
Have you or RGG ever had concern about people avoiding buying an expansion because it is super easy to play with any sideways card without actually owning the set? (The physical components act as a reminder; but nothing stops a casual Dominion fan from just saying "this game, we'll have Keep in the Kingdom" even if they don't own Empires.)
When I first started playing Dominion late last year, I thought of doing this for Empires. However, I really wanted the other cards in the expansion, too, and I thought it would be a bit too inconvenient if I wanted 2 events and 1 landmark out that weren't actually there. I thought about making simple paper copies or something, but I really wanted the rest of the set still. I'd say it's a fair reason you can't really do a "only sideways cards" mini-expansion or something, though.
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I'd say it's a fair reason you can't really do a "only sideways cards" mini-expansion or something, though.
There's Summon. Do people buy less of Summon than other promos?
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I'd say it's a fair reason you can't really do a "only sideways cards" mini-expansion or something, though.
There's Summon. Do people buy less of Summon than other promos?
Yeah Summon is a great example. I bought it because at the time I was still buying every Dominion-related thing that came out; but it definitely occurred to me that I could just as easily play with Summon without ever bothering to buy it.
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I'd probably still buy an all-sideways card expansion, although I think it would be kind of hard to make a good expansion without any kingdom cards. Aside from the obvious points of such an expansion having a limited market, you wouldn't be able to play with cards from only that expansion, as you would need to mix in kingdom cards, which would need to be from other expansions.
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Have you or RGG ever had concern about people avoiding buying an expansion because it is super easy to play with any sideways card without actually owning the set? (The physical components act as a reminder; but nothing stops a casual Dominion fan from just saying "this game, we'll have Keep in the Kingdom" even if they don't own Empires.)
I can't speak for Jay but have zero concerns there. If you want to play with them without buying them, there they are in the wiki, have fun. Someone has to be buying the expansions for them to be a product; beyond that, well someone having fun without paying us doesn't hurt us at all, it just doesn't support us, and the people who want you to think otherwise are evil.
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I'll bet there are even some people who play Dominion primarily with proxied Magic cards.
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Hey Donald, I have some questions!
How often do you play Dominion 'for fun' nowadays, or does it feel mostly like work? How competitive are you in those games?
In general, are there any sorts of abilities (Villages, +Buys, etc) that you would never play without (in a non-playtesting game)?
In my group everyone's far too polite and no-one wants to be the first to buy an Attack, while we love the mutually-beneficial player interaction cards. How important do you feel Attacks are to the Dominion experience? Do you prefer to have zero, one or more Attacks in a kingdom and do you like to ensure there's a Reaction when you have them?
Last boring question, even more optional than the rest:
Do you play with any sort of 'if someone didn't notice when I played Council Room and it's their turn, they've missed their chance to draw a card' rule? Do you often have experiences with people forgetting to do things (I find it happens a bit with Amulet) and how do you deal with it?
Sorry if this was a bit long!
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How often do you play Dominion 'for fun' nowadays, or does it feel mostly like work? How competitive are you in those games?
It's almost always playtesting. There's enough playtesting to get in all the Dominion I want. Sometimes there's an event of some sort where I play some games for fun, but like, that's one or two evenings a year.
If you mean, how much do I win, I win my share. If you mean, how much do I try to win, I am mostly trying to win, but when there's a new card to playtest I will often feel obligated to buy it, see what it does.
In general, are there any sorts of abilities (Villages, +Buys, etc) that you would never play without (in a non-playtesting game)?
No, I'm happy to see random cards come up and have no villages or whatever this game. If I thought it was best to have a village in every game, that would be the rule.
In my group everyone's far too polite and no-one wants to be the first to buy an Attack, while we love the mutually-beneficial player interaction cards. How important do you feel Attacks are to the Dominion experience? Do you prefer to have zero, one or more Attacks in a kingdom and do you like to ensure there's a Reaction when you have them?
There are players that specifically like attacks, but for me interaction is what's important, not attacks; later Dominion expansions have fewer attacks but don't go low on interaction.
I don't ensure there's a Moat or whatever available. For playtesting I may want to test whatever specific interaction, and that could include testing an attack with Moat, but the intention is that usually there's no Moat, and then that sometimes there is one.
Last boring question, even more optional than the rest:
Do you play with any sort of 'if someone didn't notice when I played Council Room and it's their turn, they've missed their chance to draw a card' rule? Do you often have experiences with people forgetting to do things (I find it happens a bit with Amulet) and how do you deal with it?
For us it's the opposite. I want a good clean fight, with the rules followed; if you play Council Room and don't make sure everyone knows, I will be all over that, dude, you have to make sure we know about your Council Room.
When people forget something a lot, I look into fixing that, changing the card, getting rid of that issue. I am okay with the specific demands of Amulet though; we all remember Amulet.
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Thanks for the answers! I was wondering how you usually did set-up because we take ages picking and swapping cards before the game. I should make more use of those randomisers!
I supoose my last question on that subject is how do you choose which and how many Events/Landmarks/Projects to play with? I've seen you like to do a certain number of cards from whichever expansion you're testing, so do you only use Landmarks if you have Empires cards in the kingdom or something like that?
When making a new card, is 'what happens if I Inherit/ King's Court/ Prince this?' a consideration right from the start? Are there any older cards you specifically test new cards alongside?
(Also for the record I'm definitely NOT the sort to try to trick people with Council Rooms! And I think I keep confusing Amulet for a Treasure, but that's my problem)
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Thanks for the answers! I was wondering how you usually did set-up because we take ages picking and swapping cards before the game. I should make more use of those randomisers!
I don't actually use separate randomizers - I keep one card from each pile in a randomizer deck, add it to the other cards to play, then return a copy afterwards. That way I only need to print 10 of each card instead of 11.
Usually I play with 5 cards from the new set, 5 cards from another set. I only carry two expansions with me (plus base cards) because they're heavy. And hey the set-up is a lot faster.
Some games I want to test some specific cards; when there are new cards, I put those out right away. Late in the cycle I'm testing recommended sets, so all 10 have been picked out in advance.
I supoose my last question on that subject is how do you choose which and how many Events/Landmarks/Projects to play with? I've seen you like to do a certain number of cards from whichever expansion you're testing, so do you only use Landmarks if you have Empires cards in the kingdom or something like that?
When playtesting a set without sideways cards, with another set that has them, I put out some random ones, and yes, only have Landmarks if I have Empires cards and so on. Late in the going I'll avoid some of the heavy-impact ones, e.g. Donate, because they make it harder to learn stuff about the other cards.
When playtesting a set that has sideways cards, they're a testing bottleneck, so I play with 2 every game.
When making a new card, is 'what happens if I Inherit/ King's Court/ Prince this?' a consideration right from the start? Are there any older cards you specifically test new cards alongside?
Not really. Mostly it's just, let's play with the cards, see what happens. I make sure the new cards are in games, but the other cards can be whatever, we want to see as many different things as possible. Sometimes I want to test power level against a benchmark; how does this trasher do against existing trashers. Sometimes interaction with a specific class of cards is an issue, e.g. "cost-lowering." A single card being a concern can happen, but is probably a rules issue not a power-level issue.
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Donald I have a question? But first I want to say I was first introduced to dominion a year before adventures came out. And the first expansion I ever bought before adventures was hinterlands. I love hinterlands it’s always the first expansion I introduce to friends new to dominion. I have all the expansions except renaissance and intrigue, my friends own those anyways. And so when I finally got around to cornucopia it had already been combined with guilds. And I’m not like other players, I prefer to keep my cards in the box they came in. And I always just keep the base cards in the tiny yellow bace card box. Even if that means I can only bring a couple expansions at time that’s fine, cause some other friends will also just bring a couple of theirs anyways.
But every time I look at alchemy, it makes me sad that it’s the only expansion still in a small box. If your not going to make any potion cards that’s fine.
My question is... Are you ever going to make another mini expansion? Then there could be 2 mini expansions sitting on my shelf together.
Also about the promos, there’s about enough of them now to form a sort of mixed up expansion. Would you ever consider putting all the promos old and new in an alchemy sized box. Because that would solve the lone wolf problem that alchemy is, without actually making any potion cards.
And I’m sure there’s not that many who would want to buy alchemy in a combined box, like cornucopia and guilds. Especially since it seems a lot of avid dominion players seem to be putting all there dominion cards in a briefcase like box.
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My question is... Are you ever going to make another mini expansion? Then there could be 2 mini expansions sitting on my shelf together.
I don't know. Ideally no, because people like large expansions better - hence combining Cornucopia and Guilds. But, I don't have to rule it out; maybe one day I will feel like making another expansion but only have enough good material or enthusiasm for a small one.
Also about the promos, there’s about enough of them now to form a sort of mixed up expansion. Would you ever consider putting all the promos old and new in an alchemy sized box. Because that would solve the lone wolf problem that alchemy is, without actually making any potion cards.
The issue currently is that RGG uses the promos as a way to support BoardGameGeek. They give promos to BGG and BGG sells them for a profit. As long as that's going on, RGG won't want to sell the promos. If someday that stops though then it could happen. This is just for English; promos have appeared in sold products in German.
This came up when we were discussing the current Big Box. It's Dominion plus Intrigue plus extra cards for going to 6 players. But it was a question, what exactly to put in the box, and I asked about promos as a possibility (rather than the 5-6 player cards). And Jay said, no, those are supporting BGG.
And I’m sure there’s not that many who would want to buy alchemy in a combined box, like cornucopia and guilds. Especially since it seems a lot of avid dominion players seem to be putting all there dominion cards in a briefcase like box.
It would be worse than pairing something else with the other half; there are always people who stand up to say, they want more Alchemy, but overall it's the least popular expansion. But, it wouldn't just go unsold if e.g. Alchemy were paired with Cornucopia, and those two are in fact paired in some other languages. Jay initially thought that would be the pairing in English, but at the time the Big Box in English had Alchemy, and I pointed that out and so hooray the Mixed Box is Guilds plus Cornucopia.
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This has probably been asked a couple times before, but have you considered making Night cards a regular thing, like you have with Durations?
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This has probably been asked a couple times before, but have you considered making Night cards a regular thing, like you have with Durations?
No. Mechanics without much in the way of rules have been repeated since the beginning; Seaside for example has some choose-one cards and an action-victory card, just the expansion after Intrigue. Stuff with components has been limited to expansions that include the components, and stuff with lots of rules requires more of a commitment too. Night, like Duration cards, has very short rules and no components. So it would be easy to use again. But it wasn't as popular as Durations; there were people who specifically disliked it. And even Durations, with that tiny paragraph, carry some complexity with them, make the sets with them just a little less friendly to new players. I don't really want a second thing like that. Night still has a chance at being revisited if there are enough expansions, but probably just all at once.
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If you wouldn't mind answering this, would you say Dominion: Menagerie is more like Renaissance in the sense that it's simpler and better for new players, or more like Empires and Nocturne in the sense that it adds a lot of new stuff and is more suited for experts?
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If you wouldn't mind answering this, would you say Dominion: Menagerie is more like Renaissance in the sense that it's simpler and better for new players, or more like Empires and Nocturne in the sense that it adds a lot of new stuff and is more suited for experts?
Please include 3-5 example cards in your answer.
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If you wouldn't mind answering this, would you say Dominion: Menagerie is more like Renaissance in the sense that it's simpler and better for new players, or more like Empires and Nocturne in the sense that it adds a lot of new stuff and is more suited for experts?
Please include 3-5 example cards in your answer.
I know, right?
What I will tell you is that design philosophy I put forth when talking about Renaissance still stands. I still think that Nocturne was too complex, that didn't somehow change. The things about it that I thought were too complex, I still think were. I still want the sets to be simpler; I still think I should only be using the large font. And I mean the blurb is still what I have to say about the set for now.
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If you wouldn't mind answering this, would you say Dominion: Menagerie is more like Renaissance in the sense that it's simpler and better for new players, or more like Empires and Nocturne in the sense that it adds a lot of new stuff and is more suited for experts?
Please include 3-5 example cards in your answer.
I know, right?
What I will tell you is that design philosophy I put forth when talking about Renaissance still stands. I still think that Nocturne was too complex, that didn't somehow change. The things about it that I thought were too complex, I still think were. I still want the sets to be simpler; I still think I should only be using the large font. And I mean the blurb is still what I have to say about the set for now.
Out of curiosity, what parts about Nocturne do you feel are too complex? Because to me Nocturne seems like a relatively simple set - there's no landmarks, projects, tokens, etc., and only one thing (Lost in the Woods) that's equivalent to Renaissance's Artifacts
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What I will tell you is that design philosophy I put forth when talking about Renaissance still stands.
This suggests that, a year on, you're still pretty happy with how Renaissance turned out?
(If so, it's good news for me since Renaissance is one of my favourite expansions and I'd love to see more of the same. (-8 )
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If you wouldn't mind answering this, would you say Dominion: Menagerie is more like Renaissance in the sense that it's simpler and better for new players, or more like Empires and Nocturne in the sense that it adds a lot of new stuff and is more suited for experts?
Please include 3-5 example cards in your answer.
I know, right?
What I will tell you is that design philosophy I put forth when talking about Renaissance still stands. I still think that Nocturne was too complex, that didn't somehow change. The things about it that I thought were too complex, I still think were. I still want the sets to be simpler; I still think I should only be using the large font. And I mean the blurb is still what I have to say about the set for now.
Out of curiosity, what parts about Nocturne do you feel are too complex? Because to me Nocturne seems like a relatively simple set - there's no landmarks, projects, tokens, etc., and only one thing (Lost in the Woods) that's equivalent to Renaissance's Artifacts
I bet I can answer this one: the cards aren't self-contained. There are a ton of Boons, Hexes, States, and cards not in the supply, and so in order to understand what one kingdom card does or can do, you often have to read the text on a bunch of other cards as well. (And in setting up the game you have to remember to get out a bunch of different piles other than the kingdom cards you've selected.)
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Out of curiosity, what parts about Nocturne do you feel are too complex? Because to me Nocturne seems like a relatively simple set - there's no landmarks, projects, tokens, etc., and only one thing (Lost in the Woods) that's equivalent to Renaissance's Artifacts
The most complex single element is the Hexes. I put some work into having a simple set of Boons, to make sure they didn't bog the game down, and then that all went out the window with the Hexes. They were attacks, they couldn't be simple. Instead of "oh so I shouldn't do them," there they are. We had lots of fun playtesting them; then at the release event I saw casual players interacting with them and it's just, every Hex shuts down the game while people come to terms with it.
As I have pointed out many times now, to fully understand what Vampire does, you have to read 18 cards. That's ludicrous, that can't be right. Vampire, Bat. Twelve hexes. Envious, Deluded, Miserable, Twice Miserable. Even Tournament, which is record-setting complex, with a 2x2 grid of results to understand, still has only 5 more cards to read.
The set has too much going on in it; today I would do it as two expansions. One would be called Nocturne and would have Night, Boons, and Spirits; the other would have Heirlooms and some other new thing to go with them. Probably only 5 cards would make Boons, dodging less-fun situations e.g. "Idol could get you a Boon that actually hurts you." And well those attacks would need to do something other than hand out Hexes.
The Spirits and other extra cards aren't a problem by themselves; I do think it's better if an extra card is either used by one card or by several. If it's one card you can just put it away with that card, e.g. Madman with Hermit, and get them both out at once. If it's a bunch of cards, like the Tavern mat, you can get that out and then have it the whole evening. When it's just used by Cemetery and Exorcist, you have to get it out special for that game.
Adding e.g. Landmarks doesn't compare to that stuff. You can just not put out a Landmark if you want, if this game has a new player or you're new to the set or whatever; bam, a simpler game. The basic concept is simple and most of the cards are straightforward. I'm not aware of any issues people had with Landmarks. The tokens aren't tricky either; they're fiddly, you have to go dig out the tokens. I am not thrilled with the variety of tokens in Adventures, because you know, oh this game we need Plan tokens, and you have to search through the pile of tokens for them. Fewer tokens, more use out of each, would have been better. But Coffers and Villagers and VP tokens do just that, the sets get lots of use out of them, you just put them on the table for the evening.
Nocturne was great to playtest; for a sufficiently experienced player, it's full of great stuff. But for sure it's too complex.
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This suggests that, a year on, you're still pretty happy with how Renaissance turned out?
I'm pretty happy with it still.
Artifacts didn't work out as well as I'd hoped; Flag Bearer worked great, and then the rest were a lot of trouble. In the end I also like Swashbuckler, but Border Guard and Treasurer were both artifact-free cards that were totally worthwhile, and now they're saddled with artifacts just to have artifacts somewhere.
There are a few other individual cards I might tweak today. This is always the case though. Overall it's great; villagers are great, there was enough good stuff to do to revisit coffers, and there are lots of nice individual cards. Projects are good times. The set feels way simpler than Nocturne, as intended.
The big problems with Renaissance of course are that the printer gave us lighter backs and the layout guy lighter fronts.
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Out of curiosity, what parts about Nocturne do you feel are too complex? Because to me Nocturne seems like a relatively simple set - there's no landmarks, projects, tokens, etc., and only one thing (Lost in the Woods) that's equivalent to Renaissance's Artifacts
The most complex single element is the Hexes. I put some work into having a simple set of Boons, to make sure they didn't bog the game down, and then that all went out the window with the Hexes. They were attacks, they couldn't be simple. Instead of "oh so I shouldn't do them," there they are. We had lots of fun playtesting them; then at the release event I saw casual players interacting with them and it's just, every Hex shuts down the game while people come to terms with it.
As I have pointed out many times now, to fully understand what Vampire does, you have to read 18 cards. That's ludicrous, that can't be right. Vampire, Bat. Twelve hexes. Envious, Deluded, Miserable, Twice Miserable. Even Tournament, which is record-setting complex, with a 2x2 grid of results to understand, still has only 5 more cards to read.
The set has too much going on in it; today I would do it as two expansions. One would be called Nocturne and would have Night, Boons, and Spirits; the other would have Heirlooms and some other new thing to go with them. Probably only 5 cards would make Boons, dodging less-fun situations e.g. "Idol could get you a Boon that actually hurts you." And well those attacks would need to do something other than hand out Hexes.
The Spirits and other extra cards aren't a problem by themselves; I do think it's better if an extra card is either used by one card or by several. If it's one card you can just put it away with that card, e.g. Madman with Hermit, and get them both out at once. If it's a bunch of cards, like the Tavern mat, you can get that out and then have it the whole evening. When it's just used by Cemetery and Exorcist, you have to get it out special for that game.
Adding e.g. Landmarks doesn't compare to that stuff. You can just not put out a Landmark if you want, if this game has a new player or you're new to the set or whatever; bam, a simpler game. The basic concept is simple and most of the cards are straightforward. I'm not aware of any issues people had with Landmarks. The tokens aren't tricky either; they're fiddly, you have to go dig out the tokens. I am not thrilled with the variety of tokens in Adventures, because you know, oh this game we need Plan tokens, and you have to search through the pile of tokens for them. Fewer tokens, more use out of each, would have been better. But Coffers and Villagers and VP tokens do just that, the sets get lots of use out of them, you just put them on the table for the evening.
Nocturne was great to playtest; for a sufficiently experienced player, it's full of great stuff. But for sure it's too complex.
Hunh, I never thought of Vampire as "having to read 18 cards". I just thought of it as two cards - Vampire and Bat - and Vampire has an attack that's "sometimes really bad sometimes just annoying", and once I played it a few times, and got used to what the various hexes do, it seemed fairly simple. It feels less complex, strategically speaking, than some landmarks and projects, even if those are generally pretty simple as far as knowing what they do (like, Wolf's Den is a really simple concept, but trying to remember "Have I bought a second copy of this card?" can be really tricky). But I guess if you're the kind of person who wants to know exactly what the card does before trying it out, I can see how the hexes would make cards like Vampire really complex
It's too bad, cause the hexes and boons are my favorite part of Nocturne, and I'm kinda sad to hear they're not gonna be revisited. Ah, well, there's still plenty of other fun stuff, and I'm sure whatever's in the new game will be great too
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Hunh, I never thought of Vampire as "having to read 18 cards". I just thought of it as two cards - Vampire and Bat - and Vampire has an attack that's "sometimes really bad sometimes just annoying", and once I played it a few times, and got used to what the various hexes do, it seemed fairly simple. It feels less complex, strategically speaking, than some landmarks and projects, even if those are generally pretty simple as far as knowing what they do (like, Wolf's Den is a really simple concept, but trying to remember "Have I bought a second copy of this card?" can be really tricky). But I guess if you're the kind of person who wants to know exactly what the card does before trying it out, I can see how the hexes would make cards like Vampire really complex
Sure you just read Vampire and Bat; bad things will happen, you get it. But man. I had the experience, I played the set with casual players. We turn over the first hex. The game stops. Reading the card once wasn't enough, they didn't grok it. They have to hear it again. They take the hex for themselves and read it. Okay. They know what to do now, but still have to deal with it, it may cause decisions or involve a procedure. Eventually the game is back in motion. Next turn: another hex.
There are 12 Boons to read too, but it's a world of difference. You turn over your Boon. Gain a silver. Okay, done. There are a few wordier ones but they are not the problem the hexes were. And only one player has to read and understand the Boon, that helps too. (Sacred Grove: one of the cards to not do in my five.)
Strategic complexity is great. It's not a problem at all, I can have as much as I manage. Having to deal with 18+ concepts over the course of playing with a card is a nightmare.
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I am not thrilled with the variety of tokens in Adventures, because you know, oh this game we need Plan tokens, and you have to search through the pile of tokens for them.
I store the tokens by type, not by player. We need Plan tokens? I pull the Plan tokens out of the organiser tray. Sure, I get all six colours not just the ones we're playing, but that's trivial to resolve.
I kinda assumed everyone did that. /-8
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I am not thrilled with the variety of tokens in Adventures, because you know, oh this game we need Plan tokens, and you have to search through the pile of tokens for them.
I store the tokens by type, not by player. We need Plan tokens? I pull the Plan tokens out of the organiser tray. Sure, I get all six colours not just the ones we're playing, but that's trivial to resolve.
I kinda assumed everyone did that. /-8
I did it the other way at first but quickly realized that was too time-consuming and switched over.
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Do you ever regret some of your earlier names for cards because a newer card that you came up with fits that name better? I'm thinking specifically with University being an apropos name for a card with the debt mechanic.
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Something I've only just realised: there has never been a Victory promo card.
Is there some reason for this, or is it just coincidence?
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I am not thrilled with the variety of tokens in Adventures, because you know, oh this game we need Plan tokens, and you have to search through the pile of tokens for them.
I store the tokens by type, not by player. We need Plan tokens? I pull the Plan tokens out of the organiser tray. Sure, I get all six colours not just the ones we're playing, but that's trivial to resolve.
I don't store them by type or player; I have a little hard candy container filled with chits. The expansion itself is in a long box like people use for Magic cards.
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Do you ever regret some of your earlier names for cards because a newer card that you came up with fits that name better? I'm thinking specifically with University being an apropos name for a card with the debt mechanic.
Not so much. It's a bummer that if I wanted to e.g. do those changes to Hinterlands, the changed cards would all need new names. And the namespace gets more and more full.
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Something I've only just realised: there has never been a Victory promo card.
Is there some reason for this, or is it just coincidence?
When Jay talked about doing a Power Grid anniversary promo, it was going to be a Victory card, because one of Friedemann Friese's things is the color green. I did Governor for Puerto Rico instead; I didn't have a good Power Grid tie-in. Later LastFootnote rose to the challenge, and we playtested his card some.
Aside from that it would be nice to not do one. It's 2 extra cards for a thing we give away, and people especially like Victory cards, why isn't it in an expansion instead. Of course most promos would rather be in an expansion.
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Would you ever consider bringing back the adventures tokens? I feel like there's still a bunch of design space left there.
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Would you ever consider bringing back the adventures tokens? I feel like there's still a bunch of design space left there.
The Adventures tokens aren't out of the question, but in retrospect I don't like how many different tokens Adventures has, it's annoying pawing through them looking for the boot or whatever. I should have tried to get more use out of a smaller set of tokens. But, with that approach, that kind of thing in the future is okay.
At least, that was the verdict on this almost a year ago. It could have changed.
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Would you ever consider bringing back the adventures tokens? I feel like there's still a bunch of design space left there.
I considered repeating the +$1 token for Menagerie, but didn't do it.Would you ever consider bringing back the adventures tokens? I feel like there's still a bunch of design space left there.
The Adventures tokens aren't out of the question, but in retrospect I don't like how many different tokens Adventures has, it's annoying pawing through them looking for the boot or whatever. I should have tried to get more use out of a smaller set of tokens. But, with that approach, that kind of thing in the future is okay.
At least, that was the verdict on this almost a year ago. It could have changed.
Correct, I might bring back a single token and use it on multiple cards. I considered this for Menagerie but didn't end up doing it.
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I have two questions about Nocturne, both about pile sizes -
1: Why 13 cards for Imp? I don't think there's another pile with 13 in the game at all
2: Why 12 hexes, rather than a thematically unlucky 13?
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I have two questions about Nocturne, both about pile sizes -
1: Why 13 cards for Imp? I don't think there's another pile with 13 in the game at all
2: Why 12 hexes, rather than a thematically unlucky 13?
I had the card slot; I could make it blank, that wasn't happening, or add one to one of the non-Supply piles. Adding it to Imp meant there were 13 Imps, which I thought some people would mildly appreciate.
That slot could have been a 13th Hex. Then the hexes wouldn't match the Boons, which I don't like; also the Hexes were hard to come by. In retrospect I wouldn't do Hexes at all.
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Maybe this was answered before, but why is playing a card mandatory for Herald, but optional for Vassal? Is it just that "you may" doesn't fit in the text on Herald easily?
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Maybe this was answered before, but why is playing a card mandatory for Herald, but optional for Vassal? Is it just that "you may" doesn't fit in the text on Herald easily?
There's no story; I put you-may on Vassal, and there it is. I looked for discussion of that and didn't find any. I guess I was in a generous mood that day.
It was always you-may, but the first version left the card on top; a main reason to change that was, if you play Vassal and it misses, it's a bummer that the next one is locked into missing too. And if it's not an action, often you'd like to discard the card anyway. So, it discards it. I did not anticipate Faithful Hound, which is confusing there. Obv. it could have only discarded unplayed cards, to clear that up.
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What is your opinion on the existence of the wiki? In particular, are you bothered by the idea that since every card image is available there, that someone could potentially "print and play" and play without buying a physical set?
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What is your opinion on the existence of the wiki? In particular, are you bothered by the idea that since every card image is available there, that someone could potentially "print and play" and play without buying a physical set?
they'd probably spend more on paper/ink than itd cost to just buy the cards.
plus they could always just screengrab from dominion.games to get the same printable cards.
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What is your opinion on the existence of the wiki? In particular, are you bothered by the idea that since every card image is available there, that someone could potentially "print and play" and play without buying a physical set?
It's fantastic that the wiki is there, and I do not even consider worrying about that. This has come up repeatedly; if someone say prints out a list of Events to play with without those sets, they aren't supporting me, but they're not stealing from me either. The people who want you to believe otherwise are evil.
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I came across this Dominion Collector's Box (Sammler-Box): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081KCVDY9/
It's got space for 3000 cards, and comes with a base set of cards, all of the promos, and card dividers for all cards so far.
It's also in German.
Will there be an English version of this?
Thanks!
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I came across this Dominion Collector's Box (Sammler-Box): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081KCVDY9/
It's got space for 3000 cards, and comes with a base set of cards, all of the promos, and card dividers for all cards so far.
It's also in German.
Will there be an English version of this?
There are no plans for an English version. Also as long as the promos are on BGG, Jay doesn't want to make them otherwise available; he gives them to BGG to support BGG.
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Woah - that's pretty nice. If it can't contain the promos, an English version without the promos would still be cool.
What's more, the organiser inserts for future sets would themselves make great promos!
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What is your opinion on the existence of the wiki? In particular, are you bothered by the idea that since every card image is available there, that someone could potentially "print and play" and play without buying a physical set?
It's fantastic that the wiki is there, and I do not even consider worrying about that. This has come up repeatedly; if someone say prints out a list of Events to play with without those sets, they aren't supporting me, but they're not stealing from me either. The people who want you to believe otherwise are evil.
I like how the wiki allows for Dominion's long-term preservation.
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How do you figure?
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You've probably answered this before, but do you ever look through fan cards for inspiration?
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You've probably answered this before, but do you ever look through fan cards for inspiration?
Donald has said in the past that he actively avoids fan cards because he wants to avoid the possibility of someone attacking him for "stealing" their idea
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You've probably answered this before, but do you ever look through fan cards for inspiration?
No, except for when playtesters want to offer up something, which is to say LastFootnote.
Early in the thread someone asked this, and I looked at and reviewed a few of Buggy's as an example of how it would go. Any concerns about people thinking I stole their ideas aside, it's not especially fruitful.
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You've probably answered this before, but do you ever look through fan cards for inspiration?
Donald has said in the past that he actively avoids fan cards because he wants to avoid the possibility of someone attacking him for "stealing" their idea
I, NoMoreFun, consent to Donald X. using any of my fan card ideas at will and waive any right to claim credit for the idea
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You've probably answered this before, but do you ever look through fan cards for inspiration?
No, except for when playtesters want to offer up something, which is to say LastFootnote.
Early in the thread someone asked this, and I looked at and reviewed a few of Buggy's as an example of how it would go. Any concerns about people thinking I stole their ideas aside, it's not especially fruitful.
For reference, here is that post:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg148774#msg148774
I agree 100% that looking at arbitrary fan cards wouldn't be fruitful; but I wonder if there'd be anything to gain from reviewing a community curated list (e.g. winners of the Weekly Design Contest).
(To be clear, I'm not suggesting you do that; just that if you were to consider fan cards, that would be a more fruitful way)
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Donald has pointed out multiple times that the fun part of making new cards is coming up with the concept. The testing and tuning is the part that feels like work. By picking up fan cards, he’s missing out on the fun part of his job. So he’s unlikely to do it.
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We had 5 expansions with normal names, 5 with plural names, and now 3 with French names. Can we expect 2 more with French names? And what will be the name thing for expansions 16 through 20?
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Two of the promos are „fan cards“. And given the expansion model of Dominion, that is the best slot for them.
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Donald has pointed out multiple times that the fun part of making new cards is coming up with the concept. The testing and tuning is the part that feels like work. By picking up fan cards, he’s missing out on the fun part of his job. So he’s unlikely to do it.
It's fun to playtest too, but yeah, there's no motivation for me to look at someone's cards. When it's a friend, the motivation is that they're my friend.
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We had 5 expansions with normal names, 5 with plural names, and now 3 with French names. Can we expect 2 more with French names? And what will be the name thing for expansions 16 through 20?
The French publisher stopped doing sets after Adventures. C'mon guys, surely you want these.
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Donald has pointed out multiple times that the fun part of making new cards is coming up with the concept. The testing and tuning is the part that feels like work. By picking up fan cards, he’s missing out on the fun part of his job. So he’s unlikely to do it.
It's fun to playtest too, but yeah, there's no motivation for me to look at someone's cards. When it's a friend, the motivation is that they're my friend.
Can I be your friend? :)
On a more serious note (and I hope this hasn't been asked before - there are almost 5000 posts in this thread), how do you pick playtesters? Do you ever seek out new ones? I'd imagine you'd want people of different levels of experience / skill.
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On a more serious note (and I hope this hasn't been asked before - there are almost 5000 posts in this thread), how do you pick playtesters? Do you ever seek out new ones? I'd imagine you'd want people of different levels of experience / skill.
IRL, I play with anyone who shows up to play, except when the table is full of regulars, in which case I play with them.
A few times I have specifically recruited playtesters from the online Dominion communities.
- Initially - before the game was published - I playtested with people I knew from online Magic communities, and they stuck around for a while.
- I invited LastFootnote based on his endless posting and collection of Donald X. games, when I needed to playtest Prince.
- For Adventures I first invited people who I knew had a physical copy from one thread here, and had done well in a tournament from another thread here, which I think included Adam and jsh357.
- Then we were also able to do testing online with isotropic, so I could invite good players who didn't necessarily have a physical copy, which included Mic and Stef. Mic has actually done testing irl for other games now.
- A few years later I needed more, and invited Ben and Steveie King.
- Recently I invited Ingix and markus in a rules capacity, due to the errata. Ingix is more vocal and made it into the credits for Menagerie, but neither of them playtested it (except now, for the online version).
I don't let people invite themselves; I let that happen a couple times in the past and wasn't happy with how it went. And way back when there were people I didn't invite at all, and most of those did not really contribute.
Even if everyone is an expert, they will end up playing with non-experts; that will be covered. My biggest concern is having people actually play games and tell me how they went; some people are not chatty and well I want words. And some don't end up actually playing much.
It may be that someday I will be looking online for more external playtesters. I'm hanging out in these communities and I'll have some idea who I might want.
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To me, it felt that Empires and Nocturne skewed much more in the expert-player direction than other expansions.
I'm just wondering: did the composition of playtesting groups shift between Adventures and Empires? Did it shift between Nocturne and Renaissance? Or was it just your different focus in play, with similar playtesters?
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To me, it felt that Empires and Nocturne skewed much more in the expert-player direction than other expansions.
I'm just wondering: did the composition of playtesting groups shift between Adventures and Empires? Did it shift between Nocturne and Renaissance? Or was it just your different focus in play, with similar playtesters?
Playtesters have changed, but I don't think that's what you're seeing. I think you're seeing "this is the 10th expansion, this is the 11th expansion." It's harder and harder to do things that aren't complex; all of the simple stuff is used up. For Renaissance I put in extra effort to have simple stuff.
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How do I sign up for playtesting the new expansion (the one after Menagerie)?
::)
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No need to sign up. You’re right behind me. I’ll let you know.
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Not to brag, but I have been selected to play test the newest expansion sometime in late March or early April.
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When designing cards, do you ever look through a list of prompts or like, a Brian Eno "Oblique Strategies" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies) deck or something?
Or do you try to design comprehensively (every combo with a mechanic) and then rule out the ones that don't work?
Or do you just sorta freehand it and what you come up with is what you come up with?
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When designing cards, do you ever look through a list of prompts or like, a Brian Eno "Oblique Strategies" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies) deck or something?
Or do you try to design comprehensively (every combo with a mechanic) and then rule out the ones that don't work?
Or do you just sorta freehand it and what you come up with is what you come up with?
I enjoyed reading about Oblique Strategies back when, and who doesn't like Sense of Doubt (where Bowie and Eno got opposite instructions they kept secret), but I've never felt like, what this situation needs is a random cryptic nudge.
I come up with stuff however I can, all different ways. I hunt down ideas; I try to think, what are the different things I could do with this mechanic. That accounts for a lot, but lots of stuff shows up other ways too. I go through old ideas to see if they spark anything; I start with flavor; I have specific slots to fill, and may come up with a card from the combination of what I still need; these days sometimes I try to make a fixed version of an old card, or just a new version. Many things in the end change a lot; the final card wasn't really the initial idea, it was all shaped by how it played and the issues that came up. And you can see these journeys in the secret histories.
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With so many cards now, are there any unique ideas and mechanics tied to specific cards that you would want to have a higher probability of popping up in "full random"?
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With so many cards now, are there any unique ideas and mechanics tied to specific cards that you would want to have a higher probability of popping up in "full random"?
No, the things that I care about there are already in every set - villages, +Buy, interaction/attacks, $5's, cantrips, trashing, remodel/vault, draw.
I do however feel more leeway to make a new version of a unique card.
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With so many cards now, are there any unique ideas and mechanics tied to specific cards that you would want to have a higher probability of popping up in "full random"?
No, the things that I care about there are already in every set - villages, +Buy, interaction/attacks, $5's, cantrips, trashing, remodel/vault, draw.
I do however feel more leeway to make a new version of a unique card.
Do you have a ratio you want for these elements in every set? If so, have those ratios changed over the years at all?
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No, the things that I care about there are already in every set - villages, +Buy, interaction/attacks, $5's, cantrips, trashing, remodel/vault, draw.
I do however feel more leeway to make a new version of a unique card.
Do you have a ratio you want for these elements in every set? If so, have those ratios changed over the years at all?
I used to want about 1/8 villages and +Buy, now I go a little higher. There are more sets so the boards are less average. I used to want 1/5 attacks. Now I aim lower there, but higher for overall interaction. Originally I wasn't even worried about $5's. Now it's a focus, you need a lot of $5's.
One thing you can do is just wait for the new set, then count how many cards there are in various categories. Odds are that's about what I wanted.
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remodel/vault
What mechanic do both Remodel and Vault fit into?
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What mechanic do both Remodel and Vault fit into?
Soft Terminals. (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12673.0) Or supercolliders or whatever we decided to call them.
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What mechanic do both Remodel and Vault fit into?
Soft Terminals. (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12673.0) Or supercolliders or whatever we decided to call them.
Ah, interesting.
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Is Rats still your favorite card?
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Is Rats still your favorite card?
Yes.
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What's your favourite bird?
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What's your favourite bird?
I haven't really given it any thought. We used to live somewhere where there were hummingbirds outside the window sometimes; that was cool. They can just hover there. And when the cat kills one, man, they are so light, it feels like you are just holding an empty paper towel.
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Did you consider making Ways cost money to access (like Projects)?
If so, what made you go with the free version?
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Did you consider making Ways cost money to access (like Projects)?
If so, what made you go with the free version?
I didn't. They started free and free worked.
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Would you be willing to share what the remaining Way animals are? It'd be fun to speculate what they might do, based on the names alone.
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Would you be willing to share what the remaining Way animals are? It'd be fun to speculate what they might do, based on the names alone.
This info is already on the Wiki; it's linked to in one of the previews threads.
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Would you be willing to share what the remaining Way animals are? It'd be fun to speculate what they might do, based on the names alone.
This info is already on the Wiki; it's linked to in one of the previews threads.
Sure, I saw that. But it felt like an unofficial leak*; I preferred not to speculate publicly in the forums until it was something more official.
* though I will admit, it's what inspired this question :)
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Would you be willing to share what the remaining Way animals are? It'd be fun to speculate what they might do, based on the names alone.
This info is already on the Wiki; it's linked to in one of the previews threads.
Sure, I saw that. But it felt like an unofficial leak*; I preferred not to speculate publicly in the forums until it was something more official.
* though I will admit, it's what inspired this question :)
I'm happy to leave it as, you know there was that leak, you can go look at it and speculate.
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What caused the leak? An accident in the online implementation; a playtester choosing to release the information on the wiki page; etc?
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What caused the leak? An accident in the online implementation; a playtester choosing to release the information on the wiki page; etc?
I don't know. M Knox, who has an account here, posted the list. So, you could try asking him.
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Did you discover the Penultimate Province rule in playtesting (before the game was published)?
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Did you discover the Penultimate Province rule in playtesting (before the game was published)?
It went way past that. The original end condition was any empty pile. We had the penultimate Lab rule and so on. And a card like Remodel, you better leave 4 of those (there were 12 cards in each pile).
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Do you think there's enough design space left in overpay to bring it back in another hypothetical future expansion? Especially if you can put it on an event (I suppose you could put it on a project, but I personally see no clean way to do so and don't find it compelling enough to force it)
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Do you think there's enough design space left in overpay to bring it back in another hypothetical future expansion? Especially if you can put it on an event (I suppose you could put it on a project, but I personally see no clean way to do so and don't find it compelling enough to force it)
These days I am not fond of how wordy the overpay cards are, except for Masterpiece. It's not impossible to avoid that, to have a single-line vanilla top, but. An Event with a variable cost would be better since it doesn't have to also say what the card does. Of course an Event with +Buy is already like this.
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Out of interest, did you consider reducing the wordiness of over-pay with some special symbology, like you did with debt? For that matter, was the terser debt notation borne out of your experience with over-pay?
(I'm liking the idea of an over-pay Event, and even idly pondering the idea of an over-pay Project...)
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Out of interest, did you consider reducing the wordiness of over-pay with some special symbology, like you did with debt? For that matter, was the terser debt notation borne out of your experience with over-pay?
(I'm liking the idea of an over-pay Event, and even idly pondering the idea of an over-pay Project...)
Something like, to use the example of Masterpiece, "Gain 1 Silver per [symbol]"? Perhaps with an up arrow or something similar for a symbol, and a general rule that "you can overpay if, and only if, a card contains an instruction with [symbol]"?
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Out of interest, did you consider reducing the wordiness of over-pay with some special symbology, like you did with debt? For that matter, was the terser debt notation borne out of your experience with over-pay?
(I'm liking the idea of an over-pay Event, and even idly pondering the idea of an over-pay Project...)
I didn't consider not spelling out overpay on those cards. Debt at times was spelled out on the cards; it was certainly great to just have a symbol and make you go to the rulebook. I don't think overpay was an influence specifically.
To have a symbol instead, you need to make them all work the same way (no Stonemason) and ideally with no parameter (always $1 per effect). It does save about two lines. It would be like:
Masterpiece: Treasure, $3
$1
----------
[symbol]: Gain a Silver.
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Did you ever considered overpay with other kinds of currency? Something like overpaying debt seems interesting.
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Did you ever considered overpay with other kinds of currency? Something like overpaying debt seems interesting.
I didn't consider it for Guilds as there was no debt. For Empires I don't know if it came up. Debt had issues, resulting in the specific cards that use it; they aren't first guesses. So it's not like I was looking for a challenge, can I do overpay here. It was enough to get the cards I got, and they weren't lacking in appeal either; I needed no further twist.
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Small Castle says
"Trash this or a Castle from your hand. If you do, gain a Castle."
Looking at this, are you happy with this phrasing? I'm asking because I recall you being unhappy with Soothsayer saying "each other player gains a curse. each player who did draws a card" rather than "each other player gains a curse and draws a card". Small Castle could be "trash this or a castle from your hand and gain a castle."
I personally like the wording you chose both times, but I'm just wondering how you think about the complexity/precision tradeoff and whether it's different between both cases.
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Small Castle could be "trash this or a castle from your hand and gain a castle."
That would allow a hand of Small Castle and KC to gain three Castles, I think. It would also mean Necromancer on a trashed Small Castle would let you gain a Castle (with no other Castle in hand).
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Small Castle could be "trash this or a castle from your hand and gain a castle."
That would allow a hand of Small Castle and KC to gain three Castles, I think. It would also mean Necromancer on a trashed Small Castle would let you gain a Castle (with no other Castle in hand).
I know, but it doesn't seem obvious that those are bigger problems than for soothsayer. They're stronger but will happen less often. And KC has lots of super-strong combos. If you KC a remodel on a fortress you gain three cards.
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Small Castle could be "trash this or a castle from your hand and gain a castle."
That would allow a hand of Small Castle and KC to gain three Castles, I think. It would also mean Necromancer on a trashed Small Castle would let you gain a Castle (with no other Castle in hand).
I know, but it doesn't seem obvious that those are bigger problems than for soothsayer. They're stronger but will happen less often. And KC has lots of super-strong combos. If you KC a remodel on a fortress you gain three cards.
If the goal is economy of text and not some functional change, some new cards (or new version of old cards?) have used the "trash ... to ... (benefit)" pattern.
With that pattern, Small Castle would read like:
"Trash this or a Castle from your hand to gain a Castle"
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Small Castle could be "trash this or a castle from your hand and gain a castle."
That would allow a hand of Small Castle and KC to gain three Castles, I think. It would also mean Necromancer on a trashed Small Castle would let you gain a Castle (with no other Castle in hand).
Based on more recent cards "Trash this or a castle from your hand to gain a castle." would maintain the current behaviour.
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Small Castle could be "trash this or a castle from your hand and gain a castle."
That would allow a hand of Small Castle and KC to gain three Castles, I think. It would also mean Necromancer on a trashed Small Castle would let you gain a Castle (with no other Castle in hand).
I know, but it doesn't seem obvious that those are bigger problems than for soothsayer. They're stronger but will happen less often. And KC has lots of super-strong combos. If you KC a remodel on a fortress you gain three cards.
The difference is that the combo for Castles benefits the player who plays it, whereas the combo for Soothsayer benefits everyone else and not the player who plays it, so nobody will ever be incentivized to use it. Also, I'm pretty sure that with that wording, you can choose to "trash a Castle from your hand" and then not have a Castle in your hand, but still gain a Castle at no cost, regardless of KC/TR/Necromancer/anything else's presence.
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Small Castle says
"Trash this or a Castle from your hand. If you do, gain a Castle."
Looking at this, are you happy with this phrasing? I'm asking because I recall you being unhappy with Soothsayer saying "each other player gains a curse. each player who did draws a card" rather than "each other player gains a curse and draws a card". Small Castle could be "trash this or a castle from your hand and gain a castle."
I personally like the wording you chose both times, but I'm just wondering how you think about the complexity/precision tradeoff and whether it's different between both cases.
For Soothsayer, the "if" is so that you can play Soothsayer with no Curses left and not feel stupid. That was not something I needed to care about. The extra words don't matter much but I didn't need them.
For Small Castle, the "if" is so that one Small Castle doesn't turn into multiple Castles. I still want to do that; it affects how powerful the card is, and better matches intuition. I might reword it today though, because these days I don't like mandatory things to say "if you do." I don't need to rule it out completely but don't like it. It looks weird. I prefer a "you may" typically, though the "you may" is annoying online, where it has to ask you but you sure wanted to do the thing. Here as noted you might be able to say "to" instead. I guess the jury is still out on "to," is that really good enough for casual players.
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To have a symbol instead, you need to make them all work the same way (no Stonemason) and ideally with no parameter (always $1 per effect). It does save about two lines. It would be like:
Masterpiece: Treasure, $3
$1
----------
[symbol]: Gain a Silver.
Hmm, what about:
Masterpiece/Doctor/Herald: For each [symbol]: Do the thing
Stonemason: Gain 2 Action cards each costing $1 per [symbol]
Although now you can't get potion-cost cards with Stonemason.
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To have a symbol instead, you need to make them all work the same way (no Stonemason) and ideally with no parameter (always $1 per effect). It does save about two lines. It would be like:
Masterpiece: Treasure, $3
$1
----------
[symbol]: Gain a Silver.
Hmm, what about:
Masterpiece/Doctor/Herald: For each [symbol]: Do the thing
Stonemason: Gain 2 Action cards each costing $1 per [symbol]
Although now you can't get potion-cost cards with Stonemason.
Adding an "X" cost could work.
Masterpiece: Treasure - $3$X
When you buy this, gain a Silver per X spent.
Stonemason: Action - $2$X
When you buy this, gain two action cards, each costing $X.
The downside of this is that it necessitates the adding of another symbol next to the coin cost.
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The downside of this is that it necessitates the adding of another symbol next to the coin cost.
Like a plus?
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Adding an "X" cost could work.
Masterpiece: Treasure - $3$X
When you buy this, gain a Silver per X spent.
Stonemason: Action - $2$X
When you buy this, gain two action cards, each costing $X.
The downside of this is that it necessitates the adding of another symbol next to the coin cost.
How would you separate that on Masterpiece it means coin while on Stonemason it doesn't?
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Adding an "X" cost could work.
Masterpiece: Treasure - $3$X
When you buy this, gain a Silver per X spent.
Stonemason: Action - $2$X
When you buy this, gain two action cards, each costing $X.
The downside of this is that it necessitates the adding of another symbol next to the coin cost.
How would you separate that on Masterpiece it means coin while on Stonemason it doesn't?
Pretty sure this version of Stonemason just wouldn't be able to do Potion stuff, which would probably be just fine.
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I thought LostPhoenix was trying to solve the potion problem, but I guess he/she was just suggesting another notation.
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Also I'm pretty sure besides symbols introduced in the base set, the only symbols on cards refer to actual physical components.
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I thought LostPhoenix was trying to solve the potion problem, but I guess he/she was just suggesting another notation.
This is correct. I missed that last sentence from your post.
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Also I'm pretty sure besides symbols introduced in the base set, the only symbols on cards refer to actual physical components.
Like a plus?
(sorry)
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How did you decide which animals matched to which Ways actions?
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Is there any reason for the lack of Duration Treasures, or did attempts at it just not work out?
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Adding an "X" cost could work.
Masterpiece: Treasure - $3$X
When you buy this, gain a Silver per X spent.
Stonemason: Action - $2$X
When you buy this, gain two action cards, each costing $X.
The downside of this is that it necessitates the adding of another symbol next to the coin cost.
How would you separate that on Masterpiece it means coin while on Stonemason it doesn't?
Pretty sure this version of Stonemason just wouldn't be able to do Potion stuff, which would probably be just fine.
Since you already have to explain what is overpaying, maybe a keyword make sense (it doesn't look dominiony though):
Stonemason
Overpay X: gain 2 Action cards each costing X.
Masterpiece
Overpay $X: gain X Silvers.
Herald
Overpay $X: look through your discard pile and put X cards from it onto your deck.
Doctor
Overpay $X: Do X times: look at the top card of your deck; trash it, discard it, or put it back.
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How did you decide which animals matched to which Ways actions?
I thought and thought. More specifically:
Way of the Chameleon - an animal that suggests shapeshifting
Way of the Horse - it's Horse!
Way of the Mole - they dig
Way of the Ox - they get work done
Way of the Pig - Enchantress
Way of the Rat - they breed like rats
Way of the Sheep - just a random farm animal really; you do make money from your sheep
Way of the Turtle - they're slow
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Is there any reason for the lack of Duration Treasures, or did attempts at it just not work out?
By default they're trouble. The duration part has to be conditional on the card being in play, to avoid more problems ala Bonfire / Durations. It's doable, in the same way that Crown exists despite it seeming like there would never be an Action - Treasure (to be fair Crown does generate lots of questions). But, it would take something really compelling.
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Is there any reason for the lack of Duration Treasures, or did attempts at it just not work out?
By default they're trouble. The duration part has to be conditional on the card being in play, to avoid more problems ala Bonfire / Durations. It's doable, in the same way that Crown exists despite it seeming like there would never be an Action - Treasure (to be fair Crown does generate lots of questions). But, it would take something really compelling.
What makes Bonfire with treasure-duration different than Bonfire with action-duration? Or do you just mean that there are move ways to remove treasures from play than there are to remove actions from play?
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Is there any reason for the lack of Duration Treasures, or did attempts at it just not work out?
By default they're trouble. The duration part has to be conditional on the card being in play, to avoid more problems ala Bonfire / Durations. It's doable, in the same way that Crown exists despite it seeming like there would never be an Action - Treasure (to be fair Crown does generate lots of questions). But, it would take something really compelling.
What makes Bonfire with treasure-duration different than Bonfire with action-duration? Or do you just mean that there are move ways to remove treasures from play than there are to remove actions from play?
I think (and correct me if I am wrong) that nowadays the separating line between Treasures and Actions is becoming more and more thin, with a card like Villa, with Gamble, With Capitalism and so on. So what is the real reason to make Treasure-Duration? It needs to be something that is really unique, otherwise it as well just can be an action. You can play an action in buy phase, you can't do vice versa, so making action-duration covers more ground than treasure-duration.
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oh I mean of course you can play treasures in action phase, what am I saying
anyway
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Is there any reason for the lack of Duration Treasures, or did attempts at it just not work out?
By default they're trouble. The duration part has to be conditional on the card being in play, to avoid more problems ala Bonfire / Durations. It's doable, in the same way that Crown exists despite it seeming like there would never be an Action - Treasure (to be fair Crown does generate lots of questions). But, it would take something really compelling.
What makes Bonfire with treasure-duration different than Bonfire with action-duration? Or do you just mean that there are move ways to remove treasures from play than there are to remove actions from play?
Whether or not this is what Donald means, I think being able to remove treasures from play would be a big source of confusion. Bonfire is one of the only (maybe the only) ways to remove actions from play, and you almost never would want to actually do that anyways. For treasures, you might want to play Crypt, buy Mandarin, play Herbalist, etc...and some of those are things that you might actually want to do.
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i think my point is actually "why invent more combinations of types if there is already perfectly working action-duration combination"
sorry, feeling a bit sleepy here, maybe i said some nonsense :)
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What makes Bonfire with treasure-duration different than Bonfire with action-duration? Or do you just mean that there are move ways to remove treasures from play than there are to remove actions from play?
Yes there are more ways to get rid of treasures. Bonfire is bad, it should just let you trash Coppers. If there are no duration treasures then it can work out having e.g. Counterfeit.
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Bonfire is one of the only (maybe the only) ways to remove actions from play, and you almost never would want to actually do that anyways. For treasures, you might want to play Crypt, buy Mandarin, play Herbalist, etc...and some of those are things that you might actually want to do.
Don't forget mint! And procession also trashes actions from play, it just doesn't work on durations post-errata
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Since cards not in the supply in later expansions have non-zero costs, are there any plans to update or errata the earlier cards like Spoils, Mercenary, Madman, and the Prizes to also have costs reflecting their strengths?
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Since cards not in the supply in later expansions have non-zero costs, are there any plans to update or errata the earlier cards like Spoils, Mercenary, Madman, and the Prizes to also have costs reflecting their strengths?
No. My philosophy changed there, originally I thought "make them $0 so it's clear you must not be able to buy them," now I think "make them a cost that makes sense, so that they interact better with cards that care about costs." Except sometimes there might still be a reason for an exception, e.g. the Spirit Costs are all based on what Exorcist wants. But, that isn't a reason I errata cards.
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This is probably more of a Publisher than Designer question, but do you think they'll ever be a way to get physical copies of the 2nd edition changed cards and / or errata'd cards without having to buy complete sets?
I know the market for this isn't huge, but for those of us who own all Dominion and like playing in person, it would be great if there were a way to get, e.g.:
• Errata'd version of Band of Misfits, so we don't have to explain it every time to our groups (that are more casual players)
• +1 Coffers cards, instead of "Take a coin token", even when it makes no functional difference
• even trivial functional changes as Throne Room with "you may"
I wonder if something like a kickstarter could be a way to verify that there's enough actual demand for this before any printing needs to happen? (though we'll probably already get some idea on demand if anyone votes for this here)
The real challenge would be to figure out which cards to include as there are also lots of of cards that had cosmetic changes or non functional text changes. I would exclude those (except, as mentioned above, Coffers).
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originally I thought "make them $0 so it's clear you must not be able to buy them,"
Did you ever contemplate omitting the cost entirely on special cards like that?
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originally I thought "make them $0 so it's clear you must not be able to buy them,"
Did you ever contemplate omitting the cost entirely on special cards like that?
I think he's answered this before - you can't omit the cost, or cards like Swindler break when they hit them.
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If it had no cost, then there would be no cards in the supply with the same cost.
I'd rather get nothing than a Curse if my opponent Swindled a Prize!
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With the new global rule that Costs don't go below $0, will future cost reducers (and revisions of current cost reducers) drop the "but not less than $0" clause from their text?
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With the new global rule that Costs don't go below $0, will future cost reducers (and revisions of current cost reducers) drop the "but not less than $0" clause from their text?
I believe that was the point of making it a global rule
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With the new global rule that Costs don't go below $0, will future cost reducers (and revisions of current cost reducers) drop the "but not less than $0" clause from their text?
I believe that was the point of making it a global rule
Yeah, DXV said "New printings of the sets will have the new wordings" in the errata post, so I'm pretty sure that means new printings will leave that clause out
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With the new global rule that Costs don't go below $0, will future cost reducers (and revisions of current cost reducers) drop the "but not less than $0" clause from their text?
I believe that was the point of making it a global rule
Yeah, DXV said "New printings of the sets will have the new wordings" in the errata post, so I'm pretty sure that means new printings will leave that clause out
Yes, I was aware this was kind of a softball question. :)
I did read the "New printings of the sets will have the new wordings" to be more the errata'd cards, but rereading the post, I also just saw he said this: "Two minor rules clarify things a little and simplify texts a little..."
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With the new global rule that Costs don't go below $0, will future cost reducers (and revisions of current cost reducers) drop the "but not less than $0" clause from their text?
I believe that was the point of making it a global rule
Yeah, DXV said "New printings of the sets will have the new wordings" in the errata post, so I'm pretty sure that means new printings will leave that clause out
Also, I'm pretty sure there'll be at least one card in Menagerie where that new global rule will be relevant. We know there's two more cards that do something weird with cost, and the teaser has "$1 less per", so it's pretty likely that one of those cards will have a clause "This card costs $1 less per _______", and then no need for "but not less than $0"
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It's also two more things that will change. I wrote about the this in the presentation of the new rules document (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/131854/complete-rules-dominion-and-all-its-expansions).
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This is probably more of a Publisher than Designer question, but do you think they'll ever be a way to get physical copies of the 2nd edition changed cards and / or errata'd cards without having to buy complete sets?
I know the market for this isn't huge, but for those of us who own all Dominion and like playing in person, it would be great if there were a way to get, e.g.:
• Errata'd version of Band of Misfits, so we don't have to explain it every time to our groups (that are more casual players)
• +1 Coffers cards, instead of "Take a coin token", even when it makes no functional difference
• even trivial functional changes as Throne Room with "you may"
I wonder if something like a kickstarter could be a way to verify that there's enough actual demand for this before any printing needs to happen? (though we'll probably already get some idea on demand if anyone votes for this here)
The real challenge would be to figure out which cards to include as there are also lots of of cards that had cosmetic changes or non functional text changes. I would exclude those (except, as mentioned above, Coffers).
There's no plan for this so far; I don't imagine interest would be high enough.
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With the new global rule that Costs don't go below $0, will future cost reducers (and revisions of current cost reducers) drop the "but not less than $0" clause from their text?
Yes.
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Unrelated question, but did you have a reason for making the attacks on Sir Michael separate, wording-wise? I feel like it would've been simpler to say 'each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand, reveals the top 2 cards of their deck, trashes one costing from $3 to $6 and discards the rest. If a knight is trashed by this, trash this'.
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Why does the Nocturne icon have color, while the rest are just black?
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Why does the Nocturne icon have color, while the rest are just black?
I assume because if the Nocturne icon were black you wouldn't be able to see it on Night cards.
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Unrelated question, but did you have a reason for making the attacks on Sir Michael separate, wording-wise? I feel like it would've been simpler to say 'each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand, reveals the top 2 cards of their deck, trashes one costing from $3 to $6 and discards the rest. If a knight is trashed by this, trash this'.
Just keeping the Knight part the same.
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Why does the Nocturne icon have color, while the rest are just black?
To look good on Night cards.
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are you social-distancing quarantining? what are you doing during that?
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are you social-distancing quarantining? what are you doing during that?
Yes. It's not super different than normal; no walks, no restaurants. No playtesting; more time spent playing computer games.
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Minor quibble, is there any reason for the lack of orange colouring on the top of the body section of Duration-Reaction cards? As in, the part next to the picture should be orange, but it's white instead. When I saw it on Caravan Guard I thought it was a minor mistake, but seeing it again on Village Green makes me wonder. Sorry for the paragraph, but was this indeed intentional?
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If Horses had come first would Experiment still be a card?
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Minor quibble, is there any reason for the lack of orange colouring on the top of the body section of Duration-Reaction cards? As in, the part next to the picture should be orange, but it's white instead. When I saw it on Caravan Guard I thought it was a minor mistake, but seeing it again on Village Green makes me wonder. Sorry for the paragraph, but was this indeed intentional?
That would be, a mistake on Caravan Guard, copied here and not caught.
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If Horses had come first would Experiment still be a card?
If the card had existed, of course it would have been the Horse version instead of also having a pile of Horses called Experiments. Whether or not the card would have existed is too hard to say; in Menagerie you can do it as an Event, which is different some ways but the reduced number of cards required would beat out any other preferences there.
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This is probably more of a Publisher than Designer question, but do you think they'll ever be a way to get physical copies of the 2nd edition changed cards and / or errata'd cards without having to buy complete sets?
There's no plan for this so far; I don't imagine interest would be high enough.
Two possibilities occur to me, though maybe printing issues would rule them out:- Make the relevant individual cards available through BoardGameGeek, just like promos. Start by trying just one card (e.g. Band of Misfits) and if that proved there was sufficient demand, gradually work through the others, doing the ones with the most significant changes first.
- Make all individual cards available postally from RGG. That would also be a boon for anyone who has been cursed by damaging a few cards in a set, e.g. by spilling a drink over them, and wishes to replace them because currently they don't have a ghost of a chance of not recognising the damaged cards when shuffling their dec k.
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This is probably more of a Publisher than Designer question, but do you think they'll ever be a way to get physical copies of the 2nd edition changed cards and / or errata'd cards without having to buy complete sets?
There's no plan for this so far; I don't imagine interest would be high enough.
Two possibilities occur to me, though maybe printing issues would rule them out:- Make the relevant individual cards available through BoardGameGeek, just like promos. Start by trying just one card (e.g. Band of Misfits) and if that proved there was sufficient demand, gradually work through the others, doing the ones with the most significant changes first.
- Make all individual cards available postally from RGG. That would also be a boon for anyone who has been cursed by damaging a few cards in a set, e.g. by spilling a drink over them, and wishes to replace them because currently they don't have a ghost of a chance of not recognising the damaged cards when shuffling their dec k.
Well the issue I'd have with this is, say there are 20 cards with significant enough changes that I'd like to have them. (and I haven't counted yet to know exactly how many there are, but this should help illustrate my thoughts). I'd probably be willing to pay somewhere in the $20-$30 range for these 220 cards. But $100 (as. $5 promo each) suddenly makes me less interested. So there'd have to be a way to bulk choose for a discount.
That's why my idea was a kickstarter. If it was known there was interest (and payment) upfront, it would be worth printing. And of there wasn't, you've learned that with less time / money spent.
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Is there any possibility for a Dominion Legacy game?
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What was the reason for making it so that cards Exiled from the Supply aren't considered "gained"? While you were developing Menagerie, was there a point where they were treated as gained?
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Make the relevant individual cards available through BoardGameGeek, just like promos. Start by trying just one card (e.g. Band of Misfits) and if that proved there was sufficient demand, gradually work through the others, doing the ones with the most significant changes first.
The promos are given to BGG, to support BGG; RGG just loses money on them. So, what you're saying is, instead of selling these cards, we could give them away. That's certainly technically accurate, it's another option we have not chosen.
Make all individual cards available postally from RGG. That would also be a boon for anyone who has been cursed by damaging a few cards in a set, e.g. by spilling a drink over them, and wishes to replace them because currently they don't have a ghost of a chance of not recognising the damaged cards when shuffling their deck.
This also incurs real costs.
Another thing we could do is, we could never change wordings on cards, just live with all mistakes, because there were people out there who wanted to be the reason we can't have nice things. We decided against that, we fixed some wordings and are not providing them separately. Take that, those people.
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Is there any possibility for a Dominion Legacy game?
The Legacy premise was a good idea - bringing the permanence of RPG's to board games - but it's not a good fit for really anything I ever do. My games go hard for variety. That's part of what you get from a Legacy game. The permanence angle doesn't really give me anything extra, and if you really want that there are existing Legacy games to get it from.
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What was the reason for making it so that cards Exiled from the Supply aren't considered "gained"? While you were developing Menagerie, was there a point where they were treated as gained?
They were never gained (in Menagerie or Renaissance). It's not gaining so I didn't make it gaining. I don't want something to "count as" something else if I can avoid it. The cards could have said "gain it and exile it" but then a lot of effects can squeeze in there and make off with the card. So they don't.
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Is there any possibility for a Dominion Legacy game?
The Legacy premise was a good idea - bringing the permanence of RPG's to board games - but it's not a good fit for really anything I ever do. My games go hard for variety. That's part of what you get from a Legacy game. The permanence angle doesn't really give me anything extra, and if you really want that there are existing Legacy games to get it from.
You ever consider writing a dominion campaign?
in example, no permanent changes to cards (no ripping up/stickers) but some of the deck carries over from game-to-game, winners start with Confusions instead of estates or something, there's maybe limited trashing one round, maybe another round focuses on a specific mechanic, the trash pile maybe keeps the same cards between games and later there's like a lurker or grave digger or something, and then whoever has the most points at the end of the campaign wins?
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I noticed that Gatekeeper has its types listed as Action - Duration - Attack, even though all the other Duration Attacks have Attack come first. Was this a mistake?
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You ever consider writing a dominion campaign?
in example, no permanent changes to cards (no ripping up/stickers) but some of the deck carries over from game-to-game, winners start with Confusions instead of estates or something, there's maybe limited trashing one round, maybe another round focuses on a specific mechanic, the trash pile maybe keeps the same cards between games and later there's like a lurker or grave digger or something, and then whoever has the most points at the end of the campaign wins?
There were campaigns in the Goko / Making Fun version. I put a bunch of work into picking out sets of 10 cards and adding special tweaks for some rounds, not knowing in advance that the Goko versions would give the computer a huge edge to try to sell Zaps. There was eventually a version without that nonsense though. Anyway those campaigns didn't carry anything over. They just had sets of 10 cards and some unique set-ups or special rules. For example one game your deck started as 10 Feasts; for one set of 20 levels, your hand size was 6 instead of 5.
I haven't considered something like that where you keep stuff from game-to-game. It's a much bigger leap; the game isn't set up for it.
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I noticed that Gatekeeper has its types listed as Action - Duration - Attack, even though all the other Duration Attacks have Attack come first. Was this a mistake?
I think you mean Raider; Raider has Duration in front of Attacks, all other Duration Attacks have Attack first. Well I have news for you. There's a new set, and a card in it called Gatekeeper also does that.
It's just me thinking, what order should these be in, oh Duration should be ahead of Attack, and doing that. If I remember I'll change it in Adventures when the time comes.
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You once said:
Today I would have you do the effect without Estate changing, e.g. you can discard Estate to play the set-aside card, leaving it there, and it's limited to non-durations (like Necromancer). That gives you "my Estates do this thing" but cuts out things like "they are Actions for Herald." And the Estates are always just Estates so so much for that.
When you made the Inheritance errata later, I think you explained why it still allows you to do Duration cards, because there was too much backlash against removing the ability to Inherit Durations.
But you also kept the way Estates become actions that can be played; instead of what you suggested before about having you discard the Estate to play the set-aside card. Did you try to make that version work? Clearly you can't just simply discard it, as that would lead to recycling the same Estate multiple/infinite times throughout a turn; but did you try other errata to avoid actually giving Estate the action type?
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Why did you decide to make Horses cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png) instead of costing (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/5/5d/Coin0.png/16px-Coin0.png) like most non-supply cards?
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Why did you decide to make Horses cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png) instead of costing (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/5/5d/Coin0.png/16px-Coin0.png) like most non-supply cards?
My philosophy changed there, originally I thought "make them $0 so it's clear you must not be able to buy them," now I think "make them a cost that makes sense, so that they interact better with cards that care about costs." Except sometimes there might still be a reason for an exception, e.g. the Spirit Costs are all based on what Exorcist wants.
And then Experiment (which plays a lot like Horse) costs $3, so that's the cost that makes the most sense.
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You once said:
Today I would have you do the effect without Estate changing, e.g. you can discard Estate to play the set-aside card, leaving it there, and it's limited to non-durations (like Necromancer). That gives you "my Estates do this thing" but cuts out things like "they are Actions for Herald." And the Estates are always just Estates so so much for that.
When you made the Inheritance errata later, I think you explained why it still allows you to do Duration cards, because there was too much backlash against removing the ability to Inherit Durations.
But you also kept the way Estates become actions that can be played; instead of what you suggested before about having you discard the Estate to play the set-aside card. Did you try to make that version work? Clearly you can't just simply discard it, as that would lead to recycling the same Estate multiple/infinite times throughout a turn; but did you try other errata to avoid actually giving Estate the action type?
A big thing about Inheriting Durations was that Adventures itself has so many Reserve cards and Durations in the "up to $4" range. IRL sometimes someone doesn't have very many expansions; sometimes they buy a set and play with just that set for a bit. Inheritance was going to be really sad in those contexts, if it didn't work with Durations.
A lot of discussion went into the errata for Inheritance, and I printed and tested multiple versions. I put in the hours, now I am resting. It's work just looking through the archives at every suggestion and wording. I don't think we tried "discard an Estate"; we did try stuff that didn't make Estates into Actions.
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Why did you decide to make Horses cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png) instead of costing (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/5/5d/Coin0.png/16px-Coin0.png) like most non-supply cards?
My philosophy changed there, originally I thought "make them $0 so it's clear you must not be able to buy them," now I think "make them a cost that makes sense, so that they interact better with cards that care about costs." Except sometimes there might still be a reason for an exception, e.g. the Spirit Costs are all based on what Exorcist wants.
And then Experiment (which plays a lot like Horse) costs $3, so that's the cost that makes the most sense.
We tried Horse at $2 also, but I liked $3 for making TFB more relevant there.
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Any reason Reap says to play the Gold at the start of your next turn, instead of just putting it into your hand? The two are mildly different, but it doesn't feel like there's a good reason for this to play Treasures in your action phase, compared to cards like Storyteller and Black Market.
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Any reason Reap says to play the Gold at the start of your next turn, instead of just putting it into your hand? The two are mildly different, but it doesn't feel like there's a good reason for this to play Treasures in your action phase, compared to cards like Storyteller and Black Market.
I considered it both ways. To-play was just trying to be a tiny bit more novel.
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Any reason Reap says to play the Gold at the start of your next turn, instead of just putting it into your hand? The two are mildly different, but it doesn't feel like there's a good reason for this to play Treasures in your action phase, compared to cards like Storyteller and Black Market.
I considered it both ways. To-play was just trying to be a tiny bit more novel.
I mean, there are differences of course. The current way means you can't use this to get Apprentice fodder at the start of each turn, amongst other things.
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Are there any ideas you have been keen to playtest which require set exclusive mechanics from more than one set (eg a Project that gains Horses)?
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Are there any ideas you have been keen to playtest which require set exclusive mechanics from more than one set (eg a Project that gains Horses)?
Not really. People are always somehow excited by these things, but for me they're never anything. I don't think about them; I don't feel like I'm missing out. If the mechanics are ever in the same set it will be a thing I can consider then.
The closest to this situation I can think of is, Boons were originally in Empires, where one of the Boons was +1 VP. In Nocturne I had to replace that one (think of it as the Wisp replacing it, since Empires didn't have those). But if Boons had originally been in Nocturne, I wouldn't have been all, oh man if only I could have +1 VP on one of them. And it was fine that I couldn't have one give you a Spoils or whatever.
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Very interesting.
When doing a new expansion, when do you decide what mechanics from prior sets are on or off the table? (Eg Events returning in Empires and Menagerie, but not Nocturne and Renaissance)
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When doing a new expansion, when do you decide what mechanics from prior sets are on or off the table? (Eg Events returning in Empires and Menagerie, but not Nocturne and Renaissance)
The intention is to decide on mechanics first; sometimes the mechanics change while working on the set (e.g. dropping Boons from Empires).
For Empires I thought, Events went great, maybe I always do them. It was hard enough to find good ones that I then thought, let's wait on revisiting those for a while. A big thing being, that they can work with the other set mechanics, and want ones that are good for that. Renaissance had Projects, it wasn't looking for more sideways cards. And then for Menagerie I was planning on Events from early on but it took me a while to actually make some.
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The closest to this situation I can think of is, Boons were originally in Empires, where one of the Boons was +1 VP. In Nocturne I had to replace that one (think of it as the Wisp replacing it, since Empires didn't have those). But if Boons had originally been in Nocturne, I wouldn't have been all, oh man if only I could have +1 VP on one of them. And it was fine that I couldn't have one give you a Spoils or whatever.
And as you (NoMoreFun) may already know, Wedding was originally: "Gain a Gold. Receive a Boon." Which to be fair, was way cooler. Of course at that time, Boons were all trying to be useful during the part of your Buy phase when you bought cards. I'm not sure it would be so hot with the printed set of Boons.
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And as you (NoMoreFun) may already know, Wedding was originally: "Gain a Gold. Receive a Boon." Which to be fair, was way cooler. Of course at that time, Boons were all trying to be useful during the part of your Buy phase when you bought cards. I'm not sure it would be so hot with the printed set of Boons.
And I think it was a mistake to do Idol, since people don't like that some Boons will be less good or even bad then.
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As you would know, several mechanics from Renaissance were touched on in earlier sets, ie Coin of The Realm predicted Villagers, Inheritance kinda predicted Projects, and Lost in the Woods predicted Artifacts. Did you have an intention to explore these mechanics further from the start? Or did you start making Renaissance and decide to revisit them then? Or even, was this completely unrelated?
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As you would know, several mechanics from Renaissance were touched on in earlier sets, ie Coin of The Realm predicted Villagers, Inheritance kinda predicted Projects, and Lost in the Woods predicted Artifacts. Did you have an intention to explore these mechanics further from the start? Or did you start making Renaissance and decide to revisit them then? Or even, was this completely unrelated?
No, the original cards were just whatever idea. Villagers came from 2-sided States, not from Coin of the Realm; some Adventures Events are like Projects, but Projects also came from 2-sided States. Artifacts did come from Lost in the Woods though; States appeared in Nocturne to deal with tracking on some Hexes, and then, surely I could do something with those.
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Experiment clearly followed the theme of Laboratory; making “+2 cards +1 action” cards have a common theme; like how Villages and Trashing cards have a common theme. But now both Horse and Destrier have the same effect with a new theme. Did you consider this connection; and decide it was more important to fit with Menagerie’s theme than it was to fit with the pre-existing theme?
Or course, Stables and Trusty Steed both fit within that same mechanic; while sharing the horse theme. Did that play into it?
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Experiment clearly followed the theme of Laboratory; making “+2 cards +1 action” cards have a common theme; like how Villages and Trashing cards have a common theme. But now both Horse and Destrier have the same effect with a new theme. Did you consider this connection; and decide it was more important to fit with Menagerie’s theme than it was to fit with the pre-existing theme?
Or course, Stables and Trusty Steed both fit within that same mechanic; while sharing the horse theme. Did that play into it?
They were called Horses before the set had a theme. I didn't have to put a lot of thought into that and have no story of what went through my head. They're transportation and get you through your deck; probably something like that. I could have renamed them to fit a different theme; I considered trying to do Vikings, and they would have been boats or something. What happened though is that I picked animals as the theme and kept them Horses.
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Any reason Reap says to play the Gold at the start of your next turn, instead of just putting it into your hand? The two are mildly different, but it doesn't feel like there's a good reason for this to play Treasures in your action phase, compared to cards like Storyteller and Black Market.
Gold in the hand is sometimes better (you can remodel it to a Province or crown it), but sometimes worse, e. g. in combination with Minion or Library.
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Was Destrier originally "+1 Action, Gain a Horse to your hand"?
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Was Destrier originally "+1 Action, Gain a Horse to your hand"?
Nope.
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I liked how you made the secret history of Sheepdog a shaggy dog story
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story
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Did playing Reactions (Sheepdog/Falconer/Black Cat/Village Green/Caravan Guard) using Way of the Mouse come up during playtesting? If so, was this something you considered as potentially creating weird or confusing interactions? Or did you mostly see it as a good and fun feature of the card?
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Did playing Reactions (Sheepdog/Falconer/Black Cat/Village Green/Caravan Guard) using Way of the Mouse come up during playtesting? If so, was this something you considered as potentially creating weird or confusing interactions? Or did you mostly see it as a good and fun feature of the card?
It did come up. It's potentially confusing; weighing that against the joy of Mouse, Mouse got to exist anyway.
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Did playing Reactions (Sheepdog/Falconer/Black Cat/Village Green/Caravan Guard) using Way of the Mouse come up during playtesting? If so, was this something you considered as potentially creating weird or confusing interactions? Or did you mostly see it as a good and fun feature of the card?
It did come up. It's potentially confusing; weighing that against the joy of Mouse, Mouse got to exist anyway.
I was thinking more about weighing Mouse that only works during your turns against Mouse that works always. Was that considered? Was it a cool feature that it could be played during other players' turns, that you didn't want to lose?
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And as you (NoMoreFun) may already know, Wedding was originally: "Gain a Gold. Receive a Boon." Which to be fair, was way cooler. Of course at that time, Boons were all trying to be useful during the part of your Buy phase when you bought cards. I'm not sure it would be so hot with the printed set of Boons.
And I think it was a mistake to do Idol, since people don't like that some Boons will be less good or even bad then.
Did you ever consider doing what you did with Blessed Village's on-gain Boons with Idol? I.e., give players the option of receiving the Boon at the start of their next turn?
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I was thinking more about weighing Mouse that only works during your turns against Mouse that works always. Was that considered? Was it a cool feature that it could be played during other players' turns, that you didn't want to lose?
I didn't consider it, but the card already drops the word "card" in order to fit the text. It sure wasn't getting another clause. It's not a great clause either. It makes it different from other Ways in a way that makes no sense at first; it's more complex all the time in exchange for simplifying some specific cases. What you could do is limit all Ways to your turn. Again I am thinking, extra rules for not much gain.
It wasn't a cool feature; it was just how it goes.
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Did you ever consider doing what you did with Blessed Village's on-gain Boons with Idol? I.e., give players the option of receiving the Boon at the start of their next turn?
What I should have done with Idol is not have it give Boons. The basic premise of the card would have still been doable.
I am not a fan of adding more words to Idol to deal with how you'd rather save some Boons for later. We may have considered that. We considered stuff; it was clear that some Boons were not great with Idol. One direction is tweaking the Boons, but the Boons could only do so much to deal with this.
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The Basic premise being that it's a junker that only works if you have more than 1 per turn?
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The Basic premise being that it's a junker that only works if you have more than 1 per turn?
The premise being, the card alternates what it does, though it's fine that one of those things is Cursing.
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Did you ever consider doing some snowy-mana stuff like in magic? I wonder if this could work out, having cards that can do more if you can reveal another snow covered-card or whatever type. That could be other kingdom-cards of that type or even the first couple victory cards from the supply marked as those or simply copies of itself.
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Treasure Map?
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Did you ever consider doing some snowy-mana stuff like in magic? I wonder if this could work out, having cards that can do more if you can reveal another snow covered-card or whatever type. That could be other kingdom-cards of that type or even the first couple victory cards from the supply marked as those or simply copies of itself.
To some degree Potion is in this category.
In Magic you pick what cards to play with from a huge selection. In Dominion your selection is small (each game). So caring about a category is tricky, unless that category is always present. You either put a bunch of non-supply stuff on the table, or it ends up being, there's only one snow card this game.
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Did you ever consider doing some snowy-mana stuff like in magic? I wonder if this could work out, having cards that can do more if you can reveal another snow covered-card or whatever type. That could be other kingdom-cards of that type or even the first couple victory cards from the supply marked as those or simply copies of itself.
To some degree Potion is in this category.
In Magic you pick what cards to play with from a huge selection. In Dominion your selection is small (each game). So caring about a category is tricky, unless that category is always present. You either put a bunch of non-supply stuff on the table, or it ends up being, there's only one snow card this game.
All right! I just wondered about possible snow cards, like;
Snoworkshop
Gain a card costing up to 4$.
reveal a snow from your hand; +1 Action
4$ Action - Snow
this is somehow specific, but an example that would work by itself..
Never the less, had you ever some thoughts about modifying the base card supplies? Not talking about tokens but cards!
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Did you ever consider doing some snowy-mana stuff like in magic? I wonder if this could work out, having cards that can do more if you can reveal another snow covered-card or whatever type. That could be other kingdom-cards of that type or even the first couple victory cards from the supply marked as those or simply copies of itself.
To some degree Potion is in this category.
In Magic you pick what cards to play with from a huge selection. In Dominion your selection is small (each game). So caring about a category is tricky, unless that category is always present. You either put a bunch of non-supply stuff on the table, or it ends up being, there's only one snow card this game.
All right! I just wondered about possible snow cards, like;
Snoworkshop
Gain a card costing up to 4$.
reveal a snow from your hand; +1 Action
4$ Action - Snow
this is somehow specific, but an example that would work by itself..
Never the less, had you ever some thoughts about modifying the base card supplies? Not talking about tokens but cards!
I don't know if you've played with the promo Sauna/Avanto or the Empires expansion, but all of the split piles synergize in some way with other cards from the same pile: http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Split_pile
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Gain a card costing up to 4$.
reveal a snow from your hand; +1 Action
This could be an Heirloom too, depending on how easy you want it to be to set up. Or five different cards could have the same heirloom. Or you could somehow put your token on a Victory pile, and the benefit scales with the cost somehow. Or whatever. Lots of expansions you could look through by now.
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All right! I just wondered about possible snow cards, like;
Please confine homemade cards to the variants forum! And I don't go there and won't see them.
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This might be a dumb question, but why do kingdom treasures with on play effects say "When you play this" i.e. Venture?
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This might be a dumb question, but why do kingdom treasures with on play effects say "When you play this" i.e. Venture?
I wish they didn't. At the time - Prosperity - it felt like, people would need this clarified. I still may possibly drop that someday.
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This might be a dumb question, but why do kingdom treasures with on play effects say "When you play this" i.e. Venture?
I wish they didn't. At the time - Prosperity - it felt like, people would need this clarified. I still may possibly drop that someday.
Is there a reason you didn't change it with the second editions?
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Is there a reason you didn't change it with the second editions?
I wish I had! There's no more story here.
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Why is there no victory card in the last extentions? I liked them! ^^
Maybe the next promo ? :)
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Why is there no victory card in the last extentions? I liked them! ^^
Maybe the next promo ? :)
Here's DonaldX's thoughts (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8559.0) on the subject of kingdom victory cards.
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Note that some of those ideas have already been done with landmarks. They "change your mission statement" in some way. Wall inverts gardens, for example, which is one of the ideas mentioned in that essay.
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It's interesting. Thank you :)
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Why is there no victory card in the last extentions? I liked them! ^^
Maybe the next promo ? :)
And why did the last set have no reaction cards? Wait, nm, it had five. If you see what I mean.
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Why is there no victory card in the last extentions? I liked them! ^^
Maybe the next promo ? :)
And why did the last set have no reaction cards? Wait, nm, it had five. If you see what I mean.
Oh. I see what you mean. ;)
Hey everyone, the next expansion is gonna have five victory cards!
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Thank you for the amazing game DonaldX!
In the secret history for Raider it says that late in the process the cost was raised from 5 to 6. Why was the card nerfed like this when it already would not have been a power 5 cost (or so it seems)? Do you have any retrospective thoughts on the design of this card?
Thanks!!!
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Why did you change Raider from a cost of $5 to $6, and also change "4 or more cards" to "5 or more cards?" (From Nocturne's secret history) Was it just too good?
Letting it work twice is just too oppressive. It couldn't have been "4 or more" for more than one evening.
It was $5 until late in the going. We had some bad recommended set games where someone got it on a 5/2, and then we played some more games that intentionally had a 5/2 Raider, and then I upped it to $6. When you get it turn one, the Cutpurse effect - all it does for you then - keeps other players from $5. And they can't buy the Cutpurse to do that right back to you - the Cutpurse costs $5. It stood out as a thing that made players have no fun. I could have tried to make a weaker cheaper version, so we could all buy it, or just up it to $6, and well time was short and $6 seemed fine.
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Hey Donald, any thoughts on the new Magic set (Ikoria)? The ability counters in it reminded me a lot of Adventures and I'm surprised they hadn't been done before.
Are there any mechanics from Dominion you'd be interested to see adapted to Magic? (My first thought is Hexes)
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Hey Donald, any thoughts on the new Magic set (Ikoria)? The ability counters in it reminded me a lot of Adventures and I'm surprised they hadn't been done before.
It was more fun than usual to read the spoilers for it. I've fake-drafted it a few times (https://draft.cardsphere.com/) and well you can't see e.g. how the mutate stuff really plays out there, who knows. So it's not extra-impressive there.
Fallen Empires went nuts with counters and the Duelist included sheets of them for people to use. Fallen Empires was massively overprinted and people did not respond well to the counters. A few years later they decided, okay, the only counter they'd do was +1/+1 (and named counters that the card gives meaning to e.g. "charge counter"). And it's stayed like that for lo these many years.
The ability counters seem neat, they create all these simple novel cards, and of course online you're in fine shape. For play irl, we'll see how they go.
Are there any mechanics from Dominion you'd be interested to see adapted to Magic? (My first thought is Hexes)
I've done a few things ahead of them; dunno if they got them from me or independently. There's no specific reason to think they got anything from me, but it's also not impossible.
It's not something I've thought about, or would have; what I get out of Magic these days is reading spoilers and fake-drafting, and well seeing a Dominion mechanic there isn't going to do anything for me.
Magic just has way more you can do, and is mostly pretty different. There's some overlap in card-drawing, though that also is pretty different. I'm looking through the Dominion sets; I guess the stand-out for things they haven't done that would work well in Magic, is debt.
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Magic has limited debt in the form of the Pact cards. But yeah, no reason they couldn’t have a keyword that just means “you can’t cast spells until you pay {cost}.”
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Thanks for the answers, I guess all we'll be able to do for a while is play online anyway (though I did just get Dark Ages delivered, pretty much just to look at). I'm enjoying fakedrafting Magic now, so thanks for that. Also, I just realised Energizer is a counters card!
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What's the main reason you opted for players not to be able to look through their discard pile (unless a card tells you that you can)?
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What's the main reason you opted for players not to be able to look through their discard pile (unless a card tells you that you can)?
So that they wouldn't slow down the game by pawing through it constantly.
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I have a house rule that it's fine to look through your discard pile as long as you're not being annoying about it (no one I play with is that serious, so it's not a problem). But I've seen some dominion championship matches online where the player spends a minute or so looking through the game log to deduce what's left in his deck, so it seems like the rule kind of backfires in that case.
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But I've seen some dominion championship matches online where the player spends a minute or so looking through the game log to deduce what's left in his deck, so it seems like the rule kind of backfires in that case.
The rules are written for IRL play, where there is no log to look through either.
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But I've seen some dominion championship matches online where the player spends a minute or so looking through the game log to deduce what's left in his deck, so it seems like the rule kind of backfires in that case.
The rules are written for IRL play, where there is no log to look through either.
Yes, the fact that current online Dominion allows you to see all previous information really bugs me. I think Iso had a great solution of only showing the past 2 turns.
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Yes, the fact that current online Dominion allows you to see all previous information really bugs me. I think Iso had a great solution of only showing the past 2 turns.
I agree.
And i don't like seeing victory points during the game. We lose a lot of strategy at the end of the game...
Viewing victory points should not be automatically checked in lobby.
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Yes, the fact that current online Dominion allows you to see all previous information really bugs me. I think Iso had a great solution of only showing the past 2 turns.
I agree.
And i don't like seeing victory points during the game. We lose a lot of strategy at the end of the game...
Viewing victory points should not be automatically checked in lobby.
Being able to remember victory points is not strategy.
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Yes, the fact that current online Dominion allows you to see all previous information really bugs me. I think Iso had a great solution of only showing the past 2 turns.
I agree.
And i don't like seeing victory points during the game. We lose a lot of strategy at the end of the game...
Viewing victory points should not be automatically checked in lobby.
Being able to remember victory points is not strategy.
There are various valid uses of the term "strategy" as it pertains to playing board games. In this case, it is being used as "something you should learn to do to be better at the game", and with that understanding, tracking victory points (and deck contents in general; including what has been played this shuffle or not, etc); is a part of Dominion strategy.
If you are thinking of "strategy" more specifically as "what sort of deck is the best one to try and build given the current Kingdom" then no, memorization wouldn't be that. But I think it's clear from the post that Vengil meant it the first way.
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Yes ! :)
And somes games are won or lost because of this! (mistake in deck contents or in victory points).
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Yes, the fact that current online Dominion allows you to see all previous information really bugs me. I think Iso had a great solution of only showing the past 2 turns.
I agree.
And i don't like seeing victory points during the game. We lose a lot of strategy at the end of the game...
Viewing victory points should not be automatically checked in lobby.
I'm surprised that victory points are visible at all given Donald's stance on the matter of tracking them IRL.
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Yes, the fact that current online Dominion allows you to see all previous information really bugs me. I think Iso had a great solution of only showing the past 2 turns.
I agree.
And i don't like seeing victory points during the game. We lose a lot of strategy at the end of the game...
Viewing victory points should not be automatically checked in lobby.
Being able to remember victory points is not strategy.
Those are the words of someone who can’t track.
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Yes, the fact that current online Dominion allows you to see all previous information really bugs me. I think Iso had a great solution of only showing the past 2 turns.
I agree.
And i don't like seeing victory points during the game. We lose a lot of strategy at the end of the game...
Viewing victory points should not be automatically checked in lobby.
I'm surprised that victory points are visible at all given Donald's stance on the matter of tracking them IRL.
It's likely a result of the fact that it’s near impossible to stop people from tracking such things on their own with online play. The easiest way to prevent such cheating is to use a variant where doing so isn’t cheating.
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I remember this discussion about VP trackers from, I think, 2011 or 2012. Or something like that. Some things never change...
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Yes, the fact that current online Dominion allows you to see all previous information really bugs me. I think Iso had a great solution of only showing the past 2 turns.
Yes that was ideal.
I'm surprised that victory points are visible at all given Donald's stance on the matter of tracking them IRL.
It's something a lot of people wanted. IRL, it's extremely easy to track them (for most games).
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is there a "standard type order" for cards? or is it kinda whichever parts are more important are listed first?
I'm just thinking specifically Enchantress and Gatekeeper have the same set of types but are in different order.
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is there a "standard type order" for cards? or is it kinda whichever parts are more important are listed first?
I'm just thinking specifically Enchantress and Gatekeeper have the same set of types but are in different order.
Is there a specific reason or formula for the order types are written on cards?
The vague idea is to put the ones that determine when you can play the card first, and after that have the ones that don't mean as much. I may have been inconsistent somewhere.
I noticed that Gatekeeper has its types listed as Action - Duration - Attack, even though all the other Duration Attacks have Attack come first. Was this a mistake?
I think you mean Raider; Raider has Duration in front of Attacks, all other Duration Attacks have Attack first. Well I have news for you. There's a new set, and a card in it called Gatekeeper also does that.
It's just me thinking, what order should these be in, oh Duration should be ahead of Attack, and doing that. If I remember I'll change it in Adventures when the time comes.
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ah, late to the party as usual
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Is there a reason why Market Square says 'when one of your cards is trashed' instead of just 'when you trash a card'? Was it specifically to avoid interactions with Lurker and Gladiator?
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Bandit, Warrior et al.
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Is there a reason why Market Square says 'when one of your cards is trashed' instead of just 'when you trash a card'? Was it specifically to avoid interactions with Lurker and Gladiator?
It's just trying to be clear. If e.g. I play Knight and it hits your Gold, technically you trash the Gold, not me. But, having Market Square say this is still clearer for some people.
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Is there a reason why Market Square says 'when one of your cards is trashed' instead of just 'when you trash a card'? Was it specifically to avoid interactions with Lurker and Gladiator?
Why would a Dark Ages card be worded a certain way to avoid interactions with cards that didn't exist at the time?
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Is there a reason why Market Square says 'when one of your cards is trashed' instead of just 'when you trash a card'? Was it specifically to avoid interactions with Lurker and Gladiator?
Why would a Dark Ages card be worded a certain way to avoid interactions with cards that didn't exist at the time?
Ah, true. Didn't think about that.
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Why would a Dark Ages card be worded a certain way to avoid interactions with cards that didn't exist at the time?
Those cards did not exist, but the concept of "trash from the supply" did. There are early cards with wordings that anticipate things from later sets, or things that died and then were tried again with the post-Guilds sets.
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For future printings, would you consider unifying the Tavern Mat, Exile Mat, and Island Mat?
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For future printings, would you consider unifying the Tavern Mat, Exile Mat, and Island Mat?
in another post, I suggested a play mat like this : https://i.ibb.co/QfK7rdt/k3G9dYj.jpg
We could simply modify it (so that it works with all combinations). An area for:
- Deck / discard
- Play area
- Coffers
- Villagers
- Debts
- Victory points
- Only one or two area for all Side cards (durations + exile + tavern + islands + native village + Miser + States + Artifacts + other cards)
Maybe as a promo (to pay) on BoardGameGeek? ;D
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For future printings, would you consider unifying the Tavern Mat, Exile Mat, and Island Mat?
The Tavern mat is different from the Exile mat, they do not want to be combined. If I were making the game from scratch they might be turned into one thing, but I'm not. The Island mat sure doesn't need to be a separate thing, but the way to get rid of that mat is to stop printing Island.
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Or just tell people to set the cards aside? We never bother with the Island mats anyway.
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Island could use the Tavern Mat with very little change in functionality (you're never Islanding away Reserve cards in any normal situation).
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The prototype used the Island itself as a "mat", if memory serves.
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We just make a stack of all the Islanded cards with an Island on top.
If Island used the Tavern Mat, I think Miser would be the most significant interaction?
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Is there wording on current cards that are specifically anticipating future cards?
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Is it possible to have someday a cost reducer for events or it’s just too strong?
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Is it possible to have someday a cost reducer for events or it’s just too strong?
It's probably terribroken: worthless if there are no Events, and potentially ridiculously strong if there are.
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Is it possible to have someday a cost reducer for events or it’s just too strong?
What about having an event that reduces the cost of other events?
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Is it possible to have someday a cost reducer for events or it’s just too strong?
It's probably terribroken: worthless if there are no Events, and potentially ridiculously strong if there are.
About being worthless, it could be not only about events. I also think it would be probably too strong, but my friends came with this discussion and I want to know if it is really an entirely unavoidable issue.
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Is there wording on current cards that are specifically anticipating future cards?
There stopped being planned future cards as of Dark Ages / Guilds.
At the same time, hypothetical things I might do, that would want wordings to already be nice for them, have mostly happened already in sets, so they're not future things.
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Is it possible to have someday a cost reducer for events or it’s just too strong?
Events assume that that cost reducer won't ever exist. I don't know how bad it would actually be; it's not something I have to figure out, as long as the plan is to not do it. There is not much of a pull towards doing it at this point.
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Is it possible to have someday a cost reducer for events or it’s just too strong?
Assuming it stacks like any other cost reduction, it would be broken with a few of the events that you can buy repeatedly--Gamble, Delve, and Travelling Fair could be very strong if their cost gets reduced to 0.
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any word from the team doing the mobile app implementation? any guess on when that'll be available?
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any word from the team doing the mobile app implementation? any guess on when that'll be available?
I have no news or guess. When I know something I will post it.
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Are there any landscape cards you plan to bring back? Since Adventures, every expansion had at least one type of landscape card. Will you continue this?
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Are there any landscape cards you plan to bring back? Since Adventures, every expansion had at least one type of landscape card. Will you continue this?
It isn't the kind of thing I announce this far in advance. In general I like to do them, since they add a lot of content.
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When will the next expansion be released? End of 2020? 2021?
I would love to have more cards! I have my little extension with 12 landscape cards (the Laws http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20293.0 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20293.0)), but it is only playable IRL... My dream would be to program them on Dominion Online (maybe in tab fan made?)! Or that you will release a concept similar to Laws cards.
Your game is very addictive and fun! (Sorry for my bad english)
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When will the next expansion be released? End of 2020? 2021?
There will probably be another expansion eventually. They don't tend to get announced far in advance.
Right now my game nights are on hiatus and well the world doesn't know when they will come back.
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Which out of the "standard" landscape cards (Events, Ways, Projects, and Landmarks) do you like the best? Which do you not like as much as the others?
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Which out of the "standard" landscape cards (Events, Ways, Projects, and Landmarks) do you like the best? Which do you not like as much as the others?
Events are the best, and you can see that three expansions have them. Some of them should have been Projects (e.g. Lost Arts), which I put 2nd. Then Ways; then Landmarks last. I still like Landmarks, but they add way less than the other three.
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Is there a secret history to the throne room+duration rule? I've always kinda wondered why it exists. It seems like it made the design of a few cards (tactician, outpost, procession) more complicated.
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Is there a secret history to the throne room+duration rule? I've always kinda wondered why it exists. It seems like it made the design of a few cards (tactician, outpost, procession) more complicated.
It goes back to before the cards had "duration" on the bottom of them. Something has to track what you're getting next turn. The duration card stays out because it has "something left to do"; the idea is, the Throne also has something left to do.
In retrospect it would have been better if duration cards not in play didn't do anything (and, if cards you couldn't put into play also didn't do anything). That clears up Procession.
Outpost has an anti-Throne clause. Ideally it would have some form that didn't need that.
Tactician has an extra cost on getting your bonus next turn; that premise requires dealing with the tracking rule, unless the extra cost is something you can always pay (e.g. taking debt).
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I was just reading through the secret histories, for Conspirator you say that it replaced a really crazy card late into set development that was to be fixed up for a later expansion. Has a fixed version of that card been released and if so what is it?
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As things stand, the fix here is to not provide ways to get Duration cards out of play, since with the errata to Procession there's just Bonfire and and Mandarin. Bonfire is easy. Mandarin would look weird. But, it's something I can consider still when those sets get reprinted.
Have your thoughts on this changed? Now with Way of the Butterfly, Horse or Turtle, it's possible to play Throne Room + Duration, and both remove the Duration (using the Way) and play it for its own ability. You'd have a Duration effect for next turn but no cards to track it.
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I was just reading through the secret histories, for Conspirator you say that it replaced a really crazy card late into set development that was to be fixed up for a later expansion. Has a fixed version of that card been released and if so what is it?
It's Horn of Plenty.
Long ago, Intrigue had a card that read, "+$1 per Action card you've played this turn." It cost $4. This was popular with a certain kind of player. But many games it was useless - you needed a bunch of pieces to put together this puzzle - and then some games it was unbeatable. You would get staggering amounts of $ out of it, with +buys from something to make them count. Some people defended it, but I killed it. I could always try to fix it up later; there was no reason to give Intrigue a broken/useless card. Intrigue got Conspirator instead, which has a hint of the original premise.
I tried a new version in a later set: "+2 Actions +1 Buy. While this is in play, when you play another Action card, +$1." For $5. The idea was to provide some of what you needed with the original card, so that it was playable in more games, while weakening it in the games where it was good. You've got extra actions and a +buy up front... but it doesn't count Actions already played, only ones played after it. You can't draw your whole deck and finally draw it and play it and yeeha. Anyway this too was broken. I tried several things, including a version that only counted differently named cards. Eventually I gave up on it.
The solution in the end was to make it a Workshop variant. You don't get to combine the money with your other money. It doesn't use up your buy though. To be good enough and not fluctuate too much, it had to count your treasures too. At first it was an action with an effect delayed until the end of your buy phase, but I turned it into a treasure worth $0. Some people just liked that there was a treasure worth $0, I don't know what to tell you. So it doesn't use an action, and works with treasures naturally. This version was still sometimes too strong, so it got the "trash it if gained VP" clause.
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As things stand, the fix here is to not provide ways to get Duration cards out of play, since with the errata to Procession there's just Bonfire and and Mandarin. Bonfire is easy. Mandarin would look weird. But, it's something I can consider still when those sets get reprinted.
Have your thoughts on this changed? Now with Way of the Butterfly, Horse or Turtle, it's possible to play Throne Room + Duration, and both remove the Duration (using the Way) and play it for its own ability. You'd have a Duration effect for next turn but no cards to track it.
Those cards all existed in January for me. The best solution is still to make the change that means Throne/Feast no longer works and people quit the game. "If this isn't a Duration card" was too awful for the Ways. They could have had a general rule that durations didn't get to use Ways; maybe that's still worth considering for a later printing, but they didn't get it. There had to be new cards and those new cards got to exist.
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Would you have made Holstery an overpay card if you could have?
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Would you have made Holstery an overpay card if you could have?
So that you could upgrade it into an Up-Holstery? ;)
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Are you still happy with the decision that Curse should be both the name and type of the card, or have you since wished they were different so you could make more kinds of purple card?
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Would you have made Holstery an overpay card if you could have?
No, because I no longer like doing when-buy triggers. The buy/gain distinction confuses too many people.
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Are you still happy with the decision that Curse should be both the name and type of the card, or have you since wished they were different so you could make more kinds of purple card?
I was never happy with that; I didn't have anything better at the time but thought, this isn't great.
It's not an obstacle though. I never feel like, if only I could make a new thing Witch could give you. And I made another kind of purple card, it's Ruins.
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Do you have a top 10 cards you most enjoy playing with (similar to the new "Cards You Like" feature online)?
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Is it possible to make board games without having game night? How essential is in-person playtesting?
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Do you have a top 10 cards you most enjoy playing with (similar to the new "Cards You Like" feature online)?
I don't want to put in the work to pick cards. I play 5 cards from whatever I'm playtesting, 5 from a single other expansion, and go through the expansions over and over. I rule out playing with a few cards that are super-strong or disrupt playtesting too much, and everything else comes up when it does. Sure some cards I'm extra-happy to see when they do.
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Is it possible to make board games without having game night? How essential is in-person playtesting?
It sounds in theory totally possible. Certainly all the non-playtesting work is done alone anyway, and some things can be playtested reasonably well online, though it's extra work to get there. In practice the lack of a game night just drops my interest level to zero.
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Are there any mechanics/effects/themes you regret using on a card that could have been better elsewhere? (ex. reactions, attacks, an interesting top/bottom on an otherwise bland card, etc.)
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Are there any mechanics/effects/themes you regret using on a card that could have been better elsewhere? (ex. reactions, attacks, an interesting top/bottom on an otherwise bland card, etc.)
Well there are a lot of cards that could have been better-to-print. I wouldn't call that "elsewhere," just improving the card.
Vanilla cards cause the vanilla card problem. So it would be nice if some of them didn't exist, though some of them had to. For example Laboratory at $5 means Lab with a bonus has to cost $6. Or it has to be Lab with both a bonus and a penalty, which is more complex (or, Lab with a penalty and costing no more than $4). I needed Lab, I don't regret doing it. Woodcutter isn't even in the main set anymore, so it would be great if I'd never done it; it stops me from doing Woodcutter with a bonus at $3 (but why? because some people hate hate hate it when there are "strictly better" cards, and it's not something anyone loves, so there's no justification for making them). That's not really "elsewhere" either though.
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How do you make the final version of cards? Do you use Photoshop or something similar or do you have the publisher or artist do it? Also, do you write to artists after you are done the final version of an expansion? Sorry for all of the questions!
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How do you make the final version of cards? Do you use Photoshop or something similar or do you have the publisher or artist do it? Also, do you write to artists after you are done the final version of an expansion? Sorry for all of the questions!
Ask as many questions as you want.
I just make a prototype (using paint, though someday I will try paint.net). I don't even send my images to RGG; just a file with the card texts and counts, any special notes, and a file of notes for the artists. RGG makes the files to send to the printer (I don't remember what software is used); it used to be Matthias Catrein who did that, though lately Jay has put in some work there himself. It used to be that Jay assigned all the artists, now I mostly assign them. But again that's just a list for him; he contacts them himself. RGG sends card images to the printer, currently Altenburger; they make actual card sheet images out of the cards. And when we okay those they print them.
I rarely interact directly with artists. I do talk to layout people and sometimes there's overlap, e.g. Alayna Lemmer did the art and layout for Temporum and I interacted with her a lot.
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In recent expansions you've tried to keep the card text at its normal size, which can mean simplifying or finding alternate wordings for some cards.
How can you tell whether card text will fit on a given card? Do you have any particular strategies for simplifying or rewording in order to make text fit?
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In recent expansions you've tried to keep the card text at its normal size, which can mean simplifying or finding alternate wordings for some cards.
How can you tell whether card text will fit on a given card? Do you have any particular strategies for simplifying or rewording in order to make text fit?
That's where I come in. I mock up all the cards with a template that's close enough to the real one that we can use it to tell what fits. These days I also suggest where to put line breaks to make the text look nice (for my opinion of what nice is). Doing this is double-duty for me, since I print and use them for testing and make them available for other testers who want them. Donald X.'s prototype images are Magic card-sized, you see, so if you want to combine test cards with real ones, it's nice to have ones that look official.
I also tend to put in quite a bit of work suggesting wordings for things. I'm not sure I have any specific strategies, though.
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In recent expansions you've tried to keep the card text at its normal size, which can mean simplifying or finding alternate wordings for some cards.
How can you tell whether card text will fit on a given card? Do you have any particular strategies for simplifying or rewording in order to make text fit?
That's where I come in. I mock up all the cards with a template that's close enough to the real one that we can use it to tell what fits. These days I also suggest where to put line breaks to make the text look nice (for my opinion of what nice is). Doing this is double-duty for me, since I print and use them for testing and make them available for other testers who want them. Donald X.'s prototype images are Magic card-sized, you see, so if you want to combine test cards with real ones, it's nice to have ones that look official.
I also tend to put in quite a bit of work suggesting wordings for things. I'm not sure I have any specific strategies, though.
When you are doing this (or anyone else before you did this), do you also keep in mind that some languages need more text/space for the same information?
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When you are doing this (or anyone else before you did this), do you also keep in mind that some languages need more text/space for the same information?
I sure don't! I mean the thought had crossed my mind, but that's just well outside the scope of what I do. If a smaller font is required for some cards in other languages, that's up to those publishers. We don't do any of the translation work. Sorry.
EDIT: I should clarify further that, even if I knew all the languages a certain set might be published in (because there are no guarantees) and wanted to spend all my free time translating them and checking how much space they took up, that would be time wasted, since I have zero control over how the same text will actually be translated by the publishers themselves.
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When you are doing this (or anyone else before you did this), do you also keep in mind that some languages need more text/space for the same information?
I sure don't! I mean the thought had crossed my mind, but that's just well outside the scope of what I do. If a smaller font is required for some cards in other languages, that's up to those publishers. We don't do any of the translation work. Sorry.
Don't feel sorry about any translation work. That's definitely not your job here. I know that creating Fan cards is not a favored topic in this thread here (Sorry Donald X), but when I do so, I use some online translation tools (usually back and forth) to see what space is needed. Funny thing is, after the first couple of expansions (and the time that passed by), I could tell who in my playing groups needs glasses.
Edit: While I was writing this, I missed your Edit. The best "advise" I can quickly give is that the most important thing (from my point of view) is that the foreign translators/publishers should know the meaning of individual phrases used in Dominion, i.e. that a perfectly translated synonym of a word or phrase is sometimes just not the same in "Dominion language".
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In recent expansions you've tried to keep the card text at its normal size, which can mean simplifying or finding alternate wordings for some cards.
How can you tell whether card text will fit on a given card? Do you have any particular strategies for simplifying or rewording in order to make text fit?
As LF said, he's how I know how much text will fit.
If it's close, sometimes there are slightly worse wordings to consider to squeeze it in. Maybe I said "Action card," but "Action" is sufficient. The word wrap may mean that switching the order of two things helps. In the end if it's just too long then the ability has to change or the card dies. And we usually know this very early, when the external playtesters haven't tried the card yet. There might be a case where I gave in and used the small font, but well, none of that in Renaissance or Menagerie. The worst case for Menagerie was Way of the Mouse; we moved the expansion symbol (on all Ways) to fit it.
Worrying about the font size for translations is beyond the scope for me. The translators can always ask me questions, and sometimes do.
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Thanks to you both. Interesting stuff!
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In recent expansions you've tried to keep the card text at its normal size, which can mean simplifying or finding alternate wordings for some cards.
How can you tell whether card text will fit on a given card? Do you have any particular strategies for simplifying or rewording in order to make text fit?
That's where I come in. I mock up all the cards with a template that's close enough to the real one that we can use it to tell what fits. These days I also suggest where to put line breaks to make the text look nice (for my opinion of what nice is). Doing this is double-duty for me, since I print and use them for testing and make them available for other testers who want them. Donald X.'s prototype images are Magic card-sized, you see, so if you want to combine test cards with real ones, it's nice to have ones that look official.
I also tend to put in quite a bit of work suggesting wordings for things. I'm not sure I have any specific strategies, though.
are you just using the shardofhonor generator for that or is there a Top Secret Actual Tester template?
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are you just using the shardofhonor generator for that or is there a Top Secret Actual Tester template?
Neither. I use the template I found on BGG years ago for fan cards and have heavily modified it over time.
EDIT: To be clearer, I use GIMP to create all my cards, and I do all the text layouts lovingly by hand.
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in the little stats pages from discord, you've probably noticed the skill multiplier. i find that the more recent expansions trend towards higher skill multipliers, i.e. the stronger player wins more often with them. this is particularly strong with renaissance (even without the villager cards). does this feel like a win?
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in the little stats pages from discord, you've probably noticed the skill multiplier. i find that the more recent expansions trend towards higher skill multipliers, i.e. the stronger player wins more often with them. this is particularly strong with renaissance (even without the villager cards). does this feel like a win?
Some of that is just, anything new pushes skill for a while. But sure, the goal is to have it be a strategy game.
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Was Groom intentionally made as a "gainer" ironworks? Or was it a concept of its own that ended up similarly?
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Was Groom intentionally made as a "gainer" ironworks? Or was it a concept of its own that ended up similarly?
The concept was a gainer Ironworks. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20260.0
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Hey, are you considering updating your "guide to 12 Dominion Expansions", or did you specifically choose that title so you wouldn't have to? :) It's strictly the best guide there is, so that would be nice. Thanks
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As far as I understand, Menagerie was the "left-overs" from Renaissance (jail -> exile, card tokens -> horses).
Do you have other "left-over" ideas that could be remade into a new expansion, or are you planning on the next one having all-new mechanics?
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As far as I understand, Menagerie was the "left-overs" from Renaissance (jail -> exile, card tokens -> horses).
Do you have other "left-over" ideas that could be remade into a new expansion, or are you planning on the next one having all-new mechanics?
Unless I'm mistaken, +card tokens weren't tried in Renaissance, +buy tokens were.
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Hey, are you considering updating your "guide to 12 Dominion Expansions", or did you specifically choose that title so you wouldn't have to? :) It's strictly the best guide there is, so that would be nice. Thanks
I should keep it updated; it's just not on my mind. The title was so that people wouldn't think I was implying that there wouldn't be any more expansions.
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As far as I understand, Menagerie was the "left-overs" from Renaissance (jail -> exile, card tokens -> horses).
Do you have other "left-over" ideas that could be remade into a new expansion, or are you planning on the next one having all-new mechanics?
Exile was in Renaissance. Horses weren't, except of course for Experiment; the idea of "card tokens" was, but I hadn't actually tried Horses. I'd tried Exile. If I knew I was going to do Horses, I wouldn't have done Experiment.
At the level of "not tried," there's a list of mechanics going way back. At the level of "was actually in an expansion as a theme," there are just Boons (from Empires) and Exile. Well the early expansions got rearranged a few times for publication, if you want to count that.
Not all mechanics fit your categories, and sets don't need to be all one such class of mechanic. Also "planning" would be an overstatement, if I hadn't started a set yet. I have mentioned in a few places that I have (due to covid19 - it was a project I could get playtested), and well I'm not telling you anything about it (and it may not come out so promptly, it will want playtesting by my regular group, and that still seems a ways off).
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Why did no project give extra VP at the end of the game based on some criteria, etc? It seems like one of the more obvious things to do with them... is it because it would be too similar to landmarks? Or did you use all of your good "When scoring"s in empires?
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Why did no project give extra VP at the end of the game based on some criteria, etc? It seems like one of the more obvious things to do with them... is it because it would be too similar to landmarks? Or did you use all of your good "When scoring"s in empires?
Arguably Fleet does.
It's not the premise of Projects. They're abilities. So it's not something I was looking for. The landscapes at least try to be their own type of thing, to hang together somehow.
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Do you consider Gatekeeper to be a dud? I watch a lot of top players and they never seem to buy it or even consider it. I know you have explicitly stated that avoiding duds in new sets is a high priority for you, naturally. Are players under valuing it?
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Do you consider Gatekeeper to be a dud? I watch a lot of top players and they never seem to buy it or even consider it. I know you have explicitly stated that avoiding duds in new sets is a high priority for you, naturally. Are players under valuing it?
As a potentially really oppressive attack (and there were more oppressive playtest versions), the intention was for it to be at a below-average power level, but not so weak that you'd never play it. It's weaker than intended but also more rules-messy than I'd like. So it's not just a dud, I'd have liked to replace it anyway.
Attacks are tricky. These days attacks try to skew weaker (though sometimes they're still strong). In the early days there were a bunch of strong attacks and the feedback I get is that, while some players love attacks, players in general do not enjoy e.g. discarding every turn to Militia. But I'm not trying to make attacks awful.
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Do you feel like you've run out of victory cards? You've gone higher (colonies, dominate), victory cards that do stuff (graveyard, island, nobles, etc.), and counting stuff (cards, silvers, variety, actions, other vp, duchies, estates); as you've said in that post there isn't much left to count... the last two sets had no vp cards. Alt-VP are my favourite type of kingdom card but also the hardest to design it seems.
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These days attacks try to skew weaker (though sometimes they're still strong).
Black Cat can be a royal PITA or very ineffective, based on the luck of draw. I'd place it among the cards where the attack is the main purpose.
I dislike the swinginess of Black Cat as much as I detest the swinginess of Fisherman, which favours 2/5 openings so much.
Do you try to avoid swinginess, or do you think the game is short enough to allow for 'tough luck, rematch' moments?
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Do you feel like you've run out of victory cards? You've gone higher (colonies, dominate), victory cards that do stuff (graveyard, island, nobles, etc.), and counting stuff (cards, silvers, variety, actions, other vp, duchies, estates); as you've said in that post there isn't much left to count... the last two sets had no vp cards. Alt-VP are my favourite type of kingdom card but also the hardest to design it seems.
You can endlessly do victory cards where there's just 2 VP tacked onto an action or treasure. You can even sometimes make that relevant (e.g., Ironmonger but also worth VP).
"Classic" victory cards where the whole idea is that they're worth VP based on something, well, you can read the Secret Histories for lots of things I've tried there that didn't make it. Some of them turned into Landmarks, which further eat into the remaining space. If I had to have new classic victory cards, I know what my front-runners would be, but if I can make better cards instead, I'll do that. So that's what's been happening. I haven't forgotten that some people would like new victory cards, and haven't stopped trying things there.
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Black Cat can be a royal PITA or very ineffective, based on the luck of draw. I'd place it among the cards where the attack is the main purpose.
I dislike the swinginess of Black Cat as much as I detest the swinginess of Fisherman, which favours 2/5 openings so much.
Do you try to avoid swinginess, or do you think the game is short enough to allow for 'tough luck, rematch' moments?
Swinginess can get me to change a card, or regret it; for example I don't like the swinginess to Warrior (hitting/discarding travellers). I'm not looking for "tough luck, rematch" though obv. the game has lots of luck. But I don't just rule out swingy cards, within reason; there are lots of casual players who like them.
Fisherman doesn't add as much to the game as I'd like. The joy is supposed to come from "this is when I can get it cheap, but is it really the move" (plus a few combos). I like that but it didn't add up to much, and sure some people will feel bitter about openings - not just 2/5, but 3/4 even, oh man you got to open with Fisherman plus a $4 and I didn't.
I still like Black Cat plenty though.
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Black Cat can be a royal PITA or very ineffective, based on the luck of draw. I'd place it among the cards where the attack is the main purpose.
I dislike the swinginess of Black Cat as much as I detest the swinginess of Fisherman, which favours 2/5 openings so much.
Do you try to avoid swinginess, or do you think the game is short enough to allow for 'tough luck, rematch' moments?
Swinginess can get me to change a card, or regret it; for example I don't like the swinginess to Warrior (hitting/discarding travellers). I'm not looking for "tough luck, rematch" though obv. the game has lots of luck. But I don't just rule out swingy cards, within reason; there are lots of casual players who like them.
Fisherman doesn't add as much to the game as I'd like. The joy is supposed to come from "this is when I can get it cheap, but is it really the move" (plus a few combos). I like that but it didn't add up to much, and sure some people will feel bitter about openings - not just 2/5, but 3/4 even, oh man you got to open with Fisherman plus a $4 and I didn't.
I still like Black Cat plenty though.
Black Cat is easily my favourite menag card. There are little things more satisfying in this game then a fine chain of black cats. So simple, yet so fun. A good example of what reactions can do.
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On the subject of Fisherman, I had a game yesterday where I held off on playing Cavalry that turn so I could Inherit Fisherman. That was quite cute.
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A while ago, you mentioned Rats is your favorite card. It's been a long time since Dark Ages. Do you have a new favorite card, or favorite cards?
A different question with perhaps a similar response, what Dominion card/concept are you most proud of?
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A while ago, you mentioned Rats is your favorite card. It's been a long time since Dark Ages. Do you have a new favorite card, or favorite cards?
A different question with perhaps a similar response, what Dominion card/concept are you most proud of?
I'll still go with Rats.
I dunno. Events? They fit really nicely into the existing system.
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Have you played Among Us? Either way, what do you think about it?
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Have you played Among Us? Either way, what do you think about it?
I know not of this.
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Have you played Among Us? Either way, what do you think about it?
I know not of this.
It's a suddenly-popular video game that became an overnight sensation recently, despite being a couple of years old. It's basically Mafia/Werewolf; except it's a video game. You run around a space station with your teammates trying to complete a bunch tasks; while a couple members of your team are secretly imposters, who are trying to kill you. Imposters can kill a good guy with a single button click if they're with them; but they need to do so when they're alone so other people don't see them do it. Then when someone discovers a dead body, they can report it, at which point you all get on voice chat and vote to eject someone who you think is the imposter.
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You said before that if you would redo nocturne that you would keep boons and dump hexes. Would you keep the boon deck exactly the same, or are there any changes you would make there?
Also, menagerie is my favorite expansion and I'm so blown away by how skill rewarding it seems. However, some of the effects are pretty difficult to track IRL like changing costs, which I love online but can't use with the people I play with IRL. Are you planning on doing more cost changing in the future?
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You said before that if you would redo nocturne that you would keep boons and dump hexes. Would you keep the boon deck exactly the same, or are there any changes you would make there?
I would keep Boons, although they might not be in Nocturne itself, and I wouldn't have all the same Fate cards. For example the premise of Idol is fine, but the Boon part is bad because it's in your Buy phase and messes with what you get out of the Boon. The set of Boons is probably fine as is, given that I mess with what the Fate cards are.
Also, menagerie is my favorite expansion and I'm so blown away by how skill rewarding it seems. However, some of the effects are pretty difficult to track IRL like changing costs, which I love online but can't use with the people I play with IRL. Are you planning on doing more cost changing in the future?
I don't rule it out; that's as far as I can go in answering that kind of question. Cost changing is cool but has to be in small doses; Peddler generates some rules questions but is not really a problem there in Prosperity. If I were making Menagerie today I might do just one kind of cost-changing and use it a few times, rather than have a variety of them.
The set was playtested irl and we did not have problems with the cost-changing cards.
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Wasn't there some news late last year about a new company developing an app or other offline Dominion version? Sorry, I don't remember many details. Anyway, is that still happening? Is there somewhere I can check for updates on that?
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Wasn't there some news late last year about a new company developing an app or other offline Dominion version? Sorry, I don't remember many details. Anyway, is that still happening? Is there somewhere I can check for updates on that?
There is no place to check for updates, though you can ask me like you did. They started testing but I have no idea when the release will be.
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Since it seems like Covid is going to be around for a while, any chance of a new promo to give us something to enjoy during our personal quarantines?
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Since it seems like Covid is going to be around for a while, any chance of a new promo to give us something to enjoy during our personal quarantines?
The problem is that playtesting with adults isn't happening, due to the shutdown. I've put a lot of work into a new expansion, playing it with an 11-year-old, but I can't sign off on it until I've played it a bunch with adults. An individual promo would be less risky but well. I'd rather know more there too.
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How about a hidden online implementation and online playtesting?
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How about a hidden online implementation and online playtesting?
I was going to suggest playing via Zoom, where everyone has a set of the cards you're using. My partner played with her in law they way one night and they enjoyed it.
(in this case a promo would be easier than a new expanision*, as it's only one "custom" card)
* also, new expansion, post pandemic - wheeeeee!
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How about a hidden online implementation and online playtesting?
I was going to suggest playing via Zoom, where everyone has a set of the cards you're using. My partner played with her in law they way one night and they enjoyed it.
(in this case a promo would be easier than a new expanision*, as it's only one "custom" card)
* also, new expansion, post pandemic - wheeeeee!
or via Tabletop Simulator. I've enjoyed my playtest sessions for friend's games on there.
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Playing online and playing physically aren't the same. Some things are easier, some harder. I know several designers who've been playtesting prototypes online this year, and none of them are willing to release their designs before they've played them physically.
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How about a hidden online implementation and online playtesting?
The hidden online implementation hasn't gained traction. Conceivably we could get enough playtesting done that way, but we sure haven't.
A few games have been Zoomed.
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Did you consider making Potion granting x$+Potion ? It sometimes feels weird having three estates, copper, potion in hand t3 for example.. just asking, ya know.
hopefully my questions don't feel too inconvenient.. Sorry, if they do. Anyway, big fan of your game!
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Did you consider making Potion granting x$+Potion ? It sometimes feels weird having three estates, copper, potion in hand t3 for example.. just asking, ya know.
hopefully my questions don't feel too inconvenient.. Sorry, if they do. Anyway, big fan of your game!
No. The premise was an alternate resource; not a partially alternate resource. Many people over the years have thought they'd like "Potion +$" better. I've never felt much of a pull towards that though. So far what I like best is just not doing potions.
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I'm wondering about your design process coming up with "essential cards" for a new expansion. For example, each expansion needs to have some sort of village, some sort of way to draw cards, some sort of trashing. When designing a new expansion, do you subconsciously just end up designing a lot of different essential cards when you play around with new ideas and new mechanics, or do you end up hunting them down, like, oh I need a village. How can I use these new mechanics to create villages? which results in things like like Hostelry, Blessed Village, Cursed Village. Or is it more like, you have mechanics of discarding treasures to gain horses and you're like, let me try that on a village, I need a village. Or maybe something else?
I guess I'm asking you to expound on how you "balance" new expansions with having the appropriate breakdown of those "essential cards."
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I'm wondering about your design process coming up with "essential cards" for a new expansion. For example, each expansion needs to have some sort of village, some sort of way to draw cards, some sort of trashing. When designing a new expansion, do you subconsciously just end up designing a lot of different essential cards when you play around with new ideas and new mechanics, or do you end up hunting them down, like, oh I need a village. How can I use these new mechanics to create villages? which results in things like like Hostelry, Blessed Village, Cursed Village. Or is it more like, you have mechanics of discarding treasures to gain horses and you're like, let me try that on a village, I need a village. Or maybe something else?
I guess I'm asking you to expound on how you "balance" new expansions with having the appropriate breakdown of those "essential cards."
The main thing is just, I keep track of how many I have of each thing I want a certain amount of, e.g. villages, and then at some point, when I have a bunch of cards, I worry about making those numbers right, and come up with more of whatever I need more of. At first, I'm not worried about it at all, I just make cards. Some of them will probably be villages. Then when I do need a particular thing, I consider if the mechanics will give me it, but they don't have to.
For example, for Menagerie, I had enough villages without giving them any extra attention. But for Renaissance, I needed a village late in the going. I tried a lot of things and ended up with Mountain Village. I tried things involving artifacts and Villagers but didn't go with those.
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In the parts of the forum that shall not be named, there was a disagreement about the design principles for official cards. One person thought there was a soft rule that cards that can trash or Exile other cards don't have 'you may' on them without a good reason. Cards like Spice Merchant have 'you may' for tracking reasons, cards like Sanctuary have it because they provide a benefit other than the Exile; Mercenary has it because it can activate Urchins; Death Cart has it to prevent getting the +5$ twice with Throne Room. But, according to this person, all the cards that usually wouldn't do anything without trashing/Exiling and don't have tracking issues, like Forager or Bounty Hunter or Remodel, are mandatory. Is this a real rule you've followed?
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In the parts of the forum that shall not be named, there was a disagreement about the design principles for official cards. One person thought there was a soft rule that cards that can trash or Exile other cards don't have 'you may' on them without a good reason. Cards like Spice Merchant have 'you may' for tracking reasons, cards like Sanctuary have it because they provide a benefit other than the Exile; Mercenary has it because it can activate Urchins; Death Cart has it to prevent getting the +5$ twice with Throne Room. But, according to this person, all the cards that usually wouldn't do anything without trashing/Exiling and don't have tracking issues, like Forager or Bounty Hunter or Remodel, are mandatory. Is this a real rule you've followed?
I don't have any rule like that, specific to trashers, no. My "you may" rules are:
- I don't like having a mostly pointless "you may"; if you would mostly achieve not doing whatever it is by not playing the card, or if you will almost always choose the option, then it probably doesn't say "you may." "You may" wants to be used for things where it's really an option, you will play the card and sometimes go one way sometimes the other.
- I use "you may" as a keep-you-honest thing, like on Moneylender; "Trash a Copper from your hand" means you might not trash one and be cheating, and "Trash a Copper from your hand (or reveal a hand without one)" is longer than "You may trash a Copper from your hand."
- In some cases there's a "do x to have y happen" where it reads much better with "you may."
- Reactions of course naturally say "you may."
- When it could go either way, it comes down to power level or fun.
- As always, on pre-Adventures cards, sometimes there wasn't a good reason. Farmland omits "you may" because I required the text to fit in a certain amount of space at a certain font size, and "you may" didn't fit.
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Thanks!
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Have you ever considered joining any of the Forum games (e.g. Mafia, Codenames)? (especially during these pandemic times!)
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Specifically for things like Dame Anna, I will usually suggest adding a friendly, superfluous "you may" for people who don't realize that "up to X" includes 0, assuming you might play the card for a reason other than the trashing. I believe the original discussion you're referencing was at least partly about that.
And I'm pretty sure I've said this already, but the Moneylender thing is an accountability issue, NOT a tracking issue.
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Have you ever considered joining any of the Forum games (e.g. Mafia, Codenames)? (especially during these pandemic times!)
On the discord I'm playing in (and modding) a song game that may list two years. We randomly pick a year we haven't done yet; people submit 4-6 songs from that year (but any after 4 may not make it depending on the number of submissions); there's a tournament where pairs of songs fight it out, with people voting with emotes. The goal for me is to find and share music, not to pick what people will vote for. I am pretty into music.
I was interested in Mafia when I encountered it many years ago, but mostly just to think about things you could do with it. I have yet to play Codenames but will surely try it someday irl.
It's no trouble filling time; if I am ever in need there are computer games I've been waiting on trying.
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Specifically for things like Dame Anna, I will usually suggest adding a friendly, superfluous "you may" for people who don't realize that "up to X" includes 0, assuming you might play the card for a reason other than the trashing. I believe the original discussion you're referencing was at least partly about that.
Yes, I may not always go with those but "friendly you may" is reasonable too.
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Have you ever considered joining any of the Forum games (e.g. Mafia, Codenames)? (especially during these pandemic times!)
On the discord I'm playing in (and modding) a song game that may list two years. We randomly pick a year we haven't done yet; people submit 4-6 songs from that year (but any after 4 may not make it depending on the number of submissions); there's a tournament where pairs of songs fight it out, with people voting with emotes. The goal for me is to find and share music, not to pick what people will vote for. I am pretty into music.
I was interested in Mafia when I encountered it many years ago, but mostly just to think about things you could do with it. I have yet to play Codenames but will surely try it someday irl.
It's no trouble filling time; if I am ever in need there are computer games I've been waiting on trying.
What computer games do you use to fill your time nowadays?
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Is there any particular reason that Way of the Mouse isn't limited to non-Commands just in case you make any (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) or (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)-cost Command cards in the future?
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It's no trouble filling time; if I am ever in need there are computer games I've been waiting on trying.
What computer games do you use to fill your time nowadays?
I'm waiting on trying them, like it says! Computer games mean I get less done, and I have projects to try to work on. I do actually play some Dudes of Stuff and Things (link somewhere in this giant thread), and do a sudoku most days, and I've been looking for Koroks some.
I had big plans to try Cyberpunk 2077, but I can wait 6 months for it to not suck.
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Is there any particular reason that Way of the Mouse isn't limited to non-Commands just in case you make any (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) or (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)-cost Command cards in the future?
We talked about it at the time. I felt like, it would be great to not make any more Command cards, and if I somehow need to make another one, I can sure avoid having it cost $2 or $3. And then, the text doesn't fit on the card in the large font, and it's text I sure want to avoid where possible, it's a confusing thing.
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Why is Ride called "Ride" (what one would do with Horses they already have) instead of Wrangle?
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Is there any particular reason that Way of the Mouse isn't limited to non-Commands just in case you make any (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) or (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)-cost Command cards in the future?
We talked about it at the time. I felt like, it would be great to not make any more Command cards, and if I somehow need to make another one, I can sure avoid having it cost $2 or $3.
Do you keep a list of the things you can/should never do because there are cards that assume those things will never happen?
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Why is Ride called "Ride" (what one would do with Horses they already have) instead of Wrangle?
It must be the noun - you're acquiring a ride.
This is the kind of question that's really a statement. I don't mind but you know.
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Is there any particular reason that Way of the Mouse isn't limited to non-Commands just in case you make any (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) or (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)-cost Command cards in the future?
We talked about it at the time. I felt like, it would be great to not make any more Command cards, and if I somehow need to make another one, I can sure avoid having it cost $2 or $3.
Do you keep a list of the things you can/should never do because there are cards that assume those things will never happen?
I would if there were more of them. So far it seems pretty easy. And there are a bunch of people checking.
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Is there any particular reason that Way of the Mouse isn't limited to non-Commands just in case you make any (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) or (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)-cost Command cards in the future?
We talked about it at the time. I felt like, it would be great to not make any more Command cards, and if I somehow need to make another one, I can sure avoid having it cost $2 or $3. And then, the text doesn't fit on the card in the large font, and it's text I sure want to avoid where possible, it's a confusing thing.
It does seem unlikely that any future Command cards would make sense at a cost of $2 or $3. They'd either be pretty useless or be way underpriced
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Is there any particular reason that Way of the Mouse isn't limited to non-Commands just in case you make any (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) or (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)-cost Command cards in the future?
We talked about it at the time. I felt like, it would be great to not make any more Command cards, and if I somehow need to make another one, I can sure avoid having it cost $2 or $3. And then, the text doesn't fit on the card in the large font, and it's text I sure want to avoid where possible, it's a confusing thing.
It does seem unlikely that any future Command cards would make sense at a cost of $2 or $3. They'd either be pretty useless or be way underpriced
The exact same text as Band of Misfits, but costing $2.
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Is there any particular reason that Way of the Mouse isn't limited to non-Commands just in case you make any (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) or (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)-cost Command cards in the future?
We talked about it at the time. I felt like, it would be great to not make any more Command cards, and if I somehow need to make another one, I can sure avoid having it cost $2 or $3. And then, the text doesn't fit on the card in the large font, and it's text I sure want to avoid where possible, it's a confusing thing.
It does seem unlikely that any future Command cards would make sense at a cost of $2 or $3. They'd either be pretty useless or be way underpriced
The exact same text as Band of Misfits, but costing $2.
Costing $3, because otherwise it would only be able to play Poor House and Ruins
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Is there any particular reason that Way of the Mouse isn't limited to non-Commands just in case you make any (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) or (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)-cost Command cards in the future?
We talked about it at the time. I felt like, it would be great to not make any more Command cards, and if I somehow need to make another one, I can sure avoid having it cost $2 or $3. And then, the text doesn't fit on the card in the large font, and it's text I sure want to avoid where possible, it's a confusing thing.
It does seem unlikely that any future Command cards would make sense at a cost of $2 or $3. They'd either be pretty useless or be way underpriced
The exact same text as Band of Misfits, but costing $2.
Costing $3, because otherwise it would only be able to play Poor House and Ruins
I'm pretty sure that was the joke. :)
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What do you think is the most innovative single card or card shaped thing you've made? Is it still Rats?
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What do you think is the most innovative single card or card shaped thing you've made? Is it still Rats?
I said Rats was my favorite card, not that it was the most innovative card.
I think this question may be too difficult. There are cards that stand out for how novel they are; there are mechanics that stand out as novel, but lots of cards have the mechanic. Novel isn't really the same as innovative though. I don't want to just be patting myself on the back either.
I guess I can say, there is a Nefarious expansion twist that makes something happen every 4 turns. That didn't feel crazy novel or anything, but it ended up looming large; it was a lesson in how to shove strategy in people's faces. You could always plan for the future; that twist made it really clear that you could be doing that, to people who might otherwise decide that the game had no strategy.
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Did anyone else reading this get excited that Donald had just revealed the name of the next Dominion expansion:
Dominion: Nefarious
OK, maybe just me, then. :) It did at least make me look up a new game that sounds like it would be fun to try.
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Was/is there any particular reason Horses need to be a non-supply pile instead of an additional pile in the supply?
Seeing that Ride costs $2 and Experiment costs $3 for two Horse-equivalents, seems like it wouldn't be bad to have them be buyable or gainable with gainers.
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Was/is there any particular reason Horses need to be a non-supply pile instead of an additional pile in the supply?
Seeing that Ride costs $2 and Experiment costs $3 for two Horse-equivalents, seems like it wouldn't be bad to have them be buyable or gainable with gainers.
Well making an additional pile to the supply would be a much larger rule/mechanic change... non-supply piles are a very common mechanic used throughout Dominion at this point. Additional supply piles are rare; only existing in the form of Ruins, Potions, Colony, and Platinum.
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Was/is there any particular reason Horses need to be a non-supply pile instead of an additional pile in the supply?
Seeing that Ride costs $2 and Experiment costs $3 for two Horse-equivalents, seems like it wouldn't be bad to have them be buyable or gainable with gainers.
It's just the premise. The premise of Ride is that this game you can buy Horses; but the premise of Horses is that cards can give them to you. It's not that this game there are Horses to buy and also this card can give them to you.
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Was/is there any particular reason Horses need to be a non-supply pile instead of an additional pile in the supply?
Seeing that Ride costs $2 and Experiment costs $3 for two Horse-equivalents, seems like it wouldn't be bad to have them be buyable or gainable with gainers.
Well making an additional pile to the supply would be a much larger rule/mechanic change... non-supply piles are a very common mechanic used throughout Dominion at this point. Additional supply piles are rare; only existing in the form of Ruins, Potions, Colony, and Platinum.
There's also the Young Witch's bane
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Was/is there any particular reason Horses need to be a non-supply pile instead of an additional pile in the supply?
Seeing that Ride costs $2 and Experiment costs $3 for two Horse-equivalents, seems like it wouldn't be bad to have them be buyable or gainable with gainers.
Well making an additional pile to the supply would be a much larger rule/mechanic change... non-supply piles are a very common mechanic used throughout Dominion at this point. Additional supply piles are rare; only existing in the form of Ruins, Potions, Colony, and Platinum.
There's also the Young Witch's bane
I considered that, but I don’t see it in same same category as the other things... the question was about a new type of card that is specifically used in certain games and when it is used; it’s in the supply. The Bane just changes the kingdom from 10 to 11 regular kingdom cards.
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Was/is there any particular reason Horses need to be a non-supply pile instead of an additional pile in the supply?
Seeing that Ride costs $2 and Experiment costs $3 for two Horse-equivalents, seems like it wouldn't be bad to have them be buyable or gainable with gainers.
Well making an additional pile to the supply would be a much larger rule/mechanic change... non-supply piles are a very common mechanic used throughout Dominion at this point. Additional supply piles are rare; only existing in the form of Ruins, Potions, Colony, and Platinum.
There's also the Young Witch's bane
I considered that, but I don’t see it in same same category as the other things... the question was about a new type of card that is specifically used in certain games and when it is used; it’s in the supply. The Bane just changes the kingdom from 10 to 11 regular kingdom cards.
Ah, good point
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in the secret history for menagerie, you indicated there were other landscapey things you were playing around with other than ways/events - did they end up fundamentally unplayable, or just not fun, or, more nebulously, just not a good fit? any chance we could get a high-level explanation of the concept of them?
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in the secret history for menagerie, you indicated there were other landscapey things you were playing around with other than ways/events - did they end up fundamentally unplayable, or just not fun, or, more nebulously, just not a good fit? any chance we could get a high-level explanation of the concept of them?
I don't want to spoil them if I'm ever going to fix them up and do them, and I don't want to rule out ever fixing them up and doing them. They didn't work, but if I didn't know that they would still sound good.
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On the topic of landscapes, are there likely ever to be more landscape promos?
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On the topic of landscapes, are there likely ever to be more landscape promos?
It's possible. It requires the right timing; the landscape won't have rules with it, and wants to promote a current set with those landscapes.
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I am pretty into music.
were there any 2020 releases that you liked?
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I am pretty into music.
were there any 2020 releases that you liked?
It's much easier to know years later, but off-hand, highlights so far include
- Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters
- I Don't Know How But They Found Me - Razzmatazz
- Mountain Goats - Songs for Pierre Chuvin
- Sparks - A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip
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Amazing:
Renaissance, Menagerie, Empires, Adventures
Good:
Intrigue (revised), Base (revised), Cornucopia+Guilds, Dark Ages
Needs revision:
Prosperity, Hinterlands, Seaside, Nocturne
Not good:
Alchemy
That's about where I stand, acknowledging that for some players Nocturne is great.
If you had the chance to revise Prosperity, Hinterlands, Seaside, and Nocturne in a second edition let's say with minor text changes everywhere and removing up to 6 cards and adding up to 7 new cards like you did for Dominion/Intrigue...
Which of those expansions would be able to be moved to Amazing or Good or Great?
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Amazing:
Renaissance, Menagerie, Empires, Adventures
Good:
Intrigue (revised), Base (revised), Cornucopia+Guilds, Dark Ages
Needs revision:
Prosperity, Hinterlands, Seaside, Nocturne
Not good:
Alchemy
That's about where I stand, acknowledging that for some players Nocturne is great.
If you had the chance to revise Prosperity, Hinterlands, Seaside, and Nocturne in a second edition let's say with minor text changes everywhere and removing up to 6 cards and adding up to 7 new cards like you did for Dominion/Intrigue...
Which of those expansions would be able to be moved to Amazing or Good or Great?
Donald X. once answered a similar question about what they'd do with a 2E on other expansions; I'll repost it here. It's also on the wiki.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dominion/comments/dpg1ty/what_cards_would_you_remove_if_later_sets_had_an/f5vtmpw?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Seaside: Pearl Diver, Navigator, Pirate Ship, Sea Hag, Embargo, Lookout. The first three are duds; Sea Hag because I don't like having two cheap junking attacks in one set and would rather take out Sea Hag than Ambassador, plus some people don't like that it has no upside, just attack; Embargo is a dud but also I get to not include Embargo tokens; Lookout is fine but a lot of casual players don't like it. With any 2E I would try to make better versions of cards that left that had merit to the premise or flavor, and would try to get more use out of extra components. So here, I'd have maybe 3 cards that used the coin tokens, and a different Pirate Ship. I wanted to do a Seaside 2E; it didn't happen because Jay didn't want to ask Valerie if we could replace Harem and give her a new card in Intrigue 2E, and well Seaside has two cards depicting people, Pearl Diver and Navigator. Plus Jay had boxes of Embargo tokens sitting around. It still might happen someday; the usual problem is, it's competing with all other projects.
Prosperity: Trade Route, Talisman, Contraband, Mountebank, Venture, Royal Seal. Yes I'd keep Counting House as a narrow card that's sometimes fun. Mountebank would go for being strong and making the game less fun, the rest include some nice concepts but want to be better.
Hinterlands: The problem here is that mostly I want to tweak cards but keep them, which results in an update pack we can't really sell. So e.g.: move +Buy from Margrave to Cache; drop the Reactions from Fool's Gold and Trader; make Ill-Gotten Gains a $6 that makes $2 and Curses on-gain. There are still cards to replace too though: Noble Brigand (weak), Mandarin (weak, rare weird issues), Oracle (so slow).
Dark Ages: Rebuild, Cultist, Urchin/Mercenary, Band of Misfits, Storeroom. Rebuild makes games bad when you have a medium amount of enlightenment; Cultist is monolithic; Urchin is not really good times; Band of Misfits might just become the new one but it would make the update pack; Storeroom just to round it out to 6, I personally rarely buy it though someone would miss it.
Alchemy: Ideally this would just go out of print (it's unlikely to). I could rescue the best ideas with new cards in other expansions.
Mixed box: I don't think there are enough to do this one. Harvest is a dud. I don't enjoy the gameplay of Doctor. I might be able to make a better version of Masterpiece. There are a few more that a lot of people wouldn't miss, that could go if I had to replace more cards.
There aren't going to be enough for the later sets. In Adventures, I regret the giant mess that is Inheritance, and that Warrior can kill Warriors. For Empires, Overlord has Band of Misfits issues, and Encampment has an awkward uh way you deal with it, though people like it. For non-expert players, Nocturne has some serious complexity issues, but I can't just replace 6 cards to fix that; for starters I need to take out Hexes completely. Really it wants to be split into two expansions. For Renaissance I just want the cards to be printed with the right colors. If I were still working on it I might take out Artifacts completely, but I don't regret those cards, it's just that three of them didn't need the Artifacts and could have been simpler.
The promos are not impressive as a group, with some duds and some overpowered cards. They don't even have an expansion though, so they really aren't in line for an update pack.
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Amazing:
Renaissance, Menagerie, Empires, Adventures
Good:
Intrigue (revised), Base (revised), Cornucopia+Guilds, Dark Ages
Needs revision:
Prosperity, Hinterlands, Seaside, Nocturne
Not good:
Alchemy
That's about where I stand, acknowledging that for some players Nocturne is great.
If you had the chance to revise Prosperity, Hinterlands, Seaside, and Nocturne in a second edition let's say with minor text changes everywhere and removing up to 6 cards and adding up to 7 new cards like you did for Dominion/Intrigue...
Which of those expansions would be able to be moved to Amazing or Good or Great?
Donald X. once answered a similar question about what they'd do with a 2E on other expansions; I'll repost it here. It's also on the wiki.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dominion/comments/dpg1ty/what_cards_would_you_remove_if_later_sets_had_an/f5vtmpw?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Seaside: Pearl Diver, Navigator, Pirate Ship, Sea Hag, Embargo, Lookout. The first three are duds; Sea Hag because I don't like having two cheap junking attacks in one set and would rather take out Sea Hag than Ambassador, plus some people don't like that it has no upside, just attack; Embargo is a dud but also I get to not include Embargo tokens; Lookout is fine but a lot of casual players don't like it. With any 2E I would try to make better versions of cards that left that had merit to the premise or flavor, and would try to get more use out of extra components. So here, I'd have maybe 3 cards that used the coin tokens, and a different Pirate Ship. I wanted to do a Seaside 2E; it didn't happen because Jay didn't want to ask Valerie if we could replace Harem and give her a new card in Intrigue 2E, and well Seaside has two cards depicting people, Pearl Diver and Navigator. Plus Jay had boxes of Embargo tokens sitting around. It still might happen someday; the usual problem is, it's competing with all other projects.
Prosperity: Trade Route, Talisman, Contraband, Mountebank, Venture, Royal Seal. Yes I'd keep Counting House as a narrow card that's sometimes fun. Mountebank would go for being strong and making the game less fun, the rest include some nice concepts but want to be better.
Hinterlands: The problem here is that mostly I want to tweak cards but keep them, which results in an update pack we can't really sell. So e.g.: move +Buy from Margrave to Cache; drop the Reactions from Fool's Gold and Trader; make Ill-Gotten Gains a $6 that makes $2 and Curses on-gain. There are still cards to replace too though: Noble Brigand (weak), Mandarin (weak, rare weird issues), Oracle (so slow).
Dark Ages: Rebuild, Cultist, Urchin/Mercenary, Band of Misfits, Storeroom. Rebuild makes games bad when you have a medium amount of enlightenment; Cultist is monolithic; Urchin is not really good times; Band of Misfits might just become the new one but it would make the update pack; Storeroom just to round it out to 6, I personally rarely buy it though someone would miss it.
Alchemy: Ideally this would just go out of print (it's unlikely to). I could rescue the best ideas with new cards in other expansions.
Mixed box: I don't think there are enough to do this one. Harvest is a dud. I don't enjoy the gameplay of Doctor. I might be able to make a better version of Masterpiece. There are a few more that a lot of people wouldn't miss, that could go if I had to replace more cards.
There aren't going to be enough for the later sets. In Adventures, I regret the giant mess that is Inheritance, and that Warrior can kill Warriors. For Empires, Overlord has Band of Misfits issues, and Encampment has an awkward uh way you deal with it, though people like it. For non-expert players, Nocturne has some serious complexity issues, but I can't just replace 6 cards to fix that; for starters I need to take out Hexes completely. Really it wants to be split into two expansions. For Renaissance I just want the cards to be printed with the right colors. If I were still working on it I might take out Artifacts completely, but I don't regret those cards, it's just that three of them didn't need the Artifacts and could have been simpler.
The promos are not impressive as a group, with some duds and some overpowered cards. They don't even have an expansion though, so they really aren't in line for an update pack.
Thank you, but that isn't the question. I'm aware of those ideas. My question is more meta-level -- how successful could these changes hypothetically be? For example, even though 2nd Edition came after Adventures, the thought is that Adventures is still better. Curious about whether that would be the same for other 2nd editions, or if the change potential is significant enough to elevate them up to the Amazing tier.
But you used "they" pronouns which gives me another question. Donald X, what are your pronouns?
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Thank you, but that isn't the question. I'm aware of those ideas. My question is more meta-level -- how successful could these changes hypothetically be? For example, even though 2nd Edition came after Adventures, the thought is that Adventures is still better. Curious about whether that would be the same for other 2nd editions, or if the change potential is significant enough to elevate them up to the Amazing tier.
But you used "they" pronouns which gives me another question. Donald X, what are your pronouns?
I'm a "he / him / dude." In this day and age some people say "they" more broadly on the internet, because it's safe. And then they're used to it and I mean no harm done.
I think Prosperity, Hinterlands, and Seaside could all be sufficiently better that we would call them great. They were great in their day even with the duds. If the update pack is limited to 80 cards as previously, meaning 7 cards slots, well you don't quite get to do everything you might want to, but still, 7 cool cards replacing 7 duds (and a few overpowered attacks) is amazing. For Nocturne, the move is to make it two expansions - one with Night and Spirits, the other with Boons and Heirlooms (no Hexes). I think those expansions would be great too; obv. for people who don't like Night or Boons, well there they are still.
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Most expansions are set in late medieval times or in the renaissance, but Empires jumps back 1500 years in history to ancient Rome. What is the reason for the Roman theme? Would a European empires theme be too controversial?
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Most expansions are set in late medieval times or in the renaissance, but Empires jumps back 1500 years in history to ancient Rome. What is the reason for the Roman theme? Would a European empires theme be too controversial?
It was a theme with a lot of good card names. That's really what pushed it for me.
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Most expansions are set in late medieval times or in the renaissance, but Empires jumps back 1500 years in history to ancient Rome. What is the reason for the Roman theme? Would a European empires theme be too controversial?
It was a theme with a lot of good card names. That's really what pushed it for me.
Do you think you might ever go with a theme that's more modern or even futuristic?
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Do you think you might ever go with a theme that's more modern or even futuristic?
I don't think so. I think the ancient Rome stuff sits next to the medieval stuff and doesn't look so out of place. The Roman empire lasted a long time past its heyday, and they weren't so far behind in technology from the dark ages. Modern stuff would clash in a way that Rome didn't.
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Are there any flavour themes (themes like how Empires is Roman, not mechanics) that you considered and decided against?
Did any past expansions have a completely different theme before the final?
Can you spoil any future themes?
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Are there any card names you regret?
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Are there any card names you regret?
I think he's said he regrets Harem?
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Are there any flavour themes (themes like how Empires is Roman, not mechanics) that you considered and decided against?
Did any past expansions have a completely different theme before the final?
Can you spoil any future themes?
I'm not too interested in spoiling future themes, and don't generally know more than one in advance anyway.
Dark Ages was once War. That changed because Hans im Gluck didn't want that theme.
For later sets I've considered multiple themes. For example I considered Roman Empire for Adventures. I made a list of potential card names for the cards, in a column next to columns of other names.
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Are there any card names you regret?
For homemade card makers it would be nice if Curse wasn't both a card name and a card type. It hasn't bitten me personally though.
Besides Harem, in the early sets I was paying less attention to names; there are certainly some cards that could have better names, or could support the set theme more.
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(Admittedly I already know the answer to most of these questions; I just want a good quote to add to the wiki.)
Was it a concern that it may be too hard to reveal Rocks, especially in 2-player? It's not mandatory for a split pile to get to the 2nd card, but it seems to rarely come up for Catapult/Rocks.
Why do you enjoy Swindler more than Jester nowadays? Is it because Jester is weak for a 5?
Do you think Groom is too strong in VP rush (with e.g. Gardens)? I can see these rushes being less significant in multiplayer (since Estate and Gardens are 12 cards), but in a 2-player, Groom ends the game pretty fast.
Why does Cathedral cost 3 and not 2? Is it because a Project can't cost 2 unless it hurts you (even though Cathedral does hurt you eventually)?
Why did you change Priest from +Coffers to +Coins?
Do you think Travelling Fair is too strong?
Do you think Fortress's bottom text is problematic? Obviously there's Bishop/Fortress, but you've also had to change some cards (like Butterfly) in response to Fortress tricks/loops.
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Was it a concern that it may be too hard to reveal Rocks, especially in 2-player? It's not mandatory for a split pile to get to the 2nd card, but it seems to rarely come up for Catapult/Rocks.
It was a concern for all split piles, that the 2nd card be reached in enough games. Not necessarily every game but sure not never. 2-player was a concern too although I am trying to support 2-4 well, and 5 at least somewhat, and that means I aim more for perfection for 3 players, in the middle. In the end reports from players suggest that Rocks is harder than an ideal amount to get to, though sometimes the 2 players get to it. I'm happy with it with more players.
Why do you enjoy Swindler more than Jester nowadays? Is it because Jester is weak for a 5?
I'd have to play them back to back to say which I really like more now. My classic experience with Swindler is, this game will be random, the pressure's off, see what happens. My classic experience with Jester is drowning in Coppers, never seeing the cards I've gotten. Jester is mostly thought of as a fun multiplayer card; yeeha, you could play it and gain 3 great cards. And sometimes it does that. And sometimes it deals out Coppers and you get too many Coppers and your deck is Coppers.
Do you think Groom is too strong in VP rush (with e.g. Gardens)? I can see these rushes being less significant in multiplayer (since Estate and Gardens are 12 cards), but in a 2-player, Groom ends the game pretty fast.
Maybe? I find it plausible. I didn't keep testing Groom after it was published, but word on the street is it's strong in those situations.
Why does Cathedral cost 3 and not 2? Is it because a Project can't cost 2 unless it hurts you (even though Cathedral does hurt you eventually)?
Projects did avoid costing $2. I may not have ever devoted specific consideration to Cathedral there. I don't try every card at every cost to see what went the best; time could never permit. However, there are the classic things that distinguish costs from $2-4: openings, +Buys, and perception. +Buys are not relevant here. Perception is a little open here; there's nothing like Cathedral. And then openings are huge; at $2 you can open with a $5 and Cathedral. Which game plays better, the one where that happens, or the one where the 5/2 can't get Cathedral without spending the 5 on it? Again I haven't done the experiment, but you see how I guessed.
Why did you change Priest from +Coffers to +Coins?
It says here in the Secret History that I liked +$2 better. I find that plausible! I don't remember the actual games. +1 Coffers is nice for handling the tracking. If they had been close I would have gone with the handled-tracking option. So, they weren't close. I can guess that +$2 was just more exciting, more potential for a bonanza.
Do you think Travelling Fair is too strong?
No? Ultimately the question is, how fun is the game. All else can bow down to that. A card is too strong (or too weak) if its power level makes the game less fun. I don't think that's the case for Travelling Fair.
Do you think Fortress's bottom text is problematic? Obviously there's Bishop/Fortress, but you've also had to change some cards (like Butterfly) in response to Fortress tricks/loops.
Fortress is problematic. The best example is Farmland. Farmland was when-gain, and that functionality has no issues, it really should be fine to print. But it wasn't because of Fortress (which hadn't come out yet, but I knew it was coming).
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The first player have a 59% chance of winning the game (maybe by one more turn).
At the end of the game, some player finish the turn (variant) instead of the real rule. But I don't think it's a good idea ...
1) What do you think of the first player advantage?
2) What are the positive points of this imbalance ? Why is it better to end the game immediately with the first player rather than end the second player's turn? (better gameplay ?)
3) Ten years after the creation of the game, do players prefer the variant? Or are the players happy with the real rule?
Thank you ! :)
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The first player have a 59% chance of winning the game (maybe by one more turn).
At the end of the game, some player finish the turn (variant) instead of the real rule. But I don't think it's a good idea ...
1) What do you think of the first player advantage?
2) What are the positive points of this imbalance ? Why is it better to end the game immediately with the first player rather than end the second player's turn? (better gameplay ?)
3) Ten years after the creation of the game, do players prefer the variant? Or are the players happy with the real rule?
Thank you ! :)
These questions get brought up a lot in the forums and Reddit, so I'll share my opinion and some ideas I've seen.
1) It's a real advantage, but you still have to capitalize with skill on using your advantage. There are many random aspects of Dominion, and you could make up a variant for each one, but I wouldn't suggest that...the opening random split of 5/2 or 3/4 is often very important, the cards in your turn 3 and 4 hand are random and very important, etc. It's about knowing what risks to take and how to play optimally given what happens--sometimes it doesn't work out, and that's okay. If you want to take all the luck out of Dominion, play a different game--I always recommend Prismata.
2) There really isn't a way to make the end of the game longer to fix the number of turns imbalance work out in a way that doesn't heavily warp the end of the game (player 1 cannot pile out if player 2 can go afterwards, etc.). The best variant I've heard of that may fix the player order imbalance went something like this--after you and your opponent(s) see the kingdom layout, you each bet debt tokens on getting to go first, with the one betting the most taking the debt and going first (like Mountain Pass).
3) Players understand that after many games and presumably getting equal first player and second player, the player order advantage all evens out. Yeah it can be tilting to go second on a kingdom with Donate for example, but one game of Dominion doesn't mean anything on its own. I think most people are happy with the real rule.
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I guess with my earlier Travelling Fair question, I meant that Travelling Fair is a good example of super +Buy being strong. The worst case is probably Priest/Watchtower/Travelling Fair, which instantly empties Copper/Curse. So is super +Buy still something that is scary with Travelling Fair?
On the quest for Ducat, there was a card that gave you +1 Buy per Treasure you discarded when gaining it (super +Buy cards are always trouble)
You changed Commerce to "differently named" because otherwise it was too strong with Horse gainers. In retrospective, do you wish you could change Triumph as well?
Certain players on Discord have expressed confusion about being able to chain Masterminds together. In retrospective would you add "non-Duration" to Mastermind?
Were there concerns that Goatherd may not be a good fit for Menagerie because of exile? I'm mainly asking because Night cards made Scepter not be a good fit for Nocturne.
You've said that you dislike Doctor; is it because of the randomness of trashing from the top of your deck, the wordiness (it's in competition for wordiest card in the game), or both?
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The first player have a 59% chance of winning the game (maybe by one more turn).
At the end of the game, some player finish the turn (variant) instead of the real rule. But I don't think it's a good idea ...
1) What do you think of the first player advantage?
It's a much bigger thing online. IRL I think players typically don't even notice that one player had an extra turn, no joke. And skill imbalance can be much larger. So "winner goes last next game" has worked out fine.
The intention is never to have a large first player advantage. That %, that wasn't printed on the rules; it's data arrived at years later. Sometimes there are nice things you can do there. Some games there's no first player, that's ideal; sometimes it's like, the first player starts with $1 less or something, and it's never perfect but it nudges the advantage down. For Dominion I didn't have one of those things, but we always played multiple games, and the winner going last was enough for me. IRL, for the first game, I usually go last, whether or not I'm the favorite to win. I don't mind.
2) What are the positive points of this imbalance ? Why is it better to end the game immediately with the first player rather than end the second player's turn? (better gameplay ?)
Initially it was just automatic; we were taking turns, it's nice not to have to track who went first. Then the end condition pushed it; the experience is much different if only the last player can end a close game on piles. It's not just an issue of, now it's advantageous to go last (we don't have a % there since that's not how the online games go); it's a different experience. I preferred this experience.
3) Ten years after the creation of the game, do players prefer the variant? Or are the players happy with the real rule?
Feel free to ask the players! I'm just me. It comes up periodically, that some groups prefer to finish the round. I don't have a mound of data here though, just the voices that were the loudest.
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I guess with my earlier Travelling Fair question, I meant that Travelling Fair is a good example of super +Buy being strong. The worst case is probably Priest/Watchtower/Travelling Fair, which instantly empties Copper/Curse. So is super +Buy still something that is scary with Travelling Fair?
Super +Buy is scary, but it's less scary with an Event, since we all have it all the time; it's more like a rules change than a normal card is (normal cards are also like rules changes, but). But really it's just down to, I have tried various "+1 Buy per" cards that didn't work out, and Travelling Fair seemed to work out, and there it is, continuing to work out.
You changed Commerce to "differently named" because otherwise it was too strong with Horse gainers. In retrospective, do you wish you could change Triumph as well?
No, Triumph seems good. It's much less of an issue with cards not in the set; some people might just have a few expansions including Menagerie, and would see Commerce + Horses that much more often.
Certain players on Discord have expressed confusion about being able to chain Masterminds together. In retrospective would you add "non-Duration" to Mastermind?
Not so far. I enjoyed chaining Masterminds. Online an issue is that the program doesn't distinguish your Masterminds. No such problem IRL.
Were there concerns that Goatherd may not be a good fit for Menagerie because of exile? I'm mainly asking because Night cards made Scepter not be a good fit for Nocturne.
No Goatherd seemed fine. I guess if I'd been staring at a bunch of good options I might have saved Goatherd for a later set. But Goatherd triggers off of itself, and well, a lot of games that's all it would ever get, whatever set it was in; you just don't deal out another trasher for that game. That part of Goatherd had to be compelling enough with just Goatherd and if it was then it's not so bad if the rest of the set doesn't push it.
You've said that you dislike Doctor; is it because of the randomness of trashing from the top of your deck, the wordiness (it's in competition for wordiest card in the game), or both?
Both things are bad. I like the overpay though it goes overboard to be friendly at the expense of being wordy. There was probably a better direction there. I mean really on-gain trash is done perfectly on Cemetery. But anyway. The on-play was trying to be part of a "name a card" mini-theme that only ended up on it and Journeyman, and didn't amount to giving the set any more identity. I like randomness but I don't enjoy this randomness. And then to get this patchwork of anti-fun, you just need tons of tiny text.
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What's your retrospective on Urchin costing 3? I feel like most of the complaints about Urchin are because players feel forced to open 2 Urchins and then try to randomly get Mercenary.
What are your thoughts on Swamp Hag? I think the main reason people hate it is because of the stalemates, when neither player wants to buy cards.
What are your thoughts on Magpie, specifically about how people hate that gaining more Magpies early can snowball?
What are your thoughts on Advisor? I think people hate it because at some point, they're drawing their deck anyways, so it doesn't matter which card you choose for them to discard.
Why did you make Sanctuary optional? To me it's just so much stronger than Junk Dealer, especially since it can deal with Provinces.
Whenever base set gets reprinted, will Vassal get errata to get rid of the interactions with Faithful Hound and Village Green?
In retrospect, would you make the giant $ symbols on Treasures smaller? It eats up a lot of the text box, which I'm sure is annoying with your desire to keep the font size large. Same question for the VP symbol on Victory cards.
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What's your retrospective on Urchin costing 3? I feel like most of the complaints about Urchin are because players feel forced to open 2 Urchins and then try to randomly get Mercenary.
I'm not fond of Urchin. I don't think it's just about changing the cost. It's a whole package. But, focusing on the cost, if Mercenary were something else and Urchin had to have that trigger, it would be great if it didn't cost $3, so that there was more variety to openings.
What are your thoughts on Swamp Hag? I think the main reason people hate it is because of the stalemates, when neither player wants to buy cards.
I like that it's novel, straightforward, compelling. We didn't have problems with it in playtesting. For sure the intention is not to create stalemates; to the degree that it does, that's bad.
What are your thoughts on Magpie, specifically about how people hate that gaining more Magpies early can snowball?
I still like Magpie. There are other people who like it too; it's not universally hated. The whole game snowballs. I think your opponent having most of the Magpies also feels worse than it is; a lot of them end up just cantrips that do nothing. I mean it's good to get most of the Magpies, man, I'm not saying it isn't.
What are your thoughts on Advisor? I think people hate it because at some point, they're drawing their deck anyways, so it doesn't matter which card you choose for them to discard.
I like Advisor except for how slow it can be to resolve a bunch of them. It's fine that if you're drawing your deck the choice matters less; there are still plenty of times when the choice matters.
Why did you make Sanctuary optional? To me it's just so much stronger than Junk Dealer, especially since it can deal with Provinces.
There's no special story here; it was trying to be good enough. Junk Dealer makes +$1; for a bunch of the game, that's pretty relevant, and exiling Provinces isn't.
Whenever base set gets reprinted, will Vassal get errata to get rid of the interactions with Faithful Hound and Village Green?
Uh maybe. But, separate from that, my plan is to change the rules so that you can't play a card if you can't put it into play, except for replaying cards (since otherwise players would hate me for killing Throne / Horse etc.).
In retrospect, would you make the giant $ symbols on Treasures smaller? It eats up a lot of the text box, which I'm sure is annoying with your desire to keep the font size large. Same question for the VP symbol on Victory cards.
No, but I might move them, e.g. to partially cover the art.
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Whenever base set gets reprinted, will Vassal get errata to get rid of the interactions with Faithful Hound and Village Green?
Uh maybe. But, separate from that, my plan is to change the rules so that you can't play a card if you can't put it into play, except for replaying cards (since otherwise players would hate me for killing Throne / Horse etc.).
Wait, how would that work with things like Necromancer and Command cards then? Also, is that interaction really such a problem that you'd have to kill it? :-( I rather like how Dominion can create weird effects like that
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Whenever base set gets reprinted, will Vassal get errata to get rid of the interactions with Faithful Hound and Village Green?
Uh maybe. But, separate from that, my plan is to change the rules so that you can't play a card if you can't put it into play, except for replaying cards (since otherwise players would hate me for killing Throne / Horse etc.).
Wait, how would that work with things like Necromancer and Command cards then? Also, is that interaction really such a problem that you'd have to kill it? :-( I rather like how Dominion can create weird effects like that
The cards that specifically let you play cards without putting them into play will still let you.
There are many things to like in Dominion; we do not need to cling to confusing rules corners.
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Why did you let Salt the Earth trash any Victory card? Wouldn't it be simpler to just say Province?
What's your retrospective on Procession? I really wish it got errata'd harder in 2019, because it's still one of my least favorite cards in the game. (Also I think you did a great job on Improve; it's all the fun parts of Procession without the rules/tracking issues.)
What's your retrospective on Knights being 10 different cards? And if you were to do them today, would you do them like the split piles in Empires?
When Adventures gets reprinted, will Storyteller get changed to +Cards, and will Quest get changed to prevent cheating with 2 Curses? On discord you didn't include them in the list of text changes (https://discord.com/channels/212660788786102272/212660788786102272/804827801026035772).
With Boons/Hexes, were there thoughts about having multiple copies of the same card in the deck? I think a good solution to "hexes/attacks are inevitably more complex" is to have multiple copies of Plague/Poverty etc. and just abandon Delusion/Bad Omens etc..
From a complexity standpoint, would you rather have an expansion full of Aqueducts and Ironmongers, or an expansion full of Wayfarers and Vampires? With your current large-font policy, I think you'd pick the second expansion, even though I think the first expansion is much simpler.
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It seems pretty clear why Salt The Earth allows you to trash any Victory card: for starters, it's in the same set as Castles. Also, you might want to trash Colonies instead. And saying Province wouldn't be any simpler.
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Why did you let Salt the Earth trash any Victory card? Wouldn't it be simpler to just say Province?
"Wouldn't it be simpler" just wasn't an issue there; it's a simple Event. If we'd never trashed anything but Province I might have changed it, but of course it didn't go that way. There was no pull in that direction to start with, because obv. giving you more options would make the Event less narrow.
What's your retrospective on Procession? I really wish it got errata'd harder in 2019, because it's still one of my least favorite cards in the game. (Also I think you did a great job on Improve; it's all the fun parts of Procession without the rules/tracking issues.)
Well Procession is a lot of fun. If I could change Throne Room / Feast from day one I would; that would kill e.g. Procession / Horse, but that would be fine, there are all the other fun things in the game. But people cling to these things so you can Procession a Horse. Procession often has a tracking issue, even with "non-Duration"; trashing a card that gives +$2, you have to remember the +$. These days I prefer e.g. Vault to be more like e.g. Mill - if the amount is fixed, you can tilt the card to indicate whether you got it or not. No amount of tilting tells you what Vault did for you. But, Vault doesn't ruin games, and normal non-Duration use of Procession doesn't either.
What's your retrospective on Knights being 10 different cards? And if you were to do them today, would you do them like the split piles in Empires?
The whole premise was to have it be 10 unique cards. If I were doing them today I would keep that part! I still like it. The Knights are wordier than I like, the attack is stronger than I like, and there are a few to tweak otherwise.
When Adventures gets reprinted, will Storyteller get changed to +Cards, and will Quest get changed to prevent cheating with 2 Curses? On discord you didn't include them in the list of text changes (https://discord.com/channels/212660788786102272/212660788786102272/804827801026035772).
Neither of those things changed when new images were finalized in January. I forgot about Storyteller, and I don't know that Quest ever came up. In a tournament, have the judge make sure there are two Curses; in a friendly game, they'll always show you the Curses. In the world of making sure the cards keep you honest, it's super minor.
With Boons/Hexes, were there thoughts about having multiple copies of the same card in the deck? I think a good solution to "hexes/attacks are inevitably more complex" is to have multiple copies of Plague/Poverty etc. and just abandon Delusion/Bad Omens etc..
No the premise was to have a variety of effects. If I had only had 6 effects worth doing and had somehow thought, let's do this mechanic anyway, I would have just had 6 cards, not duplicates. But I wanted 12. I think the solution to the Hexes was to not do them; attacks are just too complex in general. The Boons I am happy with though I might tweak a couple and then would do fewer Fate cards as previously discussed.
From a complexity standpoint, would you rather have an expansion full of Aqueducts and Ironmongers, or an expansion full of Wayfarers and Vampires? With your current large-font policy, I think you'd pick the second expansion, even though I think the first expansion is much simpler.
This is a question about font size? I'm not sure I understand it. Complexity is not just about font size, as if that needed saying. Vampire is the card I hold up as an example of Nocturne being too complex; to fully understand the card you need to read 18 cards. And one of the few things I'd change about Menagerie is only doing one of the alternate costs, probably Animal Fair (with 3-4 cards doing that same thing) (as always I would get to test the cards and have not put in that work, I don't know how it goes). The alternate costs were cool but are confusing, and I can address that at least some by not doing four different alternate costs at once, saving others for another day. Ironmonger and Aqueduct meanwhile do not have these issues, as you already know.
I of course don't need to make either expansion you propose. And alternate costs aside, Menagerie is full of sweetly simple cards.
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So, after all these years... What is, in fact, the question you've been asked the most in interviews?
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Are you currently working on an expansion, and if so do you think that it will be in time for a 2021 release?
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So, after all these years... What is, in fact, the question you've been asked the most in interviews?
Probably something like, "how did you think of Dominion." Altenburger had me on a monitor at Essen one year, with people able to ask me questions, and there the most common question was, "do you have any games other than Dominion." Despite Kingdom Builder having won the SdJ already. But, interviewers don't ask that one.
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Are you currently working on an expansion, and if so do you think that it will be in time for a 2021 release?
Yes, I'm still hoping for a set to be scheduled for mid-October, but then sadly be delayed until November 3rd, as usual.
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Apologies if you've already said this somewhere and I've not noticed, but...
I'm assuming knowledge that Ways were on their... way played a big part in the timing of the 2019 2019 Errata and Rules Tweaks?
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Apologies if you've already said this somewhere and I've not noticed, but...
I'm assuming knowledge that Ways were on their... way played a big part in the timing of the 2019 2019 Errata and Rules Tweaks?
I don't think so. Dropping "from the something pile" was directly due to Horses. Changing e.g. Band of Misfits was because of issues with Band of Misfits. Changing stop-moving may have been affected by cards in Menagerie, but not Ways specifically. Dropping text from Bridge was probably inspired by dropping "from the something pile." The discard pile thing may have been due to a specific card, but not Ways.
Ways are like Enchantress, which already existed. I was sure considering them when considering rules changes, but I don't think they were the impetus.
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How much are you involved with the Temple Gates version of Dominion? Answering rules questions? Testing? UI design or input?
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How much are you involved with the Temple Gates version of Dominion? Answering rules questions? Testing? UI design or input?
I'm there, trying it to the degree that I make time for it, reporting bugs, offering opinions on the UI. Answering rules questions, sure.
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Maybe you won't answer this question, but I'll give it a shot. Will there be landscape cards in the next expansion? :)
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Maybe you won't answer this question, but I'll give it a shot. Will there be landscape cards in the next expansion? :)
That is in fact the kind of question I don't answer.
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Do you know when Intrigue 2nd edition is coming out in German?
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Do you know when Intrigue 2nd edition is coming out in German?
I don't. You could ask Altenburger.
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Maybe you won't answer this question, but I'll give it a shot. Will there be landscape cards in the next expansion? :)
I can answer this question. There won't be.
But there may or may not be landscape card-shaped things.
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While it wouldn't be at all surprising to see new landscapes, if there's a new kind of landscape, we're rapidly running out of colours...
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Don't worry, I googled it and there are over 10 million colours, so unless Donald X seriously picks up the pace I don't think we'll run out of landscape colours any time soon.
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Don't worry, I googled it and there are over 10 million colours, so unless Donald X seriously picks up the pace I don't think we'll run out of landscape colours any time soon.
Too bad there are 10 million different types of landscape things in the next expansion!
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Maybe you won't answer this question, but I'll give it a shot. Will there be landscape cards in the next expansion? :)
I can answer this question. There won't be.
But there may or may not be landscape card-shaped things.
Now Donald's going to make landscape cards that are considered cards, just to prove you wrong.
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Now Donald's going to make landscape cards that are considered cards, just to prove you wrong.
My plan is working!
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There will never be a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/b/bc/Coin7.png/16px-Coin7.png) cost card; that would ruin the "so close to (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/4/47/Coin8.png/16px-Coin8.png)" thing that Dominion has.
You can't have an Action-Treasure card; it would be too confusing.
You can't make cards that retrieve cards from the trash; it's trash for a reason!
^Still somewhat convinced that Donald X designs cards by looking at what people say you can't do and saying "oh yeah?"
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Can you give away any reasons for the parting of Rio Grande and the prior German publisher Hans im Glück? I only found this BGG News post (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/11018/hans-im-gluck-changes-publishing-partners-rio-out) by W.E. Martin. To me, the official statements imply that HiG made the first step by shifting their Carcassonne license to Z-Man. I remember RGG having some issues with HiG though, like them spoiling the Hinterlands rulebook before Essen 2011. Would you say this played a role, or were there different issues in the background? Or was it just something like a financial disagreement?
I'm sorry, it's probably not a nice thing to ask about business relationships, but I thought maybe it is okay now that almost 10 years have passed. Thanks for keeping on doing the interview!
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Can you give away any reasons for the parting of Rio Grande and the prior German publisher Hans im Glück? I only found this BGG News post (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/11018/hans-im-gluck-changes-publishing-partners-rio-out) by W.E. Martin. To me, the official statements imply that HiG made the first step by shifting their Carcassonne license to Z-Man. I remember RGG having some issues with HiG though, like them spoiling the Hinterlands rulebook before Essen 2011. Would you say this played a role, or were there different issues in the background? Or was it just something like a financial disagreement?
I'm sorry, it's probably not a nice thing to ask about business relationships, but I thought maybe it is okay now that almost 10 years have passed. Thanks for keeping on doing the interview!
These all sound like questions for Jay Tummelson.
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Can you give away any reasons for the parting of Rio Grande and the prior German publisher Hans im Glück? I only found this BGG News post (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/11018/hans-im-gluck-changes-publishing-partners-rio-out) by W.E. Martin. To me, the official statements imply that HiG made the first step by shifting their Carcassonne license to Z-Man. I remember RGG having some issues with HiG though, like them spoiling the Hinterlands rulebook before Essen 2011. Would you say this played a role, or were there different issues in the background? Or was it just something like a financial disagreement?
I'm sorry, it's probably not a nice thing to ask about business relationships, but I thought maybe it is okay now that almost 10 years have passed. Thanks for keeping on doing the interview!
It was nothing to do with me or Dominion. They disagreed about money somewhere, I don't remember exact details. Someone thought someone owed them, the other thought no they didn't, something like that. I don't know who I would say was right if I had all the information. Somehow they reached a conclusive "this will not be solved" and stopped working together. Carcassonne did shift before Dominion, but it shifting was just a symptom, not a cause. At most it just indicated HiG being confident the problem would not be solved. Dominion moved to Altenburger, who had been printing it before for HiG. Later HiG checked to see if I would move Dominion to them, but RGG hadn't done anything wrong by me and I'm true to my school.
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Will Gamble have its wording changed to "Discard the top card of your deck. If it's an Action or Treasure, you may play it" with the new rule about only being able to play cards if you can move them to the play area? I think the only card it affects is Patron
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Will Gamble have its wording changed to "Discard the top card of your deck. If it's an Action or Treasure, you may play it" with the new rule about only being able to play cards if you can move them to the play area? I think the only card it affects is Patron
I don't have to rule out changing it, but haven't given it any thought, and don't feel obligated. It changes other things, it means you can trigger e.g. Faithful Hound.
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Hypothetically, if Miser were not in Adventures, would you put it in Menagerie using Exile instead of the tavern mat?
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Will you ever stop doing expansions? Please no
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He stopped doing expansions after Dark Ages. Adventures, Empires, Nocturne, Renaissance and Menagerie are anomalies. (-8
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Hypothetically, if Miser were not in Adventures, would you put it in Menagerie using Exile instead of the tavern mat?
Something like that could have tried out for Menagerie. It was sure nothing particular about the Tavern mat.
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Will you ever stop doing expansions? Please no
"Will he always have that cough?" "Not always," said the doctor.
I continue to desperately want to make Other Games. I was working on several when the pandemic hit; then, somehow Dominion was what could move forward, and so it has. There is more Dominion to come, but the plan continues to be to not work on it to the exclusion of all other projects. But, long-term, well long-term who knows, but they're fun projects; a big thing is, how much do people still want them. There is a lot of Dominion already.
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Well I mean aren't there still many people wanting them?
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Will you ever stop doing expansions? Please no
As far as I'm aware, Donald X is mortal, so he can't do this forever
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Yes sure he can't do them forever but it would be great if he releases like 1 expansions every 2 years or so. But of course I can't tell Donald what to do with his life, he already did 13 of them and thanks for that
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But of course I can't tell Donald what to do with his life, he already did 13 of them
What were your previous incarnations like, Donald?
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As far as I'm aware, Donald X is mortal, so he can't do this forever
On current statistics, only 93% of people die. He might get lucky...
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But of course I can't tell Donald what to do with his life, he already did 13 of them
What were your previous incarnations like, Donald?
One word: nirvana.
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93% of people die
Dying is more skippable than people think.
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As far as I'm aware, Donald X is mortal, so he can't do this forever
On current statistics, only 93% of people die. He might get lucky...
Fun fact, this is actually true.
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Since you've abandoned the idea of "all non-Supply cards cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/a/ae/Coin0star.png/16px-Coin0star.png)," how much would the Prizes cost if you made Tournament nowadays?
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Since you've abandoned the idea of "all non-Supply cards cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/a/ae/Coin0star.png/16px-Coin0star.png)," how much would the Prizes cost if you made Tournament nowadays?
Probably $7*.
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I imagine the use of "2+" on Devil's Workshop was just to fit the text at the largest font size, but have you considered using it it on other cards as well (e.g. "each other player with 5+ cards in hand")?
Why isn't Experiment just "+3 Cards, +1 Action, return to the supply?" Why does it need the bottom part at all? Similar question with Port. "It works with Academy and Adventures tokens" doesn't seem like a good enough reason.
Do you think Capitalism should say "non-Duration?" You'd fix a bunch of "removing Treasure-Durations from play" problems with Counterfeit/Mint/Mandarin/etc., if Capitalism just didn't let it happen at all.
Do you still think Chariot Race should be in Empires? Having a card that compares costs, in an expansion with debt cards, seems like asking for trouble among casual players. (Kind of like how in the D&D Mtg expansion, people weren't able to tell the difference between flavor and ability words, and Mark Rosewater said that it was a lesson (https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/657527640348114944/why-did-you-choose-to-have-a-single-ability-word#notes) in having both be in the same set.)
Do you feel like recent cards have gotten too...generous I guess? For example, Imps and Will-o'-Wisps have challenges around them to be a Lab, and then Horses just work in every deck (and the fact that Horses are temporary doesn't mean much when you're playing multiple Paddocks every turn).
And is Hunting Lodge too good? I don't like how it's optional, when compared to Scholar and Cursed Village. It even made it onto your list (https://discord.com/channels/212660788786102272/212660788786102272/710358938947944469) of "most likely to be too strong" when you finalized Menagerie.
About the font-size question (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg871096#msg871096) I asked like a month ago, a convenient example about me not fully on-board with your policy is Gamble. The use of "otherwise" instead of a better wording seems like a mistake. We'll most likely disagree here, but I would have preferred slightly longer and shrunken text instead of the current wording. There are certainly times where I think being as concise as possible is correct (like Fleet), but not for Gamble.
Thanks for answering my questions; as a game design major, your posts and Dominion are very inspirational and educational to me.
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Why isn't Experiment just "+3 Cards, +1 Action, return to the supply?" Why does it need the bottom part at all? Similar question with Port. "It works with Academy and Adventures tokens" doesn't seem like a good enough reason.
Not all decks are thinned so much that you can always have both Experiments in the same hand, so 2 Experiments are frequently not the same as the card you describe.
Additionally, there's a bunch of cases beyond Academy and tokens that would care about multiple cards: trash for benefit probably being the most ubiquitous, but also cards that care about number of gains, etc.
And, I don't know if this is true or not, but my guess is that BOGO village was Port's whole shtick, so without the "when you buy this" trigger, it likely wouldn't have enough reason to exist.
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I imagine the use of "2+" on Devil's Workshop was just to fit the text at the largest font size, but have you considered using it it on other cards as well (e.g. "each other player with 5+ cards in hand")?
I've done it in the prototype. On published cards we are as boringly clear as possible.
Why isn't Experiment just "+3 Cards, +1 Action, return to the supply?" Why does it need the bottom part at all? Similar question with Port. "It works with Academy and Adventures tokens" doesn't seem like a good enough reason.
This possibility did not escape me. It was more interesting to have it be two cards. If I hadn't had the wording I did it might have just ended up as a single "+3 Cards" Horse, but I did have the wording, and got to do the more interesting card. Having them be two cards is different lots of ways.
Do you think Capitalism should say "non-Duration?" You'd fix a bunch of "removing Treasure-Durations from play" problems with Counterfeit/Mint/Mandarin/etc., if Capitalism just didn't let it happen at all.
These seem like pretty obscure problems, whereas Capitalism would be failing to spice up Durations with +$ all the time.
Do you still think Chariot Race should be in Empires? Having a card that compares costs, in an expansion with debt cards, seems like asking for trouble among casual players. (Kind of like how in the D&D Mtg expansion, people weren't able to tell the difference between flavor and ability words, and Mark Rosewater said that it was a lesson (https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/657527640348114944/why-did-you-choose-to-have-a-single-ability-word#notes) in having both be in the same set.)
I think they did blow it on pack tactics, and I am still fine with Chariot Race in Empires, and don't find these things especially comparable.
Cards that look at cost are common. People were going to have to know that you can't gain Engineer with e.g. Engineer, and so on.
Do you feel like recent cards have gotten too...generous I guess? For example, Imps and Will-o'-Wisps have challenges around them to be a Lab, and then Horses just work in every deck (and the fact that Horses are temporary doesn't mean much when you're playing multiple Paddocks every turn).
You aren't comparing anything meaningful there. You can't buy those cards. The question is all about how "generous" Devil's Workshop and Hostelry and so on are.
As always Dominion has nothing to gain from "power creep," no incentive towards it; thus there is no trend towards it, beyond the "hey where are all the utter duds" trend.
And is Hunting Lodge too good? I don't like how it's optional, when compared to Scholar and Cursed Village. It even made it onto your list (https://discord.com/channels/212660788786102272/212660788786102272/710358938947944469) of "most likely to be too strong" when you finalized Menagerie.
At this point, this is a question for someone else. You can chat with top players on the discord and see if they think Hunting Lodge is too good. I don't keep testing the cards once they're out; I'm testing other cards or other games. Hunting Lodge will show up sometimes but you know, new insights will be slow there. Whereas there is tons of data from people playing online.
About the font-size question (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg871096#msg871096) I asked like a month ago, a convenient example about me not fully on-board with your policy is Gamble. The use of "otherwise" instead of a better wording seems like a mistake. We'll most likely disagree here, but I would have preferred slightly longer and shrunken text instead of the current wording. There are certainly times where I think being as concise as possible is correct (like Fleet), but not for Gamble.
There is the policy of not making new cards that require a small font; that doesn't seem at issue here. Then there's, trying to make cards that are borderline fit by giving them not-quite-perfect wordings. That may be a mistake. But the fix isn't necessarily to use the small font; usually it would be, to not do that card.
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the fix isn't necessarily to use the small font; usually it would be, to not do that card.
Or do it slightly differently -- like for Gamble, removing the "you may" choice would be simple and flavorful to its name. As a bonus it would make resolution quicker (less Scrying Pool-like)
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Why is the Supply the only "zone" in the game that's capitalized? And why is the trash not capitalized?
Why is Exiling cards capitalized? It always looked weird to me that of all the verbs in the game (gain, draw, etc.), Exile was the only one that's capitalized.
Why is it a Triumphal Arch and not just an Arch? And why is it a Defiled Shrine and not just a Shrine?
Would you still put Enchantress/Archive in Empires, and Cargo Ship/Research in Renaissance? I feel like if I only had 2 awesome Duration cards that didn't require the set's mechanics, I would just save them for a future set, with more Duration cards? Kind of like how you said that Flag Bearer and Swashbuckler could have been saved for a future set, when you had more Artifacts that were worthwhile.
What are your thoughts on the recent Command-like cards? Obviously the original versions of Inheritance and Band of Misfits were a mistake, but I think Necromancer, Captain, and Mouse may be the perfect example of "it's nowhere near simple, but it fits the text box so it still gets printed."
What cards were you surprised to learn were controversial and frequently-banned (Invest is a good example)? There are cards where you knew beforehand that some people would hate (like Knights), so I'm curious about the opposite.
[Knights] are for the people who like this kind of thing, and well some people adore them, slower game and all. Some people are all, my cards, my precious cards, and well there are plenty of other cards in the set for those guys.
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Why is the Supply the only "zone" in the game that's capitalized? And why is the trash not capitalized?
Possibly trash the-place should be capitalized. This is one of those things that just happened, it wasn't super thought-through.
Why is Exiling cards capitalized? It always looked weird to me that of all the verbs in the game (gain, draw, etc.), Exile was the only one that's capitalized.
It's just to try to make the cards as readable as possible. It was a question when making Renaissance and that's how it went. It's an expansion-specific word.
Why is it a Triumphal Arch and not just an Arch? And why is it a Defiled Shrine and not just a Shrine?
In the long run I haven't done enough adjectiving; the name space gets tight when you make so many expansions. Adjectives can also help with making it easier to remember what the cards do, with making the names more of a match for the functionality. And they're flavorful. So really it's the opposite; why so many non-adjectived nouns? But then it's nice to have terse names too.
In these particular cases, a Triumphal Arch is a thing, that was the concept, not just an arch. Defiled Shrine was the concept there too. I don't think a plain Shrine would involve buying a Curse.
Would you still put Enchantress/Archive in Empires, and Cargo Ship/Research in Renaissance? I feel like if I only had 2 awesome Duration cards that didn't require the set's mechanics, I would just save them for a future set, with more Duration cards? Kind of like how you said that Flag Bearer and Swashbuckler could have been saved for a future set, when you had more Artifacts that were worthwhile.
Originally all sets from Seaside on were going to have Duration cards; Fishing Village for example was from Prosperity. This didn't happen because of how things went down for Valerie with Seaside; she didn't like Duration cards, and spent a couple pages on the rules for them. My rulebook only spends a short paragraph on Durations, and I like them, and they are very popular with players. They open up card possibilities significantly, especially for Attacks. So, I'm happy having a couple nice ones in an expansion like that, and always have been. And it's no trouble, it's easy to make them.
Artifacts meanwhile were a new thing that was hard to get right. Waiting might have let me get to five good cards to do for them.
What are your thoughts on the recent Command-like cards? Obviously the original versions of Inheritance and Band of Misfits were a mistake, but I think Necromancer, Captain, and Mouse may be the perfect example of "it's nowhere near simple, but it fits the text box so it still gets printed."
I'm not quite sure what you mean. "It fits the text box" isn't the only criteria for how complex a card is, or what justifies making it to print.
Sometimes fun cards make it out because of how fun they are, despite issues. There are some examples! Band of Misfits left Dark Ages due to its rules issues; it came back because people missed it. People liked it when it came out, and often it's not tricky. The original version was a mistake, but I'm not sure that the tweaked version is. It's not the kind of thing I want to do lots of, but it's fun.
Way of the Mouse had the significant issue of, all the other Ways are intentionally worse than whatever non-awful $2 you might buy, but this isn't. It was fun. There wasn't a fix. There it is, spicing up games.
What cards were you surprised to learn were controversial and frequently-banned (Invest is a good example)? There are cards where you knew beforehand that some people would hate (like Knights), so I'm curious about the opposite.
[Knights] are for the people who like this kind of thing, and well some people adore them, slower game and all. Some people are all, my cards, my precious cards, and well there are plenty of other cards in the set for those guys.
In the early days I didn't realize that people would hate "it attacks but doesn't make resources" (Saboteur and Sea Hag, both of which have other problems too). I didn't anticipate hate for Black Market; it's super-fun.
Is Invest so controversial? I think there are just a few discord people who speak out against it. Here's where it lies in the banned lists:
58 [OVERLORD]
61 [VINEYARD, WEREWOLF, CAPTAIN]
62 [SALT_THE_EARTH, INVEST]
63 [ANNEX]
65 [CONSPIRATOR]
It's that card people hate, like they hate Vineyard and Conspirator.
As it happens it's also on 62 Liked lists (also this data is several months old).
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In hindsight, would you have given one of the Supply cards +buy (e.g. Gold)?
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In hindsight, would you have given one of the Supply cards +buy (e.g. Gold)?
No. The intention is that not every game has each basic element.
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You've mentioned that you're hoping to get a set out in October-November. Other expansions released around then (Nocturne + Renaissance) were officially announced the first week of August. Can we expect to see an announcement for this mysterious next set sometime soon?
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You've mentioned that you're hoping to get a set out in October-November. Other expansions released around then (Nocturne + Renaissance) were officially announced the first week of August. Can we expect to see an announcement for this mysterious next set sometime soon?
I'll know about the announcement at the same time as everyone else. It's not a carefully orchestrated thing, it's just kind of random.
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Other expansions released around then (Nocturne + Renaissance) were officially announced the first week of August. Can we expect to see an announcement for this mysterious next set sometime soon?
Newsletter was released yesterday https://www.riograndegames.com/2021/08/summer-2021-newsletter-now-available/ (https://www.riograndegames.com/2021/08/summer-2021-newsletter-now-available/) and Dominion is till under the codename.
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Other expansions released around then (Nocturne + Renaissance) were officially announced the first week of August. Can we expect to see an announcement for this mysterious next set sometime soon?
Newsletter was released yesterday https://www.riograndegames.com/2021/08/summer-2021-newsletter-now-available/ (https://www.riograndegames.com/2021/08/summer-2021-newsletter-now-available/) and Dominion is till under the codename.
I mean, if it’s one of the codenames it’s gotta be “project over yonder” right?
Fire bird, twister, hook, and gps don’t sound very Dominiony to me.
Maybe Dominion Abroad? Just a guess.
Donald X., do they get your approval for finished/drafted art? Have you ever rejected a piece of artwork? What’s your role besides sending notes to the artist before they make anything?
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Given that apparently sets with the same name as previous cards are now a thing, it could be Dominion: Distant Lands.
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Donald X., do they get your approval for finished/drafted art? Have you ever rejected a piece of artwork? What’s your role besides sending notes to the artist before they make anything?
These days I also get to see sketches, which sometimes I complain about (and they sketch again), and "final" art, which I rarely do (though I have).
I try to be friendly, to mostly let the artist draw whatever. The complaints tend to be like "people will complain that they can't tell that that's a woman so it must be a man and why aren't there more women, but it's not that we're asking for cleavage," and "they didn't have windows like that in medieval times." And sometimes the final art has a person that's supposed to be a woman but people decide must be a man and wow these guys suck for not having more women, and sometimes the final art has windows that they didn't have in medieval times.
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Given that apparently sets with the same name as previous cards are now a thing, it could be Dominion: Distant Lands.
Dominion: Mine
"Which expansion do you want to play?"
"Mine"
"Yes, but which one of yours?"
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You've mentioned that you're hoping to get a set out in October-November. Other expansions released around then (Nocturne + Renaissance) were officially announced the first week of August. Can we expect to see an announcement for this mysterious next set sometime soon?
I'll know about the announcement at the same time as everyone else. It's not a carefully orchestrated thing, it's just kind of random.
Will it still be this year, though? I think lots of people out there are very excited for the next expansion.
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Will it still be this year, though? I think lots of people out there are very excited for the next expansion.
The future can foil your plans, but right now the card images have a 2021 date on them. Art is still not all in. The big question though is shipping. I have no further information there.
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Is there any information you can give to the New Expansion? (Name, Nummer of cards, New plannde mechanics… evt?)
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Is there any information you can give to the New Expansion? (Name, Nummer of cards, New plannde mechanics… evt?)
probably just the usual: it will come with over 30 cards total, it will have a vaccuum-plastic tray, it will come in a cardboard box and shrinkwrap, and be made by rio grande games.
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Is there any information you can give to the New Expansion? (Name, Nummer of cards, New plannde mechanics… evt?)
We now expect the expansion out in January. This is just due to when we could get it printed.
The usual terse description will come out at some point from RGG, and then someone will see it and post it. As always I leave these things up to the publisher.
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January? Fingers crossed I resume playing board games face to face with a backlog of only one Dominion expansion, then!
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Dominion Allies has just been announced http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20910.0
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How soon will Allies be available to play online?
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How soon will Allies be available to play online?
No sooner than physical copies are available (but possibly exactly that soon).
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Long time reader, first time asker.
1) What's the reason for the new errata replacing "While this is in play" with "This turn"?
2) Will Goons get "This turn" too?
Thanks a bunch!
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1) What's the reason for the new errata replacing "While this is in play" with "This turn"?
2) Will Goons get "This turn" too?
It's all about simplicity. "This turn" is easier for players than "while this is in play."
Merchant Guild is getting this errata, whenever Mixed Box next gets printed. That's the only thing official currently. Merchant Guild needed errata anyway, to deal with the Coffers rules change (which is also about simplicity). People know about Merchant Guild because the Temple Gates Games version of Dominion is only ever going to have the new Coffers rule, so it needed the Merchant Guild (and Patron) errata immediately.
Specific wordings of other cards will remain a mystery for now. I didn't forget about Goons, I didn't just scribble some text on it and figure it would be fine with no testing and then move on.
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I didn't forget about Goons, I didn't just scribble some text on it and figure it would be fine with no testing and then move on.
Perish the thought! I fully trust any changes you make, as always.
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What will the symbol be for Allies?
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What will the symbol be for Allies?
This certainly comes close to being something I'd actually answer about an unreleased expansion. I'm still measuring it as over the line though.
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Sooo, what about the preview schedule? :)
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what's your go-to dish for thanksgiving (either cooking or eating)?
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Sooo, what about the preview schedule? :)
When the expansion is printed ("early December"), we'll have a better idea of when it will get to stores, which will determine when the previews are.
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what's your go-to dish for thanksgiving (either cooking or eating)?
I like the idea of holidays like "on this day, eat foods native to the Americas," but have not had any specific involvement with it.
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Any news about when the previews will be online, or when the expansion will be available?
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Any news about when the previews will be online, or when the expansion will be available?
The short answer is "no", but here's the thread where everybody else is asking that: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20910.0
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How do you feel about the Allies cards leak?
Will it affect the previews you do (or if you do them?) I am hopeful it will not affect them because I enjoy those previews and basically ignored the leak.
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Royal Seal looks even weaker now that there is Kerstball. Did you ever consider buff Royal Seal or do you think its still fine?
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How do you feel about the Allies cards leak?
It's not so bad really. It's a bummer that then the set was delayed ~2 months.
Will it affect the previews you do (or if you do them?) I am hopeful it will not affect them because I enjoy those previews and basically ignored the leak.
It hasn't affected previews (which I'd already written).
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Royal Seal looks even weaker now that there is Kerstball. Did you ever consider buff Royal Seal or do you think its still fine?
The opportunity cost is clearly too high for Royal Seal. Otherwise it's nice; I'd like it in my deck, I just won't have time to get it.
Obv. other cards have revisited the premise over the years.
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Do you think King's Court would have been better off costing Debt? (and moved to a an expansion with Debt, of course)
Thanks in advance!
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Do you think King's Court would have been better off costing Debt? (and moved to a an expansion with Debt, of course)
No! Probably not. Maybe it would work out; I haven't done any testing there. I guess the one thing you can say is, it's cheating, it lets me retest the card and cost it differently, so it will come out better. But you know if Debt had been in Prosperity, I don't imagine it would have made the difference for King's Court.
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Did you consider making a blanket rule for situations where if a card instructs you to do something with your hand and you can't, you reveal your hand to show that you can't? (e.g. first edition Throne Room)
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Did you consider making a blanket rule for situations where if a card instructs you to do something with your hand and you can't, you reveal your hand to show that you can't? (e.g. first edition Throne Room)
I've considered it, but it doesn't seem worth it for how rarely it comes up. It would be nice to snip all those words from a few cards though.
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I find Horse is very well-named for a card that shows up a lot: it creates a ton of humourous sentences when used with other things. "I Exorcise my Horse", "my Horse will dig like a Mole", even simple things like Knights killing Horses, etc. Was this a consideration at all?
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I find Horse is very well-named for a card that shows up a lot: it creates a ton of humourous sentences when used with other things. "I Exorcise my Horse", "my Horse will dig like a Mole", even simple things like Knights killing Horses, etc. Was this a consideration at all?
I tried to have a good name for the card, but it wasn't based on considering lots of interactions, just the basic functionality and having cards that made them.
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Has it become harder to name cards as you've already used a lot of the obvious names? And do you make heavy use of a thesaurus for variants of existing cards (remodel variants, etc)?
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Has it become harder to name cards as you've already used a lot of the obvious names? And do you make heavy use of a thesaurus for variants of existing cards (remodel variants, etc)?
It's gotten harder, without resorting to longer names. I do use a thesaurus and also a word menu.
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Is there a place where I can read your opinions on electoral reforms? I watched the youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojwlHtMs-qs) and I'd love to hear/read more!
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Is there a place where I can read your opinions on electoral reforms? I watched the youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojwlHtMs-qs) and I'd love to hear/read more!
There is a place here where I crossposted a speech about my best voting reform. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14544.msg655961#msg655961
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I do like that system. One downside is that it incentivizes voter suppression even more than the current system since every vote you stop for the opposing party makes that party weaker in the legislature, but hey some parties will already suppress voters to the maximum extent they can get away with anyway, so maybe that's a wash.
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I do like that system. One downside is that it incentivizes voter suppression even more than the current system since every vote you stop for the opposing party makes that party weaker in the legislature, but hey some parties will already suppress voters to the maximum extent they can get away with anyway, so maybe that's a wash.
Maybe I don't really follow you. You're saying that, by making votes more meaningful, it makes it more useful to somehow get rid of votes? I mean of course. And if you keep someone alive, there are more opportunities to kill them, and so on.
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I do like that system. One downside is that it incentivizes voter suppression even more than the current system since every vote you stop for the opposing party makes that party weaker in the legislature, but hey some parties will already suppress voters to the maximum extent they can get away with anyway, so maybe that's a wash.
Maybe I don't really follow you. You're saying that, by making votes more meaningful, it makes it more useful to somehow get rid of votes? I mean of course. And if you keep someone alive, there are more opportunities to kill them, and so on.
The contrapositive of course is that you can get rid of all voter suppression by simply removing voting and appointing dictators!
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Is there a place where I can read your opinions on electoral reforms? I watched the youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojwlHtMs-qs) and I'd love to hear/read more!
There is a place here where I crossposted a speech about my best voting reform. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14544.msg655961#msg655961
This does seem really interesting. I think the one issue I notice is that in places without mandatory voting, you'll have very different election turnouts in different districts. A candidate who is a huge polling frontrunner in one district, for example, might suppress turnout for their whole election, and therefore have reduced power in the legislature. In another district, a close race between two candidates could inflate turnout and give both "winners" more voting power than the candidate in the first district, despite being less popular. The dynamics that result in total number of votes for a candidate are not necessarily comparable between representatives who didn't run directly against each other. It reminds me a little of why looking at total VP across multiple games is a bad tiebreaker in Dominion tournaments.
On the other hand, you might expect voter behavior to change based on a widespread understanding of how the new system works, and so maybe turnout would be pretty high overall.
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I also like this idea of a system. It provides representation per person very well, though it couldn't be used for the Senate very well because you can't combine states without running into problems (the Senate is for representation by state, not by population), which instant-runoff voting would do better at because it allows for people to vote for third parties without "wasting" their vote, which would provide more parties and candidates (more bits to compress into). Another significant problem with this system is that it still keeps a roughly two party system though it is slightly better at it than our current system. Than again, the two voting systems could be combined, say if your party got less than 15% of the total vote, your vote counts for a different candidate, allowing support for third parties to rack up without actually getting in to the House. This is very interesting to think about.
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What made you decide to make seaside 2e after making the last 2e around 5 years ago and saying that there wouldn't be any more?
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What made you decide to make seaside 2e after making the last 2e around 5 years ago and saying that there wouldn't be any more?
I bet I mostly said "who knows, maybe someday, but no plans now." If not then I certainly should have; I have been taught repeatedly by the Dominion community that I do not know the future. Well really, I should have just repeated how that's not a topic I can talk about, because if I'm willing to say "no" then if I ever don't say it you'll know that it's "yes," and if I say "yes" then it actually delays the product coming out (since it can't come out until existing stock runs out) (existing stock ran out, we are just waiting on printing and shipping).
Anyway. It still sounded good when I abandoned doing it, but what can you do.
I was working on non-Dominion projects just prior to the pandemic. During the even-more-locked-down part of the pandemic, I could get Dominion playtested, so I worked on Dominion. I made some cards and then more cards and then I had an expansion. Doing this work gave me renewed interest in doing Seaside 2E. Mostly it was just that, but also, there were some cards that could have gone into a hypothetical Seaside 2E, that reminded me of it. I talked to Jay and he okayed it.
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Can we play with the cards removed from the second edition of Seaside on Dominion Online? Maybe with a check parameter to add them?
Lookout is my favorite card from this expansion (and maybe more again). I'm really sad for her... :(
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Can we play with the cards removed from the second edition of Seaside on Dominion Online? Maybe with a check parameter to add them?
That's up to Shuffle IT and TGG, but so far I think they both plan to continue supporting the removed cards. On Shuffle IT - again this is just my understanding and it's up to them - the cards won't be used for automatch, but can be turned on somewhere for special tables.
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Is it possible that we are gonna get more reserve cards in the future? They are my favorite type of card
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Is it possible that we are gonna get more reserve cards in the future? They are my favorite type of card
Can I re-ask this question but with a broader scope, are there mechanics that you’ve done in previous expansions that have been iconic of that expansion that you’d like to revisit? I liked reserve, travellers were interesting, projects, landmarks and ways are super interesting, are there mechanics that you would revisit for future cards? And are there any you vow never to do again?
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Is it possible that we are gonna get more reserve cards in the future? They are my favorite type of card
Can I re-ask this question but with a broader scope, are there mechanics that you’ve done in previous expansions that have been iconic of that expansion that you’d like to revisit? I liked reserve, travellers were interesting, projects, landmarks and ways are super interesting, are there mechanics that you would revisit for future cards? And are there any you vow never to do again?
Not happening:
- Potions - There are always people who speak up to say how they want more, but mostly people didn't like them, and they don't do anything essential for me.
- Hexes - They are just asking too much, horrendously slowing down games with casual players.
Unlikely:
- Ruins - You need to include 50 cards to handle 6 players. That's a lot to ask of an expansion.
- Heirlooms - Naturally there can only be 7. Of course I could add a rule for "what if there are 8 of these" in order to do more.
- Boons - I think they were worth doing but I should have only done say 5 cards with them. They weren't received well enough to want to try to find more to do with them.
- Artifacts - They sound fine, but it was work to get 5 I could live with.
The space for possible new Events, Projects, and Landmarks is not impressive. However any new expansion could also have some other new thing that adds some space, e.g. if Renaissance had had Events there could have been ones that involved the tokens or an Artifact.
Overpay is unlikely except that I could do like one overpay card somewhere. It sets you up to have a way-too-wordy card, but if the top can be vanilla then it could be okay.
A lot of the set mechanics can just appear in any set on a few cards, and have: victory cards that do things, choose ones, durations, $7's, treasures that do things, care about variety or provide it, when-gain, when-trash, care about the trash, split piles. Then there are mechanics that require tokens or extra cards or mats, which will only appear as larger hunks of a set. And well then there's Night, I would want to have a bunch of that in order to include rules for it.
I would probably put Travellers as unlikely, since they take up a lot of space, are complex, and are difficult to balance. And Shelters too. I would also expect very recent mechanics (like coffers) to not return for a while.
My personal vote for returning mechanics are Spoils and Journey token. Those mechanics only have 3 cards each, and if VP tokens had more life to them than Monument, Bishop, and Goons, why not Spoils/Journey.
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Is it possible that we are gonna get more reserve cards in the future? They are my favorite type of card
I actually tested some for Allies. That story has to wait though (we'll just put it on the mat until a future turn).
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Are card designs ever constrained by how difficult they would be to implement online?
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Can I re-ask this question but with a broader scope, are there mechanics that you’ve done in previous expansions that have been iconic of that expansion that you’d like to revisit? I liked reserve, travellers were interesting, projects, landmarks and ways are super interesting, are there mechanics that you would revisit for future cards? And are there any you vow never to do again?
The post quoted by DZ seems to cover the older sets. Many mechanics could return; some would require a lot of weight behind them due to the extra components they require. I'm not going to say "I'd especially like to do this one"; it's not news to ever put out there before blurbs or previews.
From Menagerie, Ways would be tricky to revisit because I'd want a bunch. Maybe I'd have a bunch though, I don't have to rule that out. Horses requires including the pile; exile requires the mat. You could certainly do more with them though.
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Are card designs ever constrained by how difficult they would be to implement online?
There's not zero concern there, especially when it's just, use this card wording instead of this one. It's a low priority; not zero concern though.
Changeling came out with no regard for how online would deal with it, and was tricky.
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Is it possible that we are gonna get more reserve cards in the future? They are my favorite type of card
I actually tested some for Allies. That story has to wait though (we'll just put it on the mat until a future turn).
Happy to hear that there is a chance they will get revisited in the future, reserves are really cool
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So with Seaside 2nd E. on the rise, does that mean all the original Dominions will get a 2nd Edition?
And if, do they follow the actual order? In that case Alchemy would be next, what I´d pretty much like to see happen.
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So with Seaside 2nd E. on the rise, does that mean all the original Dominions will get a 2nd Edition?
And if, do they follow the actual order? In that case Alchemy would be next, what I´d pretty much like to see happen.
What made you decide to make seaside 2e after making the last 2e around 5 years ago and saying that there wouldn't be any more?
I bet I mostly said "who knows, maybe someday, but no plans now." If not then I certainly should have; I have been taught repeatedly by the Dominion community that I do not know the future. Well really, I should have just repeated how that's not a topic I can talk about, because if I'm willing to say "no" then if I ever don't say it you'll know that it's "yes," and if I say "yes" then it actually delays the product coming out (since it can't come out until existing stock runs out) (existing stock ran out, we are just waiting on printing and shipping).
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So with Seaside 2nd E. on the rise, does that mean all the original Dominions will get a 2nd Edition?
And if, do they follow the actual order? In that case Alchemy would be next, what I´d pretty much like to see happen.
Alchemy 2E has basically no hope. And an Alchemy sequel is about as likely as a return to Kamigawa, oh wait that example doesn't work anymore. Uh it's about as likely as a new expansion with Hexes.
I guess Prosperity, Dark Ages, and Guilds/Cornucopia have enough cards to cut, but I bet those would be years off.
The problem with Hinterlands is that many of the cards just want tweaks (like giving +Buy to Cache), and that's not a good fit for a 2E. Maybe one day it'll happen, but it's pretty unlikely. Of course there are some cards that can't be fixed with simple tweaks, like Oracle. (If Donald X. doesn't even play with a card anymore, you can bet that it's dead.)
The obv. next question is, would base set or Intrigue ever need a 3rd edition. Hey if you squint hard enough, there are a lot of potential candidates to cut from the base set (Harbinger, Merchant, Bureaucrat, Council Room, Mine, Sentry, Witch) and Intrigue (Baron, Harem, Trading Post, Minion, Mining Village). But I'm not holding my breath for any 3Es.
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Is there really a new set coming after Allies so fast?😳
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Is there really a new set coming after Allies so fast?😳
If you mean Seaside 2E, then yes. It's just based on stock running out.
If you mean the next expansion, then, we haven't set a date yet.
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Is there really a new set coming after Allies so fast?😳
If you mean Seaside 2E, then yes. It's just based on stock running out.
If you mean the next expansion, then, we haven't set a date yet.
I meant the next expansion, because If I am not wrong you said on discord that you are working on a new expansion, and I was suprised that you have already started another one(which is great btw), and then I thought that the set can't be so long away since you have already started working on it.
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Do you think you'll ever take a small set and expand it for a 2E?
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Do you think you'll ever take a small set and expand it for a 2E?
I don't need to rule it out, but can't speculate about it.
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Why do you opt for multi-word card names when it's possible to use one of the words? Do you want to save the simpler names for cards that are more fitting?
Coastal Haven -- Coast
Peaceful Cult -- Cult
League of Bankers -- Bankers
(Another note about card names: Swap could have been Barter, which is more thematic. But you can use Barter on a future card.)
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Why do you opt for multi-word card names when it's possible to use one of the words? Do you want to save the simpler names for cards that are more fitting?
Coastal Haven -- Coast
Peaceful Cult -- Cult
League of Bankers -- Bankers
There's no one rule here. It's nice to have short names. In the long run they all get used up and you need longer names. Sometimes the longer name is better if there aren't variations on it that are shorter. In the case of Allies, the names being longer help make them go together, and in some cases help identify them as Allies.
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It seems like with every expansion, there are more potentials for complicated things. E.g., nowadays you can play arbitrary action cards on your opponent's turn via reaction + way of the mouse
How much do you care about stuff like that? Would it be worth not doing Way of the Mouse? Are there cards that never saw the light of day because they could cause too much complexity in some rare edge case? Or is it a nonissue because it's so rare
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Do you still like Exorcist being a Night card? I guess Ghost already makes you have to learn what Night means, but I think Exorcist as a non-terminal Action would be totally fine.
What's your retrospective on Night cards? I'm surprised that a decent amount of people hated them (or maybe that hate is grouped with the Boon/Hex hate).
Do you still like Tournament and its Prizes after all these years?
What are your thoughts on Talisman? You've said before that it wanted to be better (with e.g. VP cards), but honestly I think it's too strong and annoying when it's good.
Why does Merchant Guild now care about cards gained? I know (and agree) that when-buy effects are bad, but counting the number of cards bought in a turn seems fine? Or is it about how regular people may not understand that buying an Event/Project isn't the same as buying a card?
Why does Reap copy Summon's wording, when it's confusing with stop-moving? I feel like you successfully fixed the concept with Demand, but then Reap still came out.
I won't ask too many questions about Allies cards (I'll wait until after the secret history), but will Catacombs get errata to get rid of the pointless and confusing interaction with Elder?
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Do you still like Exorcist being a Night card? I guess Ghost already makes you have to learn what Night means, but I think Exorcist as a non-terminal Action would be totally fine.
I'm still happy with Exorcist as-is.
What's your retrospective on Night cards? I'm surprised that a decent amount of people hated them (or maybe that hate is grouped with the Boon/Hex hate).
I'm still happy with Night in general; as I've said many times, I wouldn't do Hexes, they are too over-the-top complex. I'd still do Boons. I'd break the set up into two sets too, which would be something like:
- Nocturne - Night, spirits, wishes
- other set - Boons, Heirlooms, Celtic flavor
And then I'd use the spirits and wishes on more cards.
I haven't done the work and so don't know specifics there really.
Do you still like Tournament and its Prizes after all these years?
I still like the premise. Tournament has a way way better love/hate ratio than e.g. Possession. And I mean it's fun, there, I said it.
Tournament as implemented is crazy complex - consider a 2x2 payoff grid, now read 5 more cards. The two concepts should have been on different cards. And then the Prizes themselves are of course imbalanced.
What are your thoughts on Talisman? You've said before that it wanted to be better (with e.g. VP cards), but honestly I think it's too strong and annoying when it's good.
It's okay but I'm not thrilled with it. Yes it's better when Workshops can gain VP. It has a while-in-play which I don't like much these days, and overall is more complex than ideal for what it does.
Why does Merchant Guild now care about cards gained? I know (and agree) that when-buy effects are bad, but counting the number of cards bought in a turn seems fine? Or is it about how regular people may not understand that buying an Event/Project isn't the same as buying a card?
I changed the rules for Coffers, so that you can spend them whenever. This is way better. It had two casualties: Patron and Merchant Guild. So I changed both cards.
While I was changing Merchant Guild, I switched it to when-gain, since I was changing it anyway, and this is what I would be printing today. Casual players often don't distinguish between gains and buys.
Why does Reap copy Summon's wording, when it's confusing with stop-moving? I feel like you successfully fixed the concept with Demand, but then Reap still came out.
I don't think there's anything willful going on there.
I won't ask too many questions about Allies cards (I'll wait until after the secret history), but will Catacombs get errata to get rid of the pointless and confusing interaction with Elder?
I don't know. Something to consider when it's reprinted, but, no guarantees.
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It seems like with every expansion, there are more potentials for complicated things. E.g., nowadays you can play arbitrary action cards on your opponent's turn via reaction + way of the mouse
How much do you care about stuff like that? Would it be worth not doing Way of the Mouse? Are there cards that never saw the light of day because they could cause too much complexity in some rare edge case? Or is it a nonissue because it's so rare
Feel free to not put Way of the Mouse on the table if it's too over-the-top for you. For me, it was good times, so I printed it; otherwise you wouldn't have it. For sure it generates questions. I think for the most part though, the things it breaks are broken things.
Mostly I don't worry about rare edge cases; these days I try to omit them from rulebooks as they aren't what people look in there for.
There are card interactions that mess up new cards in playtesting, for sure. Fortress for example limits what certain cards can do with making loops. Fortress plus thing is a way more common interaction though than a typical Way of the Mouse puzzle.
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With Alayna Danner (nee Lemmer) getting married, is her art credit going to be updated as old sets get reprinted?
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With Alayna Danner (nee Lemmer) getting married, is her art credit going to be updated as old sets get reprinted?
Probably not, but if she asks us then sure. We have for example changed Jessica Cox to Jessi J, which I think the artist did because there was another famous Jessica Cox.
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Has a date been set yet for Seaside 2nd Edition?
Were Seaside 2nd Edition and Allies designed simultaneously?
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Has a date been set yet for Seaside 2nd Edition?
Were Seaside 2nd Edition and Allies designed simultaneously?
Allies started first, but work for both did happen at the same time.
We don't know when to expect Seaside 2E yet, but it's been printed. Currently my best guess is early May, with previews in late April. We'll narrow it down when the cards arrive in the US.
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Do you think it'll be a problem that an expansion called Allies has a mechanic called Allies?
Was there a reason why only Battle Plan lets you rotate any pile? Was that ability tried out on other rotators?
How much of the Allies split piles were designed bottom-up / top-down? Probably almost all bottom-up, since it's Dominion?
Did the ever-decreasing name space let you feel free to name a card Courier, when there's already Courtier?
How concerning was Importer's setup? Sometimes it's totally fine, and even interesting (like with Desert Guides), and other times it feels completely dominating in the open (like with City-state).
Was Contract considered as a non-terminal Action-Duration?
Why does Specialist also let you play Treasures? Did it compare unfavorably with other Throne Rooms?
Do you wish that Dominion was a better fit for having cards that continuously beat up players (like Gang of Pickpockets)? I know a lot of these effects were tried out in the past, and it's a bit sad that they're so difficult, since Pickpockets is awesome.
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Do you think it'll be a problem that an expansion called Allies has a mechanic called Allies?
I hope not!
Was there a reason why only Battle Plan lets you rotate any pile? Was that ability tried out on other rotators?
It mostly makes no difference; it's on Battle Plan just to be a fun thing for when it comes up. I felt no pull towards having the ability on more cards.
How much of the Allies split piles were designed bottom-up / top-down? Probably almost all bottom-up, since it's Dominion?
Top down was a significant thing for the split piles, though I didn't have to have those exact names. For example names considered for the Clashes pile included: Campaign, Skirmisher, General, Emissary, Espionage, Army, Treaty. I had these little stories or progressions and then a big list of card ideas I wanted to fit in and paired them up. And then made up more cards for the names, and worked on the cards.
Did the ever-decreasing name space let you feel free to name a card Courier, when there's already Courtier?
I felt free to put "Courier" into the main set where Harbinger is (and it took me until making Allies to bother reprinting my Couriers as Harbingers). There was enough anti-that sentiment that I didn't at the time, but I knew its day would come.
How concerning was Importer's setup? Sometimes it's totally fine, and even interesting (like with Desert Guides), and other times it feels completely dominating in the open (like with City-state).
It was not concerning. The City-state thing paired with attacks was caught and considered and you see how things ended up.
Was Contract considered as a non-terminal Action-Duration?
No.
Why does Specialist also let you play Treasures? Did it compare unfavorably with other Throne Rooms?
There's no story here. I had a card idea and tried it.
Do you wish that Dominion was a better fit for having cards that continuously beat up players (like Gang of Pickpockets)? I know a lot of these effects were tried out in the past, and it's a bit sad that they're so difficult, since Pickpockets is awesome.
No it's fine. I can make other games that attack the players. It's easier when it's a basic part of the game.
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You say in the Allies secret history that you worked on some short stories and novellas early in 2020. Is there anywhere we could find these? I always like reading your secret histories; not only do they talk about the cards but they also tell a story that's enjoyable to read. So I've always thought you're a great writer and would love to read other stuff you've written.
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You say in the Allies secret history that you worked on some short stories and novellas early in 2020. Is there anywhere we could find these? I always like reading your secret histories; not only do they talk about the cards but they also tell a story that's enjoyable to read. So I've always thought you're a great writer and would love to read other stuff you've written.
For truly dedicated fans, I have a story in this: https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781735252643/colossushome.aspx
I have big plans to someday submit stuff.
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Was Lich specifically intended to be a reverse Tactician, and if so, why does it not give +1 Buy?
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Was Lich specifically intended to be a reverse Tactician, and if so, why does it not give +1 Buy?
For me, "here is inspiration for a card" absolutely does not carry with it "copy the inspiration as much as possible." "Reverse Tactician" has zero obligation to have +Buy. I wouldn't necessarily even start with +Buy and then work from there. I'd start wherever.
Lich's inspiration was "be a Lich." This does happen to line it up with reverse Tactician.
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Was Lich specifically intended to be a reverse Tactician, and if so, why does it not give +1 Buy?
For me, "here is inspiration for a card" absolutely does not carry with it "copy the inspiration as much as possible." "Reverse Tactician" has zero obligation to have +Buy. I wouldn't necessarily even start with +Buy and then work from there. I'd start wherever.
Lich's inspiration was "be a Lich." This does happen to line it up with reverse Tactician.
I’ve had some fun times with the Wizards. Have you read, or heard of, The Order of the Stick?
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I’ve had some fun times with the Wizards. Have you read, or heard of, The Order of the Stick?
I know about it but have not read it.
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Throne room seems by far the hardest-to-grasp card in the base game, leading to the most rules questions. Did you predict this in playtesting?
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Was there an intentional reason Envious only affects Silver and Gold and not just all Treasures?
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Throne room seems by far the hardest-to-grasp card in the base game, leading to the most rules questions. Did you predict this in playtesting?
Throne Room was in fact a source of many questions in the early days, including before release. Throne / Feast was probably the most-asked question ever. And for a few early articles, I went over how the cards in the set worked with Throne Room.
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Was there an intentional reason Envious only affects Silver and Gold and not just all Treasures?
We know everything about Silver and Gold, and can say they make $1 without needing to clarify what happens to below-the-line text or what have you.
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Was there an intentional reason Envious only affects Silver and Gold and not just all Treasures?
We know everything about Silver and Gold, and can say they make $1 without needing to clarify what happens to below-the-line text or what have you.
Horn of Plenty would get a nice little boost if Envious suddenly affected it.
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Was there an intentional reason Envious only affects Silver and Gold and not just all Treasures?
We know everything about Silver and Gold, and can say they make $1 without needing to clarify what happens to below-the-line text or what have you.
Horn of Plenty would get a nice little boost if Envious suddenly affected it.
Not to mention Crown and Sunken Treasure. And maybe Bank and Fortune, but that’s a stretch ;D
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But Envious makes the Treasures produce +$1 instead of what they normally do, so Horn of Plenty etc would just do that, right?
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But Envious makes the Treasures produce +$1 instead of what they normally do, so Horn of Plenty etc would just do that, right?
I would've interpreted it as it produces $1 (instead of $0) but the rest works as is. AND this discussion* (well, avoidance of this!) is why it was designed to just affect Silver and Gold. :)
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But Envious makes the Treasures produce +$1 instead of what they normally do, so Horn of Plenty etc would just do that, right?
I would've interpreted it as it produces $1 (instead of $0) but the rest works as is. AND this discussion* (well, avoidance of this!) is why it was designed to just affect Silver and Gold. :)
Yeah this seems clear to me. Envious simply says how much (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png) the Treasure makes when played, it doesn't say anything about making that instead of doing anything else. Granted, it doesn't say "instead of their normal amounts" either, but I feel like people reading Envious must just automatically assume that "make (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) this turn" means "make (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) this turn instead of their normal amount".
Even so, the wording bugs me a bit because it introduces the word "make" into the rules. I never would have thought of Silver as a card that "makes (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) when played", I thought of it as a card that when played gives you +(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png), just like a Festival or Woodcutter does.
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Even so, the wording bugs me a bit because it introduces the word "make" into the rules. I never would have thought of Silver as a card that "makes (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) when played", I thought of it as a card that when played gives you +(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png), just like a Festival or Woodcutter does.
It seems to track with the rules:
The Treasures have no text, just a big coin with a number on it. You get that many coins to spend this turn … For example if you played four Coppers and a Silver, that makes (6) total …
The rules favor the term produce, it seems, when it comes to the big coin symbol (without the “+”), like on Treasures. But it’s not like an official term/keyword… ?
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But Envious makes the Treasures produce +$1 instead of what they normally do, so Horn of Plenty etc would just do that, right?
I would've interpreted it as it produces $1 (instead of $0) but the rest works as is. AND this discussion* (well, avoidance of this!) is why it was designed to just affect Silver and Gold. :)
Yeah this seems clear to me. Envious simply says how much (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png) the Treasure makes when played, it doesn't say anything about making that instead of doing anything else. Granted, it doesn't say "instead of their normal amounts" either, but I feel like people reading Envious must just automatically assume that "make (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) this turn" means "make (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) this turn instead of their normal amount".
I see how that would be a way to think about it, but I don't think it follows naturally from how Dominion normally works. Envious changes the play abilities of Silver and Gold into "+$1". (And there has to be an implicit "instead of..."!) There is no reason to think that Envious drills down into the specific instructions of the Treasures and replaces some of them, keeping others. How would that be for Philosopher's Stone, Bank or Fool's Gold? It would have to be kind of like Way of the Chameleon I guess, replacing all instances of +$ into +$1, but that's reading a lot into it that isn't stated. (Even then, does Bank give you +$1 multiple times or the total amount once?) To me it's more natural that it just means "instead of what they normally do".
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For Importer, did you consider for it to give +5 favors (for a total of 6)? I only ask this because then in Importer only games we would be able to use Crafter's and Architects guild (and City-State) three times total. As it is, we can only use them twice which lessens their impact on the game and also leaves a useless favor on the mat (which somewhat bothers me aesthetically).
Thanks for the awesome expansion!!
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For Importer, did you consider for it to give +5 favors (for a total of 6)? I only ask this because then in Importer only games we would be able to use Crafter's and Architects guild (and City-State) three times total. As it is, we can only use them twice which lessens their impact on the game and also leaves a useless favor on the mat (which somewhat bothers me aesthetically).
I didn't consider it. Another reason to do it would have been to be able to nudge Island Folk up to 6 favors.
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For Importer, did you consider for it to give +5 favors (for a total of 6)? I only ask this because then in Importer only games we would be able to use Crafter's and Architects guild (and City-State) three times total. As it is, we can only use them twice which lessens their impact on the game and also leaves a useless favor on the mat (which somewhat bothers me aesthetically).
I didn't consider it. Another reason to do it would have been to be able to nudge Island Folk up to 6 favors.
On a related note, why does Importer give Favors in set-up, but only there? Why does it either not have that setup at all, or have some way to gain Favors during the game?
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For Importer, did you consider for it to give +5 favors (for a total of 6)? I only ask this because then in Importer only games we would be able to use Crafter's and Architects guild (and City-State) three times total. As it is, we can only use them twice which lessens their impact on the game and also leaves a useless favor on the mat (which somewhat bothers me aesthetically).
I didn't consider it. Another reason to do it would have been to be able to nudge Island Folk up to 6 favors.
On a related note, why does Importer give Favors in set-up, but only there? Why does it either not have that setup at all, or have some way to gain Favors during the game?
The whole point was to have a different experience with Favors. You have to be careful how you spend them since you won’t get anymore.
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Are you prepared to deal with all the "I liked that card, why did you remove it" comments once Seaside 2E previews begin?
What are your thoughts on Tomb? I'm surprised that some people love it because it encourages trashing, and some people hate it...because it encourages trashing. (The actual problem with Tomb is Fortress, and well you already knew that I would think that.)
What was the motivation to finally errata Prince? And is it going to get the Command type?
What are your favorite cards from Allies?
How concerning was it to let Voyage be cumulative, in terms of power, slowness, and intuition (a LOT of people thought Voyage worked like Outpost; I think I would have added something about it in the rulebook)?
Were there thoughts to move +1 Favor before +1 Card on Underling, to get rid of the rules question with Order of Astrologers/Masons? Probably not because Emissary couldn't get that kind of fix?
Were there concerns that Skirmisher and Highwayman could continually prevent opponents from hitting 5, which would prevent them from attacking back? I mean, Raider got bumped to 6 for that reason.
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Are you prepared to deal with all the "I liked that card, why did you remove it" comments once Seaside 2E previews begin?
Like a boy scout.
What are your thoughts on Tomb? I'm surprised that some people love it because it encourages trashing, and some people hate it...because it encourages trashing. (The actual problem with Tomb is Fortress, and well you already knew that I would think that.)
I still like Tomb. Many of the Landmarks just don't have enough of an impact in terms of what you do. Tomb does not have that issue. Some games it does nothing but I decided I could live with that, and so far so good.
What was the motivation to finally errata Prince? And is it going to get the Command type?
Ultimately just, all the other errata already going on.
As of today, the next time Jay asks me for the wording, it will be:
Prince: Action - Duration - Command, $8
You may set aside (on this) a non-Duration non-Command Action card from your hand costing up to $4. At the start of each of your turns, play that card, leaving it set aside.
Online, well probably TGG already has that wording, and who knows when dominion.games will get it.
What are your favorite cards from Allies?
I like the split piles a lot. Royal Galley is a stand-out besides those.
How concerning was it to let Voyage be cumulative, in terms of power, slowness, and intuition (a LOT of people thought Voyage worked like Outpost; I think I would have added something about it in the rulebook)?
I wasn't concerned about slowness from real-life, though vs. the TGG bot (which initially was broken and got no-limit extra turns, so it went nuts buying them and then kept doing it once it was fixed), it was a bummer.
Voyage is unique, you get an extra turn that's a little puzzle. It always seemed worth how long the puzzle took.
I'm not aware of power issues. Intuition issues, I mean I always work with what I've got. In the rulebooks I answer the questions we think of that we think will come up. If people keep misreading a card it tends to change into what they think it is, or something else they'll actually get right. We didn't have issues with Voyage and intuition.
Were there thoughts to move +1 Favor before +1 Card on Underling, to get rid of the rules question with Order of Astrologers/Masons? Probably not because Emissary couldn't get that kind of fix?
There were no thoughts there.
Were there concerns that Skirmisher and Highwayman could continually prevent opponents from hitting 5, which would prevent them from attacking back? I mean, Raider got bumped to 6 for that reason.
Not really. It wasn't missed that they could do that; it didn't get me to make them suck.
I'm okay with the worst card in each set being some attack that just didn't want to make the game suck. And that's mostly how it's going these days. But of course attacks like anything else are trying not to suck despite that; they just have a harder time getting to the sweet spot. Those attacks seemed good and still do; not game-breaking and not awful. Hooray!
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As of today, the next time Jay asks me for the wording, it will be:
Prince: Action - Duration - Command, $8
You may set aside (on this) a non-Duration non-Command Action card from your hand costing up to $4. At the start of each of your turns, play that card, leaving it set aside.
Online, well probably TGG already has that wording, and who knows when dominion.games will get it.
Dominion.games already has it, but without "non-Command" and the Command type:
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?title=Special%3AFilePath&file=Prince.jpg)
This means that this trick (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20909.msg885381#msg885381)is possible there, but I guess that's the only difference.
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Is the Count the wrinkly grey guy or the guy with black gloves? Or do you not know?
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Are there any ideas for mechanics you have that have simply not worked out?
(Of course not ones that could come into a future expansion)
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Is the Count the wrinkly grey guy or the guy with black gloves? Or do you not know?
It's up to all of us; the artist wasn't told "put the Count on the left" or any such thing. You could ask them directly.
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Are there any ideas for mechanics you have that have simply not worked out?
(Of course not ones that could come into a future expansion)
I don't hold back on these stories in the secret histories; anything I've given up on shows up where I gave up on it. Though I've also done mechanics I'd given up on, e.g. "choose one: cantrip or thing" which now is in Allies.
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Is the Count the wrinkly grey guy or the guy with black gloves? Or do you not know?
personally i like to think this is a verb-titled card, like remodel, in which case the one doing the counting is Mr Gloves.
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Is the Count the wrinkly grey guy or the guy with black gloves? Or do you not know?
personally i like to think this is a verb-titled card, like remodel, in which case the one doing the counting is Mr Gloves.
https://youtu.be/B-Wd-Q3F8KM (https://youtu.be/B-Wd-Q3F8KM) The Count
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Are there any ideas for mechanics you have that have simply not worked out?
(Of course not ones that could come into a future expansion)
I don't hold back on these stories in the secret histories; anything I've given up on shows up where I gave up on it. Though I've also done mechanics I'd given up on, e.g. "choose one: cantrip or thing" which now is in Allies.
Since the asker looks new to the forum, I'll just leave a link to those Secret Histories (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=14.0).
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Will there be errata that change Sauna's "while in play" to "this turn"?
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Will there be errata that change Sauna's "while in play" to "this turn"?
I strongly suspect there will.
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If you would cut Merchant Ship and Lookout in 2E, which 2 cards would have survived?
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If you would cut Merchant Ship and Lookout in 2E, which 2 cards would have survived?
There's no definitive answer here; that alternate universe doesn't exist for me to query it. I can tell you that Explorer was the card that came closest to surviving, and it's the only one where I think, if I have to keep one of these, okay I keep that one. It's bad whichever card I pick 2nd.
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You’ve mentioned several times that you’re working to avoid/remove card text that creates confusion between buying and gaining. Is the impetus for this more from a “ease of remembering” standpoint or a “help new players not get it wrong” standpoint? Like, “Gosh I can’t remember if Haggler triggers on buys or gains!” vs “I showed Steve Dominion last week and he just can’t figure out why Embargo gave him a Curse for buying that card but I didn’t get one for Workshopping it.”
I ask because the buy vs gain issue comes up immediately when showing new players Workshop, so I thought this was something players just need to deal with anyways.
(Edited to be a little more concise)
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You’ve mentioned several times that you’re working to avoid/remove card text that creates confusion between buying and gaining. Is the impetus for this more from a “ease of remembering” standpoint or a “help new players not get it wrong” standpoint? Like, “Gosh I can’t remember if Haggler triggers on buys or gains!” vs “I showed Steve Dominion last week and he just can’t figure out why Embargo gave him a Curse for buying that card but I didn’t get one for Workshopping it.”
I ask because the buy vs gain issue comes up immediately when showing new players Workshop, so I thought this was something players just need to deal with anyways.
(Edited to be a little more concise)
It's to get rid of any and all confusion that it's possible to get rid of. There isn't one single thing, but certainly we can start with, "why doesn't this when-buy trigger when I gain it with Workshop."
Having two kinds of timing there is also quite bad - the fact that you resolve when-buy ahead of when-gain and that it may actually matter. With the changes, the worst case becomes "when you gain a card you bought," on cards where I couldn't just let it trigger on all gains (e.g. Haggler since it would loop). And then we're still making you work out that it only triggers if you bought the card... but it's at least clarifying that more, and it's timed the same as other when-gain abilities, which is something.
Ideally there would have never been a when-buy trigger, and "when you gain a card you bought" cards would be different whatever ways to avoid that. But of course I'm working with what happened and trying not to change the cards any more than necessary to fix the problems.
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Normally you don't say a word when a new expansion is about to come out - did Jay give you permission to hint at the next expansion (possibly) coming out this fall? :P
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Normally you don't say a word when a new expansion is about to come out - did Jay give you permission to hint at the next expansion (possibly) coming out this fall? :P
I feel like we were told about the last 2 expansions a good few months in advance, similar to this timeframe. I don’t recall having as much notice for Renaissance and Nocturne though. (Before that I’ve hit the limits of my memory lol)
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When Guilds was released I remember there being plenty of notice about how it was the last planned expansion ;)
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Normally you don't say a word when a new expansion is about to come out - did Jay give you permission to hint at the next expansion (possibly) coming out this fall? :P
No, I didn't ask and was somehow sure it would be okay too.
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When Guilds was released I remember there being plenty of notice about how it was the last planned expansion ;)
No, any time anyone ever asked if there would be more expansions, I answered "probably." The only place where I acted like there might not be was the full secret history. And if someone had asked there they would have gotten a "probably" again.
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If I may pull up the archives...
You've said many times before that Guilds is the last of the "standard" Dominion expansions. Have you given any thought to what you want to do with Dominion after Guilds?
I would like to do spin-offs that have "Dominion" in the title. Not unrelated stuff like Cardcassonne, but clearly related games which nevertheless are different enough to not just be expansions.
For Dominion itself, probably there will be a promo or two, I think Jay would be interested if I handed him one now. Also probably an online-only promo that couldn't exist irl. Some kind of "treasure chest" small expansion in the future, with 1-2 cards for each existing expansion, sounds more doable than any other new Dominion expansion, but has the issue that it would appeal to a smaller audience than a more normal expansion. Also it has the issue that Jay would note this. At one point I was considering doing a Seaside expansion in place of Guilds (not having come up with Guilds yet). And Jay was like, isn't a new thing better than more of an old thing? And it was, it was better.
I don't see much of a "probably" there. Adventures was 3 years later. Some of us remember this stretch as "probably never, Dominion is finished". It was around the time when I joined this forum so it's a period I remember well. I don't recall when Adventures was eventually first announced but it was new! IIRC there was a point when you realized actual Dominion was something enough people wanted more of -- and was interesting enough that you wanted to work on it again -- vs. spin-offs. Anyway, clearly we've come quite a ways since then I was just making a joke ;)
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At various points through the years Donald said that he would probably not do any more expansions. Sometimes this was more definite, other times he was more open to the idea of doing more.
I think the quoted reply was based on the premise of the question, which was about what to do instead of more expansions (but it was clearly one of the times that not doing expansions seemed pretty likely for Donald).
Here are two examples from 2010 and 2011. (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=73.0) In 2010, he said that after the planned expansion, he would "expect the pace to slow way down."
The only earlier mention I can find about this is from 2009. (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/464796/article/4228025#4228025) He's not promising to end the expansions here either.
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If I may pull up the archives...
You've said many times before that Guilds is the last of the "standard" Dominion expansions. Have you given any thought to what you want to do with Dominion after Guilds?
I would like to do spin-offs that have "Dominion" in the title. Not unrelated stuff like Cardcassonne, but clearly related games which nevertheless are different enough to not just be expansions.
For Dominion itself, probably there will be a promo or two, I think Jay would be interested if I handed him one now. Also probably an online-only promo that couldn't exist irl. Some kind of "treasure chest" small expansion in the future, with 1-2 cards for each existing expansion, sounds more doable than any other new Dominion expansion, but has the issue that it would appeal to a smaller audience than a more normal expansion. Also it has the issue that Jay would note this. At one point I was considering doing a Seaside expansion in place of Guilds (not having come up with Guilds yet). And Jay was like, isn't a new thing better than more of an old thing? And it was, it was better.
I don't see much of a "probably" there. Adventures was 3 years later. Some of us remember this stretch as "probably never, Dominion is finished". It was around the time when I joined this forum so it's a period I remember well. I don't recall when Adventures was eventually first announced but it was new! IIRC there was a point when you realized actual Dominion was something enough people wanted more of -- and was interesting enough that you wanted to work on it again -- vs. spin-offs. Anyway, clearly we've come quite a ways since then I was just making a joke ;)
What I see there is how I specifically consider future expansions in that text you quote, bringing up the idea of the treasure chest and a Seaside expansion. And those two concepts were the premise of Adventures. The promo happened too.
Maybe you read that and just see "but has the issue" -> "oh he's saying it will never happen." That's sure not what I was saying though.
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I'm pretty sure I would hate for someone to dig up my 10-12-year-old posts and try to analyze to me what I was saying in them and compare it to what I'm saying now. I'm glad I'm not a
politician game designer with a rather obsessive fan base.
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I just found this forum
Pfft. Look at this guy with over 1500 posts trying to claim he "just found" the forum.
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That post was from 2013 also let's not link fan card related threads here.
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Pretty sure this was a joke.
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That post was from 2013 also let's not link fan card related threads here.
Oh, good point; I picked his oldest post, but it does go to the variants forum, so don't accidentally read the thread if you click on it, Donald.
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Stuff from 2012-2014 is no longer of much importance, but I'm not sure why folks (especially Donald himself) are so confused/misremembering here. I remember it well since there were periodic posts throughout the period, new people coming in and wondering if there was going to be another expansion and the best info being shared in response.
Essentially there was a stretch of around 3+ years, from before Guilds was released up until information on the upcoming Adventures expansion being worked on started to come out, that no one in the public had knowledge suggesting there would be another regular expansion, and the consensus based on Donald's many statements was essentially "there are no plans for one", i.e. probably not as far as we knew. Which is not to say plans can't change ("be made") and he couldn't decide to do more Dominion expansions one day. One day he did and et voila, Adventures.
Adventures was probably the most eagerly awaited release ever because, well, it had literally been 3 years since anything new of note had come out in the Dominion world. (Then we unfortunately had to wait even longer to actually play it online, because Isotropic had to shut down and Goko was soo bad).
So one remembers these things. It's not that Donald said there would "never" be an expansion, or even commented on the probability of there "eventually" being one. None of that is interesting. He wasn't working on one and there were no plans for one. That's all we knew, and really all we needed to know. Creators generally let you know once they're actively working on something that they hope to release in reasonable future to start pooling up demand; that's how it goes in any business and it's what happened here after ~3 years yo.
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Stuff from 2012-2014 is no longer of much importance, but I'm not sure why folks (especially Donald himself) are so confused/misremembering here. I remember it well since there were periodic posts throughout the period, new people coming in and wondering if there was going to be another expansion and the best info being shared in response.
Donald X. himself is sure not confused or misremembering what Donald X. himself was thinking. I was hoping to work on other projects, but knew I'd probably get sucked back into Dominion at some point.
Again the full Secret History acts like that's it ("the light that burns twice as bright burns for eight expansions," and I didn't have to look that up; then someone said it was like a last will and testament and I made a joke about that, again I am not looking this up, check out my memory), but every time someone said "will there be more" I said some version of "probably."
There was a time when I said "yes" and "no" to questions about the future; what you find out is, surprise, you can never know the future. People still want you to be a politician and say "yes" or "no," whichever they want to hear, but instead you have to endlessly say "well we expect it by this date" or "Stef said he'd do that" or whatever.
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Just read this interview
https://dicetowerdish.com/2021/10/19/donald-x-vaccarino-part-1-covid-krebs-and-kidneys/
And be happy there still are 2E and (probably) new expansions to come out.
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That's a neat interview, thanks for sharing dirkdebeule.
Not really a question, just a comment...
Donald, I don't know if you've seen this, since you say that you mostly don't play other deckbuilding games. But a common pattern I've seen is to mix all the cards together, and then there are just a few random cards available to take at any time.
The advantage is that instead of 25 kingdom cards in a set, you could print 250 unique cards or something. Also setup is easier, and there's less info to process upfront. On the other hand, it feels incompatible with variable setup. There are differences from game to game, but we're still drawing from the same random deck, so there's a sort of uniformity to it. We've enjoyed lots of deckbuilding games, but a bit disappointing, and one of the reasons we play more Dominion.
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Donald, I don't know if you've seen this, since you say that you mostly don't play other deckbuilding games. But a common pattern I've seen is to mix all the cards together, and then there are just a few random cards available to take at any time.
The advantage is that instead of 25 kingdom cards in a set, you could print 250 unique cards or something. Also setup is easier, and there's less info to process upfront. On the other hand, it feels incompatible with variable setup. There are differences from game to game, but we're still drawing from the same random deck, so there's a sort of uniformity to it. We've enjoyed lots of deckbuilding games, but a bit disappointing, and one of the reasons we play more Dominion.
One of the reasons I play a huge amount of Dominion, but such other deckbuilding games not at all, is that I find it very confusing to have a huge variety of unique cards, often with quite subtle differences, in a single game, so I hope Donald never goes down this route.
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Donald, I don't know if you've seen this, since you say that you mostly don't play other deckbuilding games. But a common pattern I've seen is to mix all the cards together, and then there are just a few random cards available to take at any time.
The advantage is that instead of 25 kingdom cards in a set, you could print 250 unique cards or something. Also setup is easier, and there's less info to process upfront. On the other hand, it feels incompatible with variable setup. There are differences from game to game, but we're still drawing from the same random deck, so there's a sort of uniformity to it. We've enjoyed lots of deckbuilding games, but a bit disappointing, and one of the reasons we play more Dominion.
In secret histories you will find that I initially considered doing Dominion that way, and didn't like the idea.
I personally think it's great to have some games where you have a random hand of cards that's different from the other players - where you don't just have the same tools to work with that they do. I think I like this more than players do in general. And I have published games that go that route, e.g. Winter Kingdom. But I've never liked the shared line of cards, where you buy one and it gets replaced (which games older than Dominion have used). It just sets you up to feel bad about when a card gets turned over. I've had games where you pick simultaneously, which fixes that, but then you're back to, for Dominion we each need copies of all the cards.
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Hi, for the new Hoard I understand why you couldn't switch to on gain, but I was wondering if it could not have been "when you gain in the buy phase" which seems cleaner to me and has fewer commas. I tried racking my head about buy phase broken synergies but couldn't think of one. Thanks.
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Hi, for the new Hoard I understand why you couldn't switch to on gain, but I was wondering if it could not have been "when you gain in the buy phase" which seems cleaner to me and has fewer commas. I tried racking my head about buy phase broken synergies but couldn't think of one. Thanks.
The types of infinite loops he was concerned with would be exactly the same in the buy phase as in the action phase, wouldn’t they? If you imagine some very basic card such as “this turn, when you gain a Gold, gain a cheaper card”. Such a card would gain you all the Estates and all the Duchies and 16 Golds just for buying a single Estate with Hoard in play.
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Hi, for the new Hoard I understand why you couldn't switch to on gain, but I was wondering if it could not have been "when you gain in the buy phase" which seems cleaner to me and has fewer commas. I tried racking my head about buy phase broken synergies but couldn't think of one. Thanks.
The types of infinite loops he was concerned with would be exactly the same in the buy phase as in the action phase, wouldn’t they? If you imagine some very basic card such as “this turn, when you gain a Gold, gain a cheaper card”. Such a card would gain you all the Estates and all the Duchies and 16 Golds just for buying a single Estate with Hoard in play.
Yes.
I could have done a "once per turn" limit on Hoard, to let it be "when gain," and if it were a new card that would be a potential fix, but for this existing card that seemed worse-to-do than what I did do.
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How come there are different layouts and sometimes different wording (Mill) between the 2nd Edition Game and the 2nd Edition Update Pack?
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How come there are different layouts and sometimes different wording (Mill) between the 2nd Edition Game and the 2nd Edition Update Pack?
And why is the expansion symbol smaller on the update pack Artisan and Bandit?
I'm trying to think of what the answer could possibly be other than "that was a mistake." So far I haven't come up with anything.
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Could a second edition update potentially turn a small set into a normal-sized set?
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Could a second edition update potentially turn a small set into a normal-sized set?
It's not something I have to rule out, but I will just remind you here that when Alchemy was a large set, it didn't actually have more potion-costing cards in it.
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is combining the three small sets into a single mixed box product potentially on the table when it's time to consider a 2E for them?
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I’m guessing 450 cards plus metal tokens and mats is a no-go.
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is combining the three small sets into a single mixed box product potentially on the table when it's time to consider a 2E for them?
I don't need to rule it out, but a major negative is making people buy Alchemy in order to get the other two sets.
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Who is the cover artist of Prosperity 2E?
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I’m guessing 450 cards plus metal tokens and mats is a no-go.
You don't really need mats for Coffers... just put the coin tokens on the table next to your deck. As all other uses of coin tokens do have mats (Villagers, Favors, the removed Pirate Ship), there's no risk of confusion.
I suppose 450 cards plus coin tokens would still be more expensive to produce than most other expansions, though. FWIW, in Germany there was (is?) a mixed box with Alchemy and Cornucopia.
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Who is the cover artist of Prosperity 2E?
Harald Lieske
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Has there ever been thought to a kick starter for supplemental cards whose sets likely won't be revisited?
It would be great to have do overs for things like potion cards, add more night cards etc. A mish mash of cards that wouldn't make sense for any one expansion.
I can't imagine there wouldn't be a fortune to earned with less than 8 copper debt.
Terraforming Mars hit their target in no time and added cards only available for certain expansions.
Rabid fanbases would fork over all sorts of money.
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Where can I read more things that you've written? The stuff you write for Dominion is hilarious, I'd love to read other stuff, books, novellas etc.
Thanks!
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Did you work on Hinterlands 2E simultaneously with Allies and the other 2Es?
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Has there ever been thought to a kick starter for supplemental cards whose sets likely won't be revisited?
There have been no thoughts towards any kinds of kickstarters whatsoever.
I did put some work into a "treasure chest" expansion of additional cards for existing sets; that project turned into Adventures.
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Where can I read more things that you've written? The stuff you write for Dominion is hilarious, I'd love to read other stuff, books, novellas etc.
Maybe someday I'll put some work into getting stuff published. For now there's just one story in this: https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781735252643/colossushome.aspx
(It's not just a list of jokes like the blurbs though.)
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Did you work on Hinterlands 2E simultaneously with Allies and the other 2Es?
Yes. I didn't start all the projects simultaneously, but I was working on all of them at the same time.
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Where can I read more things that you've written? The stuff you write for Dominion is hilarious, I'd love to read other stuff, books, novellas etc.
Maybe someday I'll put some work into getting stuff published. For now there's just one story in this: https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781735252643/colossushome.aspx
(It's not just a list of jokes like the blurbs though.)
By the way, I bought this book and it's great. Definitely worth it for the DXV story but the rest is an eye-opening read, at least what I've read of it (I haven't gotten to all the pieces yet).
One thing I like about your writing is that you have a very distinct voice. I've been starting to do some writing recently and have been struggling to find my voice as a writer. Do you have any tips or stories about how you developed your writing style?
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do you find it frustrating when something else uses 'dominion' in its title and messes with your SEO? or is that more jay's domain?
thinking specifically of the new jurassic park here
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Are you planning to remove all when-buy triggers up to and including Empires (like Defiled Shrine)?
It seems like you have changed your mind regarding making substantial functional changes on cards that didn't strictly need it according to the criteria you used to give (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=19892.msg813066#msg813066). What kind of thinking went into this? I guess you don't see the negatives as that bad anymore. Does it have anything to do with online play, where people just play with whatever are the current versions, being a more important arena now?
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One thing I like about your writing is that you have a very distinct voice. I've been starting to do some writing recently and have been struggling to find my voice as a writer. Do you have any tips or stories about how you developed your writing style?
Not really. I think like anyone I started out with particular authors I liked a lot, that I mushed together into what I sounded like. As a teenager I wanted words like Ray Bradbury with little ironies like Douglas Adams (which he got from Vonnegut); then I wanted poetic lines like John Crowley. There are specific stories where I can say, that's me doing Kafka, or Salinger, or Murakami. You wouldn't mistake them for those other authors though. Song lyrics have probably made their mark on me too. And movies and poetry and cereal boxes. You can wonder, how much of an effect did Dr. Seuss or A. A. Milne have? I've sure capitalized an Important word on occasion. But then I look at an example of my writing, some paragraph I especially like, and it's hard to say where any of it came from. It's all just a breeze going by. Which is Lewis Carroll, except not quite.
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do you find it frustrating when something else uses 'dominion' in its title and messes with your SEO? or is that more jay's domain?
thinking specifically of the new jurassic park here
The movie doesn't bother me at all. It did suck when FFG thought it was reasonable to call a product Cosmic Dominion.
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Are you planning to remove all when-buy triggers up to and including Empires (like Defiled Shrine)?
It seems like you have changed your mind regarding making substantial functional changes on cards that didn't strictly need it according to the criteria you used to give (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=19892.msg813066#msg813066). What kind of thinking went into this? I guess you don't see the negatives as that bad anymore. Does it have anything to do with online play, where people just play with whatever are the current versions, being a more important arena now?
I think both dominion.games and TGG hope to have "2022 errata" up at the same time as Hinterlands 2E. TGG has already done the work though I haven't gone over all of it. So I mean you'll see it all then, it's not that far off. I will answer that one question: I did reword Defiled Shrine.
It's not super interesting to try to figure out what I used to think about errata and why it changed. I'm changing things that I think are worth it today, whether old me agrees or not. For me it is not specifically tied to online play. Jay used to be more anti-errata, and I can't tell you what changed for him either. I guess it's fair to note that these days anyone can whip out their phone and look up errata if there's an argument.
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do you find it frustrating when something else uses 'dominion' in its title and messes with your SEO? or is that more jay's domain?
thinking specifically of the new jurassic park here
There's also the latest album by Skillet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT32Jl5U9m0
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Are you planning to remove all when-buy triggers up to and including Empires (like Defiled Shrine)?
It seems like you have changed your mind regarding making substantial functional changes on cards that didn't strictly need it according to the criteria you used to give (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=19892.msg813066#msg813066). What kind of thinking went into this? I guess you don't see the negatives as that bad anymore. Does it have anything to do with online play, where people just play with whatever are the current versions, being a more important arena now?
I think both dominion.games and TGG hope to have "2022 errata" up at the same time as Hinterlands 2E. TGG has already done the work though I haven't gone over all of it. So I mean you'll see it all then, it's not that far off. I will answer that one question: I did reword Defiled Shrine.
It's not super interesting to try to figure out what I used to think about errata and why it changed. I'm changing things that I think are worth it today, whether old me agrees or not. For me it is not specifically tied to online play. Jay used to be more anti-errata, and I can't tell you what changed for him either. I guess it's fair to note that these days anyone can whip out their phone and look up errata if there's an argument.
I guess I was not asking about how or why your thinking changed, but more what your thinking is now, specifically about those negatives that you have outlined in the past.
Do you mean that you think people playing physically with, let's say, the original Merchant Guild would check the errata on their phone and play with the new version?
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I guess I was not asking about how or why your thinking changed, but more what your thinking is now, specifically about those negatives that you have outlined in the past.
Do you mean that you think people playing physically with, let's say, the original Merchant Guild would check the errata on their phone and play with the new version?
I don't know if people playing irl use errata they don't have or don't; my best guess is that mostly they don't. What I was saying there is: in the 90s, two people might disagree on a rule, and they were just stuck disagreeing, and errata made this bad situation happen more often; and today, they can look up whatever it is on their phones; and this change in the world may for all I know be part of why Jay isn't as anti-errata as he once was.
My thinking on errata is, I should avoid using it in general, but use it whenever I'm making an important fix. Well; I've made lots of non-functional wording changes, or even wording changes that are only different in really exotic cases.
Changing e.g. Quarry to "this turn" isn't fixing a rules hole, but it's fixing "players get this wrong." It's improving the game, that's how I see it. And yet in most situations it's the same as ever.
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FWIW, we don't play with the errata, because the pre-errata rules are right there are on the cards, and what am I going to remember, the rules on some website, or the rules right in front of me? The main issue is that if we ever have some rules question about, say, Band of Misfits, well the online faq pertain to a set of rules we're not using, so it's up in the air what we do about that.
And I guess in principle we still have the issue of, I Crown an opponent's Estate with the abilities and types of Caravan Guard, and use Way of the Mouse to play a Lurker to gain a Mandarin, and so on. We'll live, somehow.
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The main issue is that if we ever have some rules question about, say, Band of Misfits, well the online faq pertain to a set of rules we're not using, so it's up in the air what we do about that.
(You could have my rules document handy (either digitally or physically), since it has info about both old and new versions.)
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Does Prosperity 2E make any changes to the method for deciding whether to use Colony/Platinum?
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Does Prosperity 2E make any changes to the method for deciding whether to use Colony/Platinum?
No.
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When and how do you decide whether an expansion should be 300, 400 or 500 cards? Does it relate to the additional components (e.g. tokens, mats)?
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Does Prosperity 2E make any changes to the method for deciding whether to use Colony/Platinum?
In developing Prosperity 2E
- Were changes considered to the rule? (e.g. even one Prosperity card puts Colony and Platinum in the game, allowing for cards that specifically reference them)?
- Were they ever considered for the chopping block?
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When and how do you decide whether an expansion should be 300, 400 or 500 cards? Does it relate to the additional components (e.g. tokens, mats)?
Jay would just repeat to me (if I asked), that I should make the expansion as good as it can be and then he'll deal with what cost or whatever that means. But I do nevertheless take into account the tokens/mats; they're an extra cost, and it's nice if the expansions are the same price.
There's no special time I decide the size. I work on the set and gradually have more cards and more of an idea of what tokens/mats/landscapes/non-supply cards are in it. At some point I feel like, this wants to be this many cards. These days the size tends to be as large as it can be while including the other components.
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Does Prosperity 2E make any changes to the method for deciding whether to use Colony/Platinum?
In developing Prosperity 2E
- Were changes considered to the rule? (e.g. even one Prosperity card puts Colony and Platinum in the game, allowing for cards that specifically reference them)?
- Were they ever considered for the chopping block?
I didn't ever consider changing that rule or dropping those cards.
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For Seaside 2E did you consider fixing the accountability issue on treasure map?
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For Seaside 2E did you consider fixing the accountability issue on treasure map?
No.
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Wrt the Masquerade errata, what was (or were) the main point(s) of removing the pin from the game? Was it too powerful, too disheartening to experience, too likely to result in long games, simply a thing that Masquerade was not supposed to do, something else, or some combination of different problems?
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Wrt the Masquerade errata, what was (or were) the main point(s) of removing the pin from the game? Was it too powerful, too disheartening to experience, too likely to result in long games, simply a thing that Masquerade was not supposed to do, something else, or some combination of different problems?
The biggest thing was, I was making Intrigue 2E. I had the chance to tweak cards. After that, the main factors were how often it came up for how the experience went, and how little fixing it otherwise changed. Fixing it had no effect on most games, except you know, the text is longer. The text being longer didn't seem so bad. The experience was being locked out of the game. How often, well it was King's Court / Masquerade / some Militia. Not so often really, though more common than I'd like for something that locks you out.
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2nd editions seem to be a pretty tumultuous event, with all of us opining on which changes we think are good or bad, mourning the loss of our favorite weak, complicated, or unfun cards, and generally complaining about things we don’t like. Some of these changes - like the change to Bonfire - can require change for reasons that aren’t immediately noticeable to most of us. I, personally, was pretty disappointed at the change to Bonfire, said as much in the preview thread, and never stopped to consider that maybe the designer of the game had good reasons for changing it the way he did.
On that note, is there a way that we can get answers to our burning questions in a way that’s more helpful/less hostile? Would it be nice to have a mega thread devoted specifically to 2E questions where we ask “Why did Bonfire change this way?” Should we just be more polite and give you the benefit of the doubt as we ask? Stop clamoring and just wait for the secret history?
Or do you not even enjoy discussing the minutiae of every errata and want us to just let it be?
Thanks for all your hard work in making the game the best it can be. I’m sorry if any of my comments have been annoying to read or sound ungrateful.
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Great question! I for one will say that many of us share the same feelings as described in @Imrahil’s well worded comment.
I’ve decided to hold any further errata beef at this point until after preview 3, and probably even the Hinterlands 2E secret history in case the errata get further mentioned there.
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2nd editions seem to be a pretty tumultuous event, with all of us opining on which changes we think are good or bad, mourning the loss of our favorite weak, complicated, or unfun cards, and generally complaining about things we don’t like. Some of these changes - like the change to Bonfire - can require change for reasons that aren’t immediately noticeable to most of us. I, personally, was pretty disappointed at the change to Bonfire, said as much in the preview thread, and never stopped to consider that maybe the designer of the game had good reasons for changing it the way he did.
On that note, is there a way that we can get answers to our burning questions in a way that’s more helpful/less hostile? Would it be nice to have a mega thread devoted specifically to 2E questions where we ask “Why did Bonfire change this way?” Should we just be more polite and give you the benefit of the doubt as we ask? Stop clamoring and just wait for the secret history?
Or do you not even enjoy discussing the minutiae of every errata and want us to just let it be?
Thanks for all your hard work in making the game the best it can be. I’m sorry if any of my comments have been annoying to read or sound ungrateful.
Thanks; I can type up a summary of why the errata happened.
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I really like that you managed to slowly but surely shift the gameplay such that turns of other players don't feel as "watching them do their thing" any more (which was always fine and so on. But still). Well done!
I mean, non-attack player interaction is one thing, but it never felt as active to me as these days, where you can literally play (i.e. optimising your starting hand, attack) on their turns, and not only passively being thrown some interactions at. The more so, it's especially (also) the old sets that are changed in this direction, so it's really Dominion itself that changes for me. How did that development come about? When did it became clear it will turn out like this?
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I really like that you managed to slowly but surely shift the gameplay such that turns of other players don't feel as "watching them do their thing" any more (which was always fine and so on. But still). Well done!
I mean, non-attack player interaction is one thing, but it never felt as active to me as these days, where you can literally play (i.e. optimising your starting hand, attack) on their turns, and not only passively being thrown some interactions at. The more so, it's especially (also) the old sets that are changed in this direction, so it's really Dominion itself that changes for me. How did that development come about? When did it became clear it will turn out like this?
I'm not sure if I agree with your thesis, or exactly what it is, but also I don't really have an answer. I keep trying to make the sets good in all the ways; you get better as you go along.
Playing Reactions on other players' turns is just the best way to do Reactions; they were like that in 2006 and then I made the mistake of changing them due to Moat. Finally these days we have Reactions the way they should have been, except slightly worse since the rulebook can't just say, here's how all Reactions work, and then save me some text on the cards.
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Statement and not a question: the 2Es and errata have been great, shrug off any online protestors.
Were there concerns that for some Allies (specifically Trappers Lodge and Family of Inventors), you would only use the starting favor, and then ignore it for the rest of the game?
Why does Territory have its when-gain? Especially with Warlord, it feels quite rare to be able to gain Golds from it.
Were you surprised that Clashes have gotten a lot of hate? And what are your thoughts on them now?
In your experience, which published non-removed cards are the most annoying irl? Honestly Triumph just seems impossible irl (both in keeping track of number of cards gained and running out of tokens).
Were there concerns that the reworded Butcher is too concise? Granted, it's a difficult ability to phrase, but it still seems easy to misunderstand.
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2nd editions seem to be a pretty tumultuous event, with all of us opining on which changes we think are good or bad, mourning the loss of our favorite weak, complicated, or unfun cards, and generally complaining about things we don’t like. Some of these changes - like the change to Bonfire - can require change for reasons that aren’t immediately noticeable to most of us. I, personally, was pretty disappointed at the change to Bonfire, said as much in the preview thread, and never stopped to consider that maybe the designer of the game had good reasons for changing it the way he did.
On that note, is there a way that we can get answers to our burning questions in a way that’s more helpful/less hostile? Would it be nice to have a mega thread devoted specifically to 2E questions where we ask “Why did Bonfire change this way?” Should we just be more polite and give you the benefit of the doubt as we ask? Stop clamoring and just wait for the secret history?
Or do you not even enjoy discussing the minutiae of every errata and want us to just let it be?
Thanks for all your hard work in making the game the best it can be. I’m sorry if any of my comments have been annoying to read or sound ungrateful.
Followup to this, in that thread it was said that Bonfire had a second reason for changing which LastFootnote had forgotten about. What was the other reason?
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Statement and not a question: the 2Es and errata have been great, shrug off any online protestors.
Thanks!
Were there concerns that for some Allies (specifically Trappers Lodge and Family of Inventors), you would only use the starting favor, and then ignore it for the rest of the game?
Certainly the intention was, that while that might sometimes happen, that it wouldn't happen too often for any of them. Especially, with Underling in particular, where you have to specifically want Favors rather than anything else from the card (yes there are all the reasons to buy a Pearl Diver, ugh).
Why does Territory have its when-gain? Especially with Warlord, it feels quite rare to be able to gain Golds from it.
The main reason is, I had that premise, and that spot seemed fine for it, and then there it was. I've gained Golds from it plenty. It means the whole pile is interactive, that's nice.
Were you surprised that Clashes have gotten a lot of hate? And what are your thoughts on them now?
They seem pretty awesome? I guess I don't feel like they're hated. I know that Warlord initially looks crazy, but then you have the experience.
There was a lot of Barbarian hate, but man, play with the card, learn the ropes, you will not fear it.
In your experience, which published non-removed cards are the most annoying irl? Honestly Triumph just seems impossible irl (both in keeping track of number of cards gained and running out of tokens).
Keep might be the winner for me; I just do not want to track that stuff.
On TGG my banlist is Rebuild, Keep, Fool, Stockpile. Rebuild just makes me sad whenever I see it. Fool, I'm sad about Fool too (it's way too much to ask of casual players), but Lucky Coin is why I ban it; I don't want to play those games vs. the money-heavy bot. And Stockpile, man, you know we enjoyed those playtest games, but 2-player vs. a bot it's not an experience I need to have repeatedly.
Were there concerns that the reworded Butcher is too concise? Granted, it's a difficult ability to phrase, but it still seems easy to misunderstand.
Well it hasn't gone to print yet, so let me know how it goes. It was always a tricky thing to phrase. There's my current best attempt. Sure there's some concern that people won't understand it; no change there.
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2nd editions seem to be a pretty tumultuous event, with all of us opining on which changes we think are good or bad, mourning the loss of our favorite weak, complicated, or unfun cards, and generally complaining about things we don’t like. Some of these changes - like the change to Bonfire - can require change for reasons that aren’t immediately noticeable to most of us. I, personally, was pretty disappointed at the change to Bonfire, said as much in the preview thread, and never stopped to consider that maybe the designer of the game had good reasons for changing it the way he did.
On that note, is there a way that we can get answers to our burning questions in a way that’s more helpful/less hostile? Would it be nice to have a mega thread devoted specifically to 2E questions where we ask “Why did Bonfire change this way?” Should we just be more polite and give you the benefit of the doubt as we ask? Stop clamoring and just wait for the secret history?
Or do you not even enjoy discussing the minutiae of every errata and want us to just let it be?
Thanks for all your hard work in making the game the best it can be. I’m sorry if any of my comments have been annoying to read or sound ungrateful.
Followup to this, in that thread it was said that Bonfire had a second reason for changing which LastFootnote had forgotten about. What was the other reason?
I wrote up an errata explanations post, I have to proofread it but if I don't get to that tonight I probably will tomorrow. Short answer: loops.
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Errata explanations: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=21326.0
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Enjoyed the errata explanations.
One Dominion rule that seems particularly confusing--or so I presume, I don't exactly have a lot of experience trying to explain it to newbies--is the fact that the buy phase is secretly split into two. There's the first part where you can play treasures, and the second part where you can buy cards. So if you use Innovation to play a smithy you bought, you can't play the treasures you draw; but if you use Innovation to play a smithy you gained from Horn of Plenty, you can play the treasures you draw.
The coffers errata seems aimed at making that distinction not matter as much; you can spend coffers even on the second part of the buy phase. But the distinction still matters in other cases, especially with more cards that let you play actions outside your action phase.
Is that something that tends to trip up newbies, in your experience? Have you ever considered trying to address it? I mean, outside the coffers change.
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Is that something that tends to trip up newbies, in your experience? Have you ever considered trying to address it? I mean, outside the coffers change.
For sure it's bad that the buy phase is really two phases. Either it should be clearly two phases - the easy fix to keeping all the cards mostly as-is - or it should be that you can keep playing treasures after buying cards - which breaks various things but would have worked great if done at the start.
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Do you say zee or zed?
It seems that Menagerie hasn't gotten any of the errata? (Supplies/Stockpile should drop "when you play this", and Destrier/Fisherman should match Peddler.) Anyways, what are the plans for Turtle/Horse/Butterfly being able to remove Durations? Add "if this isn't a Duration card...?"
Also will Summon and Reap be reworded to match Blockade?
Monkey seems like a great solution to having to memorize how many cards your opponent gained. Would you prefer to do Goatherd the same way too?
Why did the Guard Dog that-could-react-to-your-own-attacks not work out?
Would you reword Guardian/Ghost Town/Night Watchman/Den of Sin to match Berserker? I think this change would have more upsides than downsides (other than the downside of needing errata)?
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Personally I enjoy being able to buy Ghost Town/Den of Sin/Night Watchman and then use Exorcist on it immediately. And playing these cards doesn't seem simpler or more complex than gaining them to hand.
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Do you say zee or zed?
In most contexts, zee.
It seems that Menagerie hasn't gotten any of the errata? (Supplies/Stockpile should drop "when you play this", and Destrier/Fisherman should match Peddler.) Anyways, what are the plans for Turtle/Horse/Butterfly being able to remove Durations? Add "if this isn't a Duration card...?"
For sure Supplies and Stockpile are supposed to lose "when you play this"; if they haven't online, that's just something I missed due to thinking it had already happened.
I am not sure about Destrier and Fisherman without putting work in there for this post. Maybe they could have better wordings, I can believe it.
I have not been working on Turtle / Horse / Butterfly but you are correct that they cause issues with Durations.
"Non-duration" is also looking likely for Citadel; not in the near future though, since it's not an emergency and we just had errata day dammit.
Also will Summon and Reap be reworded to match Blockade?
I don't know if they will match Blockade in whatever sense you mean that, but they may change.
Normally errata happens as the sets come out. Stef wanted to do a bunch of errata all at once. Pros: people will spot more fixes for you; you don't have the online version with a mix of certain things done and undone. Cons: you miss stuff, you aren't studying fixed images of all the cards; people complain more.
Monkey seems like a great solution to having to memorize how many cards your opponent gained. Would you prefer to do Goatherd the same way too?
Uh, well maybe. It's nice to not have the tracking on Goatherd; that wasn't a secret when Goatherd was worked on and it got the version with the tracking. But maybe there's a better version of it ala Monkey.
Why did the Guard Dog that-could-react-to-your-own-attacks not work out?
I don't actually remember, and it isn't noted in my reports. Probably it was too generous; possibly it was easy to forget because it's unusual. While there was such a version, it almost immediately changed to only working on other players' attacks.
Would you reword Guardian/Ghost Town/Night Watchman/Den of Sin to match Berserker? I think this change would have more upsides than downsides (other than the downside of needing errata)?
"To hand" is simpler in that maybe something messes the situation up, and if that means it's not in your hand that's no problem, and if it means you don't have the card to put it into play, well it used to be that that was a problem. These days however, we don't play the card if you lost it, so, aside from needing to know that, they would work with "play this." It does seem like I would have done that, and just lived with not being able to Exorcist those cards (as usual Dominion doesn't need any particular cute combo).
But, this doesn't seem like the kind of change I'd make with errata.
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Is that something that tends to trip up newbies, in your experience? Have you ever considered trying to address it? I mean, outside the coffers change.
For sure it's bad that the buy phase is really two phases. Either it should be clearly two phases - the easy fix to keeping all the cards mostly as-is - or it should be that you can keep playing treasures after buying cards - which breaks various things but would have worked great if done at the start.
Could you (or someone else) clarify what would "break" if you could play treasures after buying cards? With Merchant Guild errata'ed, I can't think of any card which would be broken when allowing this...
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Is that something that tends to trip up newbies, in your experience? Have you ever considered trying to address it? I mean, outside the coffers change.
For sure it's bad that the buy phase is really two phases. Either it should be clearly two phases - the easy fix to keeping all the cards mostly as-is - or it should be that you can keep playing treasures after buying cards - which breaks various things but would have worked great if done at the start.
Could you (or someone else) clarify what would "break" if you could play treasures after buying cards? With Merchant Guild errata'ed, I can't think of any card which would be broken when allowing this...
I don’t know for sure what would “break” either. But it would be a significant change to how the buy phase works. The most obvious case is where you draw any cards after you’ve started buying: Sheepdog’s and Trail’s reactions come to mind.
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Is that something that tends to trip up newbies, in your experience? Have you ever considered trying to address it? I mean, outside the coffers change.
For sure it's bad that the buy phase is really two phases. Either it should be clearly two phases - the easy fix to keeping all the cards mostly as-is - or it should be that you can keep playing treasures after buying cards - which breaks various things but would have worked great if done at the start.
Could you (or someone else) clarify what would "break" if you could play treasures after buying cards? With Merchant Guild errata'ed, I can't think of any card which would be broken when allowing this...
You could e.g. buy Grand Market, then play Coppers to buy something else, or buy Mint with only your Coppers in play and then play your other Treasures to buy something else.
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Is that something that tends to trip up newbies, in your experience? Have you ever considered trying to address it? I mean, outside the coffers change.
For sure it's bad that the buy phase is really two phases. Either it should be clearly two phases - the easy fix to keeping all the cards mostly as-is - or it should be that you can keep playing treasures after buying cards - which breaks various things but would have worked great if done at the start.
Could you (or someone else) clarify what would "break" if you could play treasures after buying cards? With Merchant Guild errata'ed, I can't think of any card which would be broken when allowing this...
You could e.g. buy Grand Market, then play Coppers to buy something else, or buy Mint with only your Coppers in play and then play your other Treasures to buy something else.
Sure, but that doesn't break anything either IMO - Mint can actually use this small buff, while Grand Market is very strong with or without the change (and you could just increase its price e.g. to $7* to compensate).
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Is that something that tends to trip up newbies, in your experience? Have you ever considered trying to address it? I mean, outside the coffers change.
For sure it's bad that the buy phase is really two phases. Either it should be clearly two phases - the easy fix to keeping all the cards mostly as-is - or it should be that you can keep playing treasures after buying cards - which breaks various things but would have worked great if done at the start.
Could you (or someone else) clarify what would "break" if you could play treasures after buying cards? With Merchant Guild errata'ed, I can't think of any card which would be broken when allowing this...
Alms? I think such errata would be plausible.
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It's already bad to have certain cards that have errata based on certain other cards with errata, like for instance Pillage being changed because of Band of Misfits being changed, because that means that there are physical cards existing that are incompatible (or "sub-compatible") with other physical cards. Having existing cards that are incompatible with current rules is a whole other level of bad.
Come to think of it, we are already at that level. People owning any existing edition of Guilds and buying the next edition of Renaissance, or vice versa, will have a card that is considered broken (broken enough that errata was necessary) with the newest rule. I'm referring to Merchant Guild or Patron. Changing the rule for playing Treasures and errataing Grand Market in the process will have the same effect.
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Having existing cards that are incompatible with current rules is a while other level of bad.the process will have the same effect.
What alternative are you suggesting, to not constantly improve the game? That would be far worse.
Second editions exist and it is not as if ignoring errata somehow makes the game totally unpleasant for folks who still own first edition cards.
Not improving the game by constantly "changing" cards that people already own and paid for physical copies of. Nothing was broken enough that people were having bad experiences. Making new editions with removed cards is fine, and doesn't present any of the problems that errata does. Things like putting "may" on Throne Room is also fine, because it hardly changes the card functionally and almost never matters, but even that is not really necessary. I see very little upside to balance out all the known downsides of errata, and especially when that makes cards from one printed set badly compatible with cards or rules from another. Isn't that the kind of thing that errata should be fixing, not introducing?
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I guess it's true that there may not be a lot of these cards. The classic examples are Grand Market and Mint, but of course there are lots of situations we can come up with, e.g. any way to play draw-to-x in your buy phase. But it might come down to, a few cards get stronger and a few cards have errata like "You can't play more Treasures this turn." It's something I could think more about for the future.
It is of course bad when rulebooks disagree, or players have one printing of one set and one of another such that some interaction is bad. It's a cost of doing errata for sure.
So far I am still standing by my errata though.
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How come then that you are constantly asking for rulings on some cards yet somehow disagree with these very rule intricacies at the same time?
I'm asking for rulings because I maintain a rules document. Also, what I like or dislike has no bearing on the actual rules or rulings that exist.
Nothing in life is static. I prefer games that are constantly improved instead of just thrown out and never touched again.
A printed card is static (unless you print an update, cut it out and stick it in the sleeve). Dominion is a card game, not a computer game. Well, it's also a computer game of course, and maybe those two could or should have been two different games.
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How come then that you are constantly asking for rulings on some cards yet somehow disagree with these very rule intricacies at the same time?
I'm asking for rulings because I maintain a rules document. Also, what I like or dislike has no bearing on the actual rules or rulings that exist.
So tell us, do you want the game to evolve or be static? You cannot have both, you cannot at the same time desire rule updatings and complain about them.
Did you read what he said? He is trying to keep track of what rules are changing so he can continue to follow them - which he already said has nothing to do with if he likes the rulings or not.
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Did you read what he said? He is trying to keep track of what rules are changing so he can continue to follow them - which he already said has nothing to do with if he likes the rulings or not.
That's nonsense. If you use your spare free time to make the effort to design a rule document for a game you obviously like that stuff, i.e. rule changes and rule details.
What you said there seems like the nonsense to me. That's like saying someone must be happy a tornado destroyed their house because they're interested in meteorology.
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That's nonsense. If you use your spare free time to make the effort to design a rule document for a game you obviously like that stuff, i.e. rule changes and rule details.
But you cannot have those without the game designer also caring about these very details and actually changing the rules!
That's my point. Either static game design with rules set in stone or constant improvement and evolvement.
I think it is great that DXV is updating the game. But I also don't worry about getting all the new errata right when playing with first edition cards. It's details, not essentials.
I just noticed that this is the Donald X. interview thread and we're off on a tangent here. Also, incredibly, you're somehow questioning my motivations for writing a rules document instead of actually addressing any of my actual points. It's just so irrelevant. That said, you're half right and half very wrong. You're obviously right that I like rule details. But there's no connection between that and enjoying a ruleset in flux. What I originally liked about the Dominion rules was actually things like their simplicity and consistency, so the rules changes to a great extent represent the opposite of what I enjoy about game rules. Now I'm talking strictly on a personal level, not about what is good for the game etc. (Actually, I don't really have the time and the interest to keep updating my document, but so far I'm doing it anyway because I know that the moment it's not being updated, it's a lot less relevant and the work I already put into it loses a lot of its value.)
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So either you don't care about rule details and perfection and complain about errata or you care about rule details and perfection and welcome the errata. You cannot have it both ways and pretend that game designers should get everything right from the get-go in the case of a still-evolving-game. Might be possible with a DeLaurean but not in the real world.
I just happen to think that Dominion was a great game even before all the errata started in 2019. That's 11 years of the game not sucking. (Not saying that it sucks after that of course, only that it would still be great even without any errata.) Dominion used to be "evolving" in one sense only, that it would get new expansions (and even that not always). There's nothing imperfect about that, since the game was never broken.
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You can do meterology without catastrophes.
The magnitude of the event is beside the point. Being interested in meteorology also doesn't require you to be happy that it's raining.
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Most of the 40 cards getting errata now are not related to funky edge cases.
I have never advocated for a zillion expansions in any way.
It's possible to have many expansions without errata, as you're also saying (contradicting yourself). I could pick apart more of what you're saying (actually I have already), but I think this nonsense has gone on long enough.
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Jeebus / Nick / Punchball has done a lot of great work, compiling rulings; I direct people to that document. He makes work for me sometimes, and I make work for him.
Every way in which the game could be simpler makes me sad. Errata like the new batch makes "the game, considering everything ever" more complex, but simplifies "the game as it is now."
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How do you feel about the balance between putting the rules on the components vs saving space/font size and sending people to the rulebook? The specific one that surprised me recently was the Favours mat in Allies, it mentions you need one Ally with Liaisons but not that each player starts with a Favour. Containing part but not all of the setup for this situation seems the worst of both worlds - I think it's easier to forget the favour than if there were no text on the mat. Interested if you can think of other situations where you had to choose these sorts of things.
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How do you feel about the balance between putting the rules on the components vs saving space/font size and sending people to the rulebook? The specific one that surprised me recently was the Favours mat in Allies, it mentions you need one Ally with Liaisons but not that each player starts with a Favour. Containing part but not all of the setup for this situation seems the worst of both worlds - I think it's easier to forget the favour than if there were no text on the mat. Interested if you can think of other situations where you had to choose these sorts of things.
Possibly the mat should have had that setup Favor on it. As I like to say, you never see the mistakes they caught. We catch lots of mistakes ;_;
In general Dominion leans towards putting stuff on the cards, not in the rulebook. For all games I like putting stuff on the cards, but sometimes something is very common and easy to remember and it will save a lot of space to put it in the rulebook. Or it may feel like it's really the game and not the card. There are also corner cases that don't really come up; those don't like to be explained on cards. And some stuff just has no hope of fitting on the cards.
Overpay is now very rulebook-y - with no rulebook yet - but that's a result of needing to work with what was there (I don't know what it would look like if I were making the set from scratch today; I haven't put in that work).
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In general Dominion leans towards putting stuff on the cards, not in the rulebook. For all games I like putting stuff on the cards, but sometimes something is very common and easy to remember and it will save a lot of space to put it in the rulebook. Or it may feel like it's really the game and not the card.
Ways are a good example of this. Each could have said how to use them but that makes for a lot of distracting text, just as well to make people learn it the hard way once and then easily see what each Way does.
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Would you reword Guardian/Ghost Town/Night Watchman/Den of Sin to match Berserker? I think this change would have more upsides than downsides (other than the downside of needing errata)?
"To hand" is simpler in that maybe something messes the situation up, and if that means it's not in your hand that's no problem, and if it means you don't have the card to put it into play, well it used to be that that was a problem. These days however, we don't play the card if you lost it, so, aside from needing to know that, they would work with "play this." It does seem like I would have done that, and just lived with not being able to Exorcist those cards (as usual Dominion doesn't need any particular cute combo).
But, this doesn't seem like the kind of change I'd make with errata.
Actually, I think Villa might be the most deserving of the Berserker wording. We can get rid of the "put this into your hand, +1 Action" middleman and just play it.
Villa
+2 Actions
+1 Buy
+$1
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When you gain this, you may play it, and if it's your Buy phase return to your Action phase.
Anyways, more things I'm curious about (and/or want to put on the wiki):
Why did Urchin not get errata (to line up with Hermit)? Is it because Urchin getting "exchange" doesn't make enough of a difference to justify errata?
Why do Tax, Defiled Shrine Messenger need to be "in your buy phase" and not "during your turn"? Of all the when-buy to when-gain changes, those are the only ones which I think may be unnecessarily conservative.
What do you think of the concept of cards that "bundle" a bunch of other cards (like Tournament and Page)? Other than being intimidating for casual players, I think they (usually) have the problem of one bad apple spoiling the rest (e.g. Warrior)?
The secret history says that Trail got its when-trash ability late. And from what I've seen, Trail jumping out of the trash was unintuitive for a lot of people (fortunately it's in the rulebook). Was this a concern at all (I can't really think of a better wording to solve this though)?
Do you think that 3-cost cards are the most likely to go wrong? It seems like raising Urchin/Ambassador/Stockpile to 4 would solve (not all, but most) of their problems.
In general, how good are you at predicting "a lot of casuals will hate this card" and "a lot of experts will hate this card"?
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Actually, I think Villa might be the most deserving of the Berserker wording. We can get rid of the "put this into your hand, +1 Action" middleman and just play it.
Looks nice.
Why did Urchin not get errata (to line up with Hermit)? Is it because Urchin getting "exchange" doesn't make enough of a difference to justify errata?
It's something I can consider again the next time the set is reprinted. Dark Ages has a trashing theme; it matters if cards go to the trash. That's something to preserve if there isn't a good reason to change it. It's nice to exchange, especially once the word is in the set; it's more what was meant in the first place (the Urchin turns into a Mercenary, he doesn't die), and works cleanly. Once you know what it is. Ultimately it's a question as to which is better.
Why do Tax, Defiled Shrine Messenger need to be "in your buy phase" and not "during your turn"? Of all the when-buy to when-gain changes, those are the only ones which I think may be unnecessarily conservative.
For Tax, I'd be punishing Action Workshops if I made it "turn"; on a card that I'm just fixing, not making from scratch, there's sure no call for that.
Defiled Shrine could possibly be "turn." It would let you Workshop the Curse but that's not so bad. It doesn't make much of a difference for Black Cat.
Incidentally! Basilica and Colonnade are both getting "in your Buy phase" added. I tried for the simplest versions of the cards, and let them be more different to get there, but a bunch of people complained, and while they don't seem super reasonable to me, them being unhappy with this change is real, and the intention was to fix cards not make them as if new cards, and "in your Buy phase" is not the mess that "that you bought" is.
And! Donate will somehow get more different at the same time, it will trigger at the start of your next turn, that's right. This has played great. It's a little weird since you're not used to it, but is as close as possible to the original while getting rid of rules problems. Yes "first" means before other start-of-turn stuff. And we can cite how e.g. it means you're immune to Militia for a turn. But it's very close to the original. It even gets rid of some unintentional changes the other versions had, like being able to trash everything with Tomb on your last turn.
Donate: Event, 8D
At the start of your next turn, first, put your deck and discard pile into your hand, trash any number of cards from it, then shuffle the rest into your deck and draw 5 cards.
Basilica: Landmark
When you gain a card in your Buy phase, if you have $2 or more, take 2VP from here.
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Setup: Put 6VP here per player.
Colonnade: Landmark
When you gain an Action card in your Buy phase, if you have a copy of it in play, take 2VP from here.
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Setup: Put 6VP here per player.
And these changes will appear in the next release of the TGG version, and I mean whenever Stef puts them in for dominion.games.
And I will go report this on the discord too, and figure that Nick / Punchball / Jeebus will see it here.
What do you think of the concept of cards that "bundle" a bunch of other cards (like Tournament and Page)? Other than being intimidating for casual players, I think they (usually) have the problem of one bad apple spoiling the rest (e.g. Warrior)?
I'm not sure what you mean by "bundle" there; Allies is not so far in the past, and obv. I was pleased enough with what Allies did then. I am still pleased with it. The big problem is "read these three other cards to understand this card." With the split piles, casual players can reduce that to, "this will give me control of the pile and that's probably something"; I don't think they read all the cards. I mean they didn't, when I played with them. And then they were more likely to rotate just to see what was next, and you know, the cards to read end up spaced out some. So it's not as bad as it sounds. And I mean there the set is, saying I approve. Now that it's out, no change there. And more-than-ideally complex for casual players, but not too much to want to print, and I think they're good times for casual players.
Page is like that but less so. Tournament isn't like that at all; you can ignore Prizes until you win one, but then you have to read five cards. It's certainly a burden. Tournament is one of the most complex cards in the game - figure out this 2x2 payoff grid, then read 5 more cards. Really that should have been two different cards. And then, having to read 5 cards at once is bad, and there are various things you can do to improve that.
The secret history says that Trail got its when-trash ability late. And from what I've seen, Trail jumping out of the trash was unintuitive for a lot of people (fortunately it's in the rulebook). Was this a concern at all (I can't really think of a better wording to solve this though)?
No, I mean if I'd thought "people won't understand this" I would have tried to make it clearer. Probably a parenthetical could have addressed the trash-jump, if nothing else did the trick.
Do you think that 3-cost cards are the most likely to go wrong? It seems like raising Urchin/Ambassador/Stockpile to 4 would solve (not all, but most) of their problems.
I don't think $3 is especially a problem. Sure it means you can open with two copies of the card; $4 is in some sense safer. But $2 means you can empty the pile quickly sometimes, and $5 means someone can open it with a 5/2. Those are probably both bigger issues.
Stockpile should be $4, and then might be fine. I don't think that fixes Ambassador. It's hard to know how Urchin plays out then, but it would be worth trying.
In general, how good are you at predicting "a lot of casuals will hate this card" and "a lot of experts will hate this card"?
If I think a lot of players will hate a card, it tends not to get published, and then I don't find out if they actually would have. So I mean, there's a lack of data here!
There are a few general trends though, visible in published cards, that tend to hold true but don't quite kill cards. Knights will have a group of people who hate them; attacks in general are less-liked by some players, but extra-liked by others. Simple cards will have a group of people who would rather have had some more novel unplayably complex card.
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And I will go report this on the discord too, and figure that Nick / Punchball / Jeebus will see it here.
I'm not checking Discord a lot, so I would appreciate it if you would post things like this in this forum too (like now).
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Merchant Camp seems weak for $3. Was it tried at $2 and found to be too strong?
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Merchant Camp seems weak for $3. Was it tried at $2 and found to be too strong?
No, I was happy with it at $3.
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Just a curiosity. Are the expansions and new cards play tested at the table, or online, or with a simulator?
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Just a curiosity. Are the expansions and new cards play tested at the table, or online, or with a simulator?
At the table and online. A few things have been simulated over the years, including by Geronimoo.
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Do you know if the BGG Store be getting duration Prince anytime soon?
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Do you know if the BGG Store be getting duration Prince anytime soon?
Not soon.
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I’m guessing this may have been discussed a while ago, but… why isn’t Lich a duration card? It does something after your turn is over, and it feels like it would be helpful to stay out and remind you to skip a turn. Seems like the same thing as Outpost really. Just played a 3-player game where someone forgot to skip a turn.
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I’m guessing this may have been discussed a while ago, but… why isn’t Lich a duration card? It does something after your turn is over, and it feels like it would be helpful to stay out and remind you to skip a turn. Seems like the same thing as Outpost really. Just played a 3-player game where someone forgot to skip a turn.
There were Duration card versions, and I don't mean with some other ability, just for the "skip a turn." My best guess without digging through old posts is that it changed simply due to, if it's a Duration, when do you discard it, and how well do people do at not having to ask and getting that right. If it's not a Duration card, you just discard it the turn you played it, only Duration cards give you any thinking to do there.
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Duration Lich has a bunch of problems. If you discard it on the skipped turn, then you're doing something on that turn and so not actually "skipping" it. And then what if you have other Durations in play on the skipped turn? Why do you resolve and discard Lich but not the others? But if you discard it on the turn AFTER the skipped turn, that breaks the rule that Durations only remain in play if they have still have something to do.
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I think the rules for durations would call for it to be discarded at the end of your opponent's turn after the turn you skipped, which seems like a hard thing to remember.
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I think the rules for durations would call for it to be discarded at the end of your opponent's turn after the turn you skipped, which seems like a hard thing to remember.
Yeah, Duration cards only get discarded during a clean-up phase, but they don't have to be your clean-up phase. So it would go away next time there is a clean-up phase after the skipped turn. Which I agree would be confusing for people that don't spend their days thinking about these sorts of interactions.
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You mentioned, back when fielding questions about Android: Infiltration and Factory Job, that you had another game called Heist? I’d love to hear more about it.
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You mentioned, back when fielding questions about Android: Infiltration and Factory Job, that you had another game called Heist? I’d love to hear more about it.
For me the question here is, have I given up on that game yet? I'm sure not showing it around. A couple friends adore it, but the last time I worked on it, one player managed to make it political, and that killed my interest in it. I just have no interest in political games. I didn't think they'd found a fundamental flaw in the game, but I'm always playing with that person.
I feel like Heist solved a problem that I don't see solved: the idea of a game where the players have to co-operate but only one player wins. These games are always awful; the move is to not co-operate and hope the other players choose you winning over everyone losing. You can make one of those that works though, now you know. And knowing makes it easier to find the solution, and well, like I said, have I given up on that game yet? If not, I've said too much already. For me the uneasy co-operation was a key joy of the game; otherwise I could just make a co-op version.
Heist was "thugs going on heists" themed, something I did a lot oh 25 years ago. The public response to Greed made me think, oh well, the world doesn't want crime flavor, and these days I'd probably do it as fantasy heroes going into dungeons. I made such a version oh like 8 years ago? That was Heist's last stand so far. I still might revisit it though, or re-use a mechanic from it, and that just plummets my interest in spelling out what it had going on.
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Heist is great. I've played lots of it and still get it to the table some these days.
Factory Job is also fun (much more so than Infiltration), but I accidentally wrinkled up my paper board of it and haven't yet had the wherewithal to print and tape together a new one.
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Any news on Plunder?
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Any news on Plunder?
No; we still expect it to be printed Nov. 3. And then the release date is down to how long shipping takes.
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What is the usual delay between the printing date and the previews / online availability? (What was the delay for the last few expansions?)
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Speaking of shipping times, how does it work?
I'm still waiting for the 2nd edition of Seaside/Prosperity/Hinterlands and their update packs.
I think it takes around 3 months from an expansion is released until I can buy it here in Sweden and that time seems to have been consistent for many years now, although this time it seems to be over 4 months.
The actual effect is that I get to be excited about every expansion three times (when it is announced, when I see the previews, and when I get it) with enough time to forget about it in between to make the excitement bigger for each step.
Based on what I see on this forum obviously some people get access to new Dominion stuff immediately when it's released but which parts of the world are they in and why is the difference in time so long until it reaches the rest of us?
Please note that this is not intended as a complaint. I'm just curious to understand how the shipping works.
Is it logistics involving boats across the oceans that is slow, is it that production can't keep up with demand the first months, or is it just difficult to get deliveries through the hoards of vikings around our coasts?
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What is the usual delay between the printing date and the previews / online availability? (What was the delay for the last few expansions?)
To answer this accurately I'd just be looking up forum posts, which you can do as easily.
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Speaking of shipping times, how does it work?
I'm still waiting for the 2nd edition of Seaside/Prosperity/Hinterlands and their update packs.
I think it takes around 3 months from an expansion is released until I can buy it here in Sweden and that time seems to have been consistent for many years now, although this time it seems to be over 4 months.
The actual effect is that I get to be excited about every expansion three times (when it is announced, when I see the previews, and when I get it) with enough time to forget about it in between to make the excitement bigger for each step.
Based on what I see on this forum obviously some people get access to new Dominion stuff immediately when it's released but which parts of the world are they in and why is the difference in time so long until it reaches the rest of us?
Please note that this is not intended as a complaint. I'm just curious to understand how the shipping works.
Is it logistics involving boats across the oceans that is slow, is it that production can't keep up with demand the first months, or is it just difficult to get deliveries through the hoards of vikings around our coasts?
I don't have any specific information for your particular country / product combination. Foreign editions are up to foreign publishers, who make their own schedules. I usually don't hear anything about those releases, unless they are the same time as the English release and Jay happens to mention it to me.
Cards are currently printed in Germany. And assembled, the box of stuff put together. They could thus come out faster in Europe... but RGG makes them wait until the cards are also in the US. They sit around in a warehouse waiting for a boat. Then they come over by boat, then wait for customs, then move around in trucks. In the US, Jay ships stuff first to the farther-away places (from Wisconsin), so that everyone will get it at around the same time.
The pandemic slowed everything down, and it's hard to say how much that effect still applies.
Plunder is printing Nov. 3... unless that date slips somehow. I'll know around that week if it actually got printed. Then Jay will find out when the boat actually leaves, then at some point a boat will arrive and he'll know that, then the cards will get to him and he'll know that. I update people, to the degree that I can.
When we have a good guess for an earliest-possible release date in the US (probably around when the boat leaves), I'll schedule previews for the last week that the cards won't possibly be out. And I'll tell people; the news always gets out.
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Speaking of shipping times, how does it work?
I'm still waiting for the 2nd edition of Seaside/Prosperity/Hinterlands and their update packs.
I think it takes around 3 months from an expansion is released until I can buy it here in Sweden and that time seems to have been consistent for many years now, although this time it seems to be over 4 months.
The actual effect is that I get to be excited about every expansion three times (when it is announced, when I see the previews, and when I get it) with enough time to forget about it in between to make the excitement bigger for each step.
Based on what I see on this forum obviously some people get access to new Dominion stuff immediately when it's released but which parts of the world are they in and why is the difference in time so long until it reaches the rest of us?
Please note that this is not intended as a complaint. I'm just curious to understand how the shipping works.
Is it logistics involving boats across the oceans that is slow, is it that production can't keep up with demand the first months, or is it just difficult to get deliveries through the hoards of vikings around our coasts?
I don't have any specific information for your particular country / product combination. Foreign editions are up to foreign publishers, who make their own schedules. I usually don't hear anything about those releases, unless they are the same time as the English release and Jay happens to mention it to me.
Cards are currently printed in Germany. And assembled, the box of stuff put together. They could thus come out faster in Europe... but RGG makes them wait until the cards are also in the US. They sit around in a warehouse waiting for a boat. Then they come over by boat, then wait for customs, then move around in trucks. In the US, Jay ships stuff first to the farther-away places (from Wisconsin), so that everyone will get it at around the same time.
The pandemic slowed everything down, and it's hard to say how much that effect still applies.
I forgot to specify that I was referring to the English edition. (I generally avoid translations if the original language is one I understand.)
I always assumed the delay was due to the game being shipped from another continent. It's strange that shipping withing Europe would take several months.
Or could it by some weird logistical or economical reason be that the distributor that imports games to Sweden actually receives them from a warehouse in the U.S. so the games are shipped twice across the Atlantic instead of getting them directly from Germany?
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I always assumed the delay was due to the game being shipped from another continent. It's strange that shipping withing Europe would take several months.
Or could it by some weird logistical or economical reason be that the distributor that imports games to Sweden actually receives them from a warehouse in the U.S. so the games are shipped twice across the Atlantic instead of getting them directly from Germany?
I hope not.
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I just spoke to asmodee nordic today. It sounds like they ship from the USA. Sweden has had an extremely subpar delivery of these, My flgs got theirs today, and they ordered them the day they were announced.
Spelexperten.se is the only one who got "many", and they got them just a few days ago.
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Are there plans for more second editions, or are we done?
Since you skipped the small expansions - and card counts go up to 500 - Guilds, cornucopia and Alchemy don't have enough material to work in as a single big box second edition?
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Are there plans for more second editions, or are we done?
Since you skipped the small expansions - and card counts go up to 500 - Guilds, cornucopia and Alchemy don't have enough material to work in as a single big box second edition?
Second editions can't come out until the first edition of that set has sold through. And announcing a Second Edition could (theoretically) prevent that first edition from actually selling through. So this is a question that cannot satisfactorily be answered.
And Dominion second editions aside, it's generally up to the publisher to make announcements about upcoming products.
EDIT: Also Guilds and Cornucopia have already been combined into a large set, sometimes labeled "Mixed Box". Putting all three small expansions together would mean raising the price above a normal large box expansion I think, since it would be 450-ish cards, plus Coffers mats and coin tokens.
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I’ve seen attempts made by other people (some fairly successful and some not so much), but have you ever considered creating an official solo / automa variant rule set for Dominion?
As a semi-unrelated follow-up, what “typically multiplayer” game do you think provides rules for the best solo experience?
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I’ve seen attempts made by other people (some fairly successful and some not so much), but have you ever considered creating an official solo / automa variant rule set for Dominion?
As a semi-unrelated follow-up, what “typically multiplayer” game do you think provides rules for the best solo experience?
I haven't put any thought into solo-Dominion.
I don't have an answer for the second question either. I don't play board games by myself. I guess, with D&D you spend time making maps and filling them with stuff, and with Magic you spend time building decks, and those are solo experiences for a multiplayer game. But you know. Not really what you were looking for.
Probably there's a co-op with quarterbacking that solo play works fine for.
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IIRC Plunders print date was the 3rd of November. Do we know when the release is or when the previews start or are we still waiting other things like printing and shipping
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IIRC Plunders print date was the 3rd of November. Do we know when the release is or when the previews start or are we still waiting other things like printing and shipping
We do not know those things.
Plunder has printed, and has been loaded into one or more containers. There still may be shipping delays; we won't know until the boat shows up and the trucks are loaded. But currently we expect the set to be out in early December.
As always the plan is to have previews in the last week before we can't rule out the set coming out. I'll pick a date (and then stick to it even if shipping then slips) once we have a better idea of when that will be.
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If it's on a cargo ship, it'll arrive at the start of your next turn. Your opponent might be taking a really long turn though...
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If it's on a cargo ship, it'll arrive at the start of your next turn. Your opponent might be taking a really long turn though...
... though if they are intentionally taking a really long turn in order to delay the arrival of Plunder, you might choose not to play with them again.
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If Plateau Shepherds had been in an expansion that featured Landmarks, would it have been both an Ally and a Landmark?
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If Plateau Shepherds had been in an expansion that featured Landmarks, would it have been both an Ally and a Landmark?
The only thing that would do is allow you to include it in a game without a Liaison.
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If Plateau Shepherds had been in an expansion that featured Landmarks, would it have been both an Ally and a Landmark?
The only thing that would do is allow you to include it in a game without a Liaison.
That could be rulebook'd, and more importantly it would turn the background part-green.
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If Plateau Shepherds had been in an expansion that featured Landmarks, would it have been both an Ally and a Landmark?
The only thing that would do is allow you to include it in a game without a Liaison.
That could be rulebook'd, and more importantly it would turn the background part-green.
Yeah, but what would a Plateau Shepherds Landmark do? The only thing I can think of is giving an automatic 2 VP for all $2 cards, but if you did that, then the Favors wouldn't do anything, so the Ally part would be meaningless
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Seems the idea isn't to change what the landscape does, but rather satisfy the notion that if something gives you VP at end of game it should be of type "Landmark", because well that's what half the Landmarks do.
But the answer to the question is no, an Ally is an Ally and a Landmark is a Landmark, there is no reason for a particular landscape to have both types unless you also wanted it to be usable both ways, which you don't for something that's per favor.
Theoretically you could imagine a Landmark that changes the game somehow without directly interacting with VP at all (and without being bought like events/projects, and without using favors like allies). That's just not the flavor they were made with.
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Landmarks and Allies are actually exactly the same thing functionally except for the setup rules.
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Landmarks and Allies are actually exactly the same thing functionally except for the setup rules.
Could you elaborate?
I see they are the same except for the part where Allies have an entire card type dedicated to them which are a prerequisite for their inclusion in the kingdom and also use a brand-new currency common to all of them to manage access to their benefits… at which point I think, if anything, Allies are closer to Events than Landmarks.
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I see they are the same except for the part where Allies have an entire card type dedicated to them which are a prerequisite for their inclusion in the kingdom and also use a brand-new currency common to all of them to manage access to their benefits… at which point I think, if anything, Allies are closer to Events than Landmarks.
The part where Allies have an entire card type dedicated to them which are a prerequisite for their inclusion in the kingdom is the setup rules that Jeebus mentioned.
The fact that Allies use Favors is a concept thing, not a rule thing. Donald X. could release an Ally that didn't do anything with Favors, and while that would undermine the concept somewhat and likely be godawful design in general, nothing about the game's functionality would break — the rules that already exist in the game would cover that just fine. And with the exception of the setup rules, it would be identical to how Landmarks behave, i.e. they just sit there and effectively add a new rule to the game that affects all players. If there was a Landmark that had the exact text of an existing Ally, it would work exactly the same as the Ally does (except you probably don't have a way to get any Favors in the kingdom because the setup rules of Landmarks don't make sure that you do), and if there was an Ally that had the exact text of an existing Landmark, it would work exactly the same as the Landmark does (and then you would have at least one Liaison in the kingdom and nothing to do with those Favors).
Events are different, they are things you can buy and they give you a one-shot effect when you do, which is not just a fun fact that they all have in common, but actually what the rules say about them. If there was an Event with the text of an Ally (or the text of a Landmark, for that matter), the rules would tell you that you can buy it by using a +buy and paying the cost in your buy phase to get its effect, and that would contradict the fact that it does not have a cost. An Ally with the text of an Event would be equally nonsensical.
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Landmarks and Allies are actually exactly the same thing functionally except for the setup rules.
Could you elaborate?
I see they are the same except for the part where Allies have an entire card type dedicated to them which are a prerequisite for their inclusion in the kingdom and also use a brand-new currency common to all of them to manage access to their benefits… at which point I think, if anything, Allies are closer to Events than Landmarks.
The "prerequisite for their inclusion in the kingdom" is a setup rule, and as I said the setup rules are different.
The rules for "Favor" (Favor tokens and the meaning of "+1 Favor") are given in the rulebook, and both Allies and Liaisons refer to Favors. So although all Allies use Favors, technically there is no rule saying that "any landscape card that refers to Favors is an Ally" or anything like that; just as there is no rule saying that "any landscape card that gives VP tokens during the game or VP at the end of the game is a Landmark". Functionally, Allies and Landmarks are landscape cards that don't have any specific rule associated with them (again, except for setup) except the rule that the abilities on them are available at all times for all players.
Events, on the other hand, also have the rule that their ability can be bought by spending a buy and paying the given cost, immediately triggering it.
EDIT: Ninja'd!
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Thanks for explaining! I’m going to be up all night having an existential crisis over that. As much as I’d like to, I can’t find any fault with your reasoning.
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Landmarks and Allies are actually exactly the same thing functionally except for the setup rules.
Could you elaborate?
I see they are the same except for the part where Allies have an entire card type dedicated to them which are a prerequisite for their inclusion in the kingdom and also use a brand-new currency common to all of them to manage access to their benefits… at which point I think, if anything, Allies are closer to Events than Landmarks.
The "prerequisite for their inclusion in the kingdom" is a setup rule, and as I said the setup rules are different.
The rules for "Favor" (Favor tokens and the meaning of "+1 Favor") are given in the rulebook, and both Allies and Liaisons refer to Favors. So although all Allies use Favors, technically there is no rule saying that "any landscape card that refers to Favors is an Ally" or anything like that; just as there is no rule saying that "any landscape card that gives VP tokens during the game or VP at the end of the game is a Landmark". Functionally, Allies and Landmarks are landscape cards that don't have any specific rule associated with them (again, except for setup) except the rule that the abilities on them are available at all times for all players.
Events, on the other hand, also have the rule that their ability can be bought by spending a buy and paying the given cost, immediately triggering it.
EDIT: Ninja'd!
This is only true for those Allies for which you don't spend favors to activate. I think it's pretty clear that those Allies for which you have to trigger by spending a currency DO have an additional rule (i.e. you must spend favors to activate) compared to Landmarks or to those Allies which are not triggerable.
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Landmarks and Allies are actually exactly the same thing functionally except for the setup rules.
Could you elaborate?
I see they are the same except for the part where Allies have an entire card type dedicated to them which are a prerequisite for their inclusion in the kingdom and also use a brand-new currency common to all of them to manage access to their benefits… at which point I think, if anything, Allies are closer to Events than Landmarks.
The "prerequisite for their inclusion in the kingdom" is a setup rule, and as I said the setup rules are different.
The rules for "Favor" (Favor tokens and the meaning of "+1 Favor") are given in the rulebook, and both Allies and Liaisons refer to Favors. So although all Allies use Favors, technically there is no rule saying that "any landscape card that refers to Favors is an Ally" or anything like that; just as there is no rule saying that "any landscape card that gives VP tokens during the game or VP at the end of the game is a Landmark". Functionally, Allies and Landmarks are landscape cards that don't have any specific rule associated with them (again, except for setup) except the rule that the abilities on them are available at all times for all players.
Events, on the other hand, also have the rule that their ability can be bought by spending a buy and paying the given cost, immediately triggering it.
EDIT: Ninja'd!
This is only true for those Allies for which you don't spend favors to activate. I think it's pretty clear that those Allies for which you have to trigger by spending a currency DO have an additional rule (i.e. you must spend favors to activate) compared to Landmarks or to those Allies which are not triggerable.
Lots of landmarks are triggerable... Arena (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Arena), is optionally triggerable just like Allies; about half the others automatically trigger when you do certain things.
*Edit* You don't spent favors to activate an ally. Allies trigger automatically at certain times, and when they trigger they give you the option to spend 1 or more favors to get the effect. Compare the wording on Market Towns (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Market_Towns) to Arena (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Arena). They both trigger at the start of your buy phase; and they're worded exactly the same. The only difference is that one allows you to discard an action for a benefit, and the other allows you to spend a favor for a benefit.
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Have you ever considered starting your own youtube channel where you would share your thoughts on cards, strategies and combos players might not know, more history about the origins of the cards or even play some online games? Or do you generally prefer people to figure strategies and combos on their own?
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Have you ever considered starting your own youtube channel where you would share your thoughts on cards, strategies and combos players might not know, more history about the origins of the cards or even play some online games? Or do you generally prefer people to figure strategies and combos on their own?
It can be fun talking about the cards, but it's both great to let people figure things out for themselves, and also, who has the time.
If you didn't know, there are youtube clips appearing this month that are me talking about origins of cards.
https://shorturl.at/jnAR3
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Have you ever considered starting your own youtube channel where you would share your thoughts on cards, strategies and combos players might not know, more history about the origins of the cards or even play some online games? Or do you generally prefer people to figure strategies and combos on their own?
It can be fun talking about the cards, but it's both great to let people figure things out for themselves, and also, who has the time.
If you didn't know, there are youtube clips appearing this month that are me talking about origins of cards.
https://www.youtube.com/@singingdominion9851
(it says "this video is unavailable," but it's a channel not a video; there are videos there)
I do know about these series of you talking about them, and it is great, thanks for doing these.
Now a question kinda releated to the other one: Would you say that you know some crazy card combos that pro players haven't come up with (yet)
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Working link to the channel: https://shorturl.at/jnAR3
(btw I didn't realize it was still possible in 2022 to create YT videos with such low production quality! Rather impressive, I feel teleported to 15 years ago ;D )
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Now a question kinda releated to the other one: Would you say that you know some crazy card combos that pro players haven't come up with (yet)
It's hard to be sure, but probably not? Players as a whole, or even just online ones who are part of the community that I see, get in so many games relative to me.
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Is there a specific reason Shaman says "up to 6$" rather than "up to 2$"? Is the interaction with trash-for-benefit cards (making them bad) part of the plan rather than an accident? Is there some other interaction that you would miss out on with "up to 2$" that's really fun?
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Is there a specific reason Shaman says "up to 6$" rather than "up to 2$"? Is the interaction with trash-for-benefit cards (making them bad) part of the plan rather than an accident? Is there some other interaction that you would miss out on with "up to 2$" that's really fun?
I have the opposite question: is Province-trashing something that occurs often enough to warrant a restriction? Is there something else you’re trying to protect against, or just protecting the design space?
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Is there something else you’re trying to protect against
Loots. Spell Scroll in particular.
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Is there something else you’re trying to protect against
Loots. Spell Scroll in particular.
I guess that doesn’t seem like a huge problem to me - passing Spell Scroll back and forth seems like it would be a fun multiplayer feature, if anything.
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Is there a specific reason Shaman says "up to 6$" rather than "up to 2$"? Is the interaction with trash-for-benefit cards (making them bad) part of the plan rather than an accident? Is there some other interaction that you would miss out on with "up to 2$" that's really fun?
I have the opposite question: is Province-trashing something that occurs often enough to warrant a restriction? Is there something else you’re trying to protect against, or just protecting the design space?
It's not $2 because $6 gives us more gameplay. It's not $8 because the gameplay there is bad. I never tried those specific versions; I had experience from other cards.
If you trash a good card to Shaman, your opponent (or, the one to your left) can get it; we always enjoyed that. It's no accident.
It's possible it could have been allowed to trash Provinces; since I didn't test that, I don't know. But it sounds bad.
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Not a question, just wanted to say thank you for the previews. Previews week is one of my favorite weeks of the year and this year we got five! I really appreciate all the thought that goes into introducing the set piece by piece in a thematic way. It's something you don't have to do (I think, I don't know if you're required to) but it makes a big difference. To me it's kind of like how musicians start with a lead single to get you hyped for the album.
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Not a question, just wanted to say thank you for the previews. Previews week is one of my favorite weeks of the year and this year we got five! I really appreciate all the thought that goes into introducing the set piece by piece in a thematic way. It's something you don't have to do (I think, I don't know if you're required to) but it makes a big difference. To me it's kind of like how musicians start with a lead single to get you hyped for the album.
Thanks! I don't have to do them. It's fun for me to do them, it's fun for you, we all win.
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So, next expansion when?
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So, next expansion when?
Right now I'm working on other games.
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At one point it was considered that there was a lot more difference between $4 and $5 cards than other cost differences of $1.
What's your current design philosophy around card costs? The reason I ask is looking at the large number of strong (seeming) $4 cards in Plunder, I'm wondering if it's changed to try and make the $4-$5 gap more like the others.
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At one point it was considered that there was a lot more difference between $4 and $5 cards than other cost differences of $1.
What's your current design philosophy around card costs? The reason I ask is looking at the large number of strong (seeming) $4 cards in Plunder, I'm wondering if it's changed to try and make the $4-$5 gap more like the others.
There's still a big gap between $4 and $5; it's just, there are all the factors. For example, if you don't want to open with a particular card, e.g. Tools, then it has more leeway to cost $4 despite being in some sense "worth" $5. Tools is "worth" $5, but it has better gameplay at $4, and, crucially, you don't want to open with it.
There have always been lots of reasons for card costs that go beyond some baseline "charge more for more powerful cards." What matters is actual gameplay, and from day one there have been cards that played better if they cost more than they were "worth" or less than they were "worth."
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How do you feel when someone takes something you've said about a Dominion card, and then puts it onto the wiki, where it will stay forever? I'd personally be creeped out.
What are the best and worst parts of writing secret histories?
So far it seems like the most controversial Plunder cards are Shaman and Frigate. What are your thoughts on them?
Some Plunder Durations seem like better fits for Allies (specifically Crew and Taskmaster, which are both recursive). If you had a magic wand and could move cards into previous sets, would you put them in Allies?
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How do you feel when someone takes something you've said about a Dominion card, and then puts it onto the wiki, where it will stay forever? I'd personally be creeped out.
It's fine, it's never bothered me at all. The quote about free pizza is severely lacking context, and there's probably another thing like that, maybe the starve-to-death ruling. I'm not complaining about Dominion fans when I talk about people mad at losing totally-free-for-years isotropic for a for-sale version with fewer features; I'm complaining about one specific guy who wanted RGG boycotted, because how dare RGG be so generous and then not have every feature in the for-sale version. And I'm not saying people are stupid for thinking there could be a stalemate, or any such thing, in the starve-to-death thread; I'm saying that that one guy who really needed an answer to "what if we Thief until no-one has Treasures and the Copper pile is empty and there's no way anyone can empty a third pile after Curses" was wasting everyone's time, and in fact was clearly a fake account, created to ask the question a second time only this time pretend it had happened, after he didn't get the answer he wanted the first time.
But I mean, all the times the wiki says, here's a thing I said about a card; man, it's fine, go ahead.
What are the best and worst parts of writing secret histories?
I think they are too uniform in joy to pick something like that out. I guess if I have to research what we said in reports, rather than just card images, that's the worst part. And what, the best part is probably people being happy to see it posted; I should get on that.
So far it seems like the most controversial Plunder cards are Shaman and Frigate. What are your thoughts on them?
Shaman is a set highlight for me. It shakes things up, you have a new experience. I am used to multiplayer; Shaman does not hurt as much as a regular junking attack like Witch. I've played a lot of Plunder games against the TGG bot, and Shaman stayed a highlight all through that. I have to figure out how to play those boards, in a way I didn't with e.g. Ambassador.
Frigate, well typically the weakest card in a set these days is an attack, what can you do. It's because some people hate attacks, and Witches are the only ones without issues; people are terrified of Knights, and Spies are so slow, and Militia doesn't allow for much variety. And then Duration attacks are tricky and wordy. So, there's always a Raider or Gatekeeper or something, that avoids breaking the game and being hated by being weak instead, and well I can live with that, at least the attack fans still get a card. Oh they voted Frigate at the top you say? Huh. Uh. Nevermind.
Some Plunder Durations seem like better fits for Allies (specifically Crew and Taskmaster, which are both recursive). If you had a magic wand and could move cards into previous sets, would you put them in Allies?
I might move a few cards from some sets to other ones in order to consolidate some themes; I haven't really given it much thought, but in general it makes sense. There was one Tunnel because my philosophy at the time was to use each idea the minimum possible number of times. Then I had to make hundreds of cards and maybe there can be a 2nd card that triggers on discarding? And now there are a few and I mean if you put them all in one set it becomes part of the set identity, and they get more combos when playing with that set irl. There will always be spread-out related cards, and some things probably don't want to cluster, but overall I can see the beauty of it.
Crew and Taskmaster specifically, well, they are pushing "variety of Duration effects" for Plunder. They are on-theme where they are. If one set had all the Hirelings, well Plunder still wanted one of those, and so on. Sure these two are also recursive, and thus fitting for Allies; Plunder specifically wanted them though. And Taskmaster relates to next-time. I guess if I'd made both sets and they weren't out yet, I might consider moving Crew, but probably not Taskmaster.
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Hi Donald…
First of all a big thank you for the pearl that Dominion is, and the hours of enjoyment that we take from it…
Donald, is it feasible (in business term) to make products similar to those of the second edition cards (small box - around 100 cards) but with specific mechanics worth revisiting? Eg. I love Reserve cards, or even Projects, is it feasible releasing products containing just more cards of those mechanincs? Like… 9 new cards for Reserve lovers or 9 new cards for Night lovers…
A large expansion tend to revisit past mechanics that does not require nothing else… if new Reserve cards were to be made in a new expansion, maybe 6 more mats should be added by those who do not have Adventures… That is why I am asking… but really have no clue if this would be interesting, desirable or even published…
Thanks
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Donald, is it feasible (in business term) to make products similar to those of the second edition cards (small box - around 100 cards) but with specific mechanics worth revisiting? Eg. I love Reserve cards, or even Projects, is it feasible releasing products containing just more cards of those mechanincs? Like… 9 new cards for Reserve lovers or 9 new cards for Night lovers…
A large expansion tend to revisit past mechanics that does not require nothing else… if new Reserve cards were to be made in a new expansion, maybe 6 more mats should be added by those who do not have Adventures… That is why I am asking… but really have no clue if this would be interesting, desirable or even published…
It's feasible but unlikely; we've found that people prefer large expansions. The way to revisit Reserve or Night is with a new large expansion that has a bunch of those cards.
At one point Allies (the expansion) was going to revisit Reserve cards. But they overlapped too much with what Allies (the landscape type) could do. If it had happened, there would have been Tavern mats in Allies. I was considering having them double as a place to put Favors, to save on table space.
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How many cards unreleased cards do you typically have in playtest rotation at a time?
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How many cards unreleased cards do you typically have in playtest rotation at a time?
Normally just one expansion; that might be say 35 cards for a 30-card expansion sans Landscapes. But while working on Allies I also had the 2E's going, so I had 60+ non-landscape cards to test at once.
Prior to Adventures, I had all the upcoming expansions (except Guilds for a while) to playtest at the same time. Playtests of Prosperity could include cards from Dark Ages and so on.
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Why did you change Cage to a treasure? Secret history says it wasn't always that way, but doesn't give any insight into why. I'm not seeing anything about its ability that makes it seem or feel like a treasure. Was it for any particular balancing reason? If it was just because "why not; this is a treasure expansion", then why Cage instead of any other random action?
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What do you personally think is the better big box, the German or English one? English has base and intruige, plus support for 6 players. German has base, alchemy (with the old artwork of potion for some reason?) guilds and cornucopia, black market stash and walled village as promos plus caravan as a teaser for seaside.
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Why did you change Cage to a treasure? Secret history says it wasn't always that way, but doesn't give any insight into why. I'm not seeing anything about its ability that makes it seem or feel like a treasure. Was it for any particular balancing reason? If it was just because "why not; this is a treasure expansion", then why Cage instead of any other random action?
The key thing was, that I wanted to take cards that could be treasures and have them be treasures. It wasn't for balance, though it's better/different due to being a treasure rather than an action. It's Cage and not some other random Action because in fact most Actions do not just turn into treasures if I want them to. They need to have +1 Action but not more, no +Cards yes except the one time I do that, and not do things that make you want it to still be your Action phase.
We can make this argument the other way. Militia is basically a Treasure; why wasn't it tweaked to a version that could have the +1 Action and then made a Treasure? Originally, Actions didn't randomly get +$2 like that; that changed because I had to give them resources to make the game work, and man they didn't all want +Cards or gains.
Historically Treasures have made $ or gained cards. It's great to have conventions like that. But a Treasure can do other things and here's one that does. It's also fun to defy conventions sometimes; to get this fun, you have to have a convention, and then have to break it.
Grotto was also a Treasure at one point; one reason it changed was to distinguish it more from Cage. That was only possible by having one of them be a Treasure.
Now I am looking through the cards, wishing I'd tried Shaman as a Treasure. +1 Action, +$1 - it's perfect. Of course it would have needed the verboten small font then.
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What do you personally think is the better big box, the German or English one? English has base and intruige, plus support for 6 players. German has base, alchemy (with the old artwork of potion for some reason?) guilds and cornucopia, black market stash and walled village as promos plus caravan as a teaser for seaside.
I'm liking the sound of the English one! The English doesn't have the controversial least-liked expansion Alchemy, has two great products that are both second editions that spiffied them up, and hey supports 5 players for the people who really want that (and I guess technically 6). And it doesn't give you a redundant Caravan, wtf is up there.
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Was it intentional for recent expansions/2E's to have multiple Cursing attacks in them? Or is it just a side effect of Witches being "easier" to design (compared to Militias/Knights/Spies/etc.)?
What have been your favorite card arts for the 2022 cards?
Were there concerns about First Mate chains being difficult to follow irl?
Why does Search trash itself? The ability seems hard to abuse, when supply piles only empty a few times per game (and usually at the very end).
Why did Insignia not get +Buy? I'm fine with the other no-plus-buy loots, but Insignia is the strangest one to me.
Why does Deliver not have "once a turn," if it's only useful to buy once?
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Was it intentional for recent expansions/2E's to have multiple Cursing attacks in them? Or is it just a side effect of Witches being "easier" to design (compared to Militias/Knights/Spies/etc.)?
It's something I've decided to embrace, due to all the ways Witches are the best attacks. They're simpler, they work, they're the most fun. As you know, Militias are less fun and harder to vary the attack on; Knights are hated/loved; Spies are awful; and none-of-the-above Duration attacks are just hard to come by.
What have been your favorite card arts for the 2022 cards?
I'll single out Marcel-André Casasola Merkle for having lots of gorgeous art; for example Gondola.
Were there concerns about First Mate chains being difficult to follow irl?
Yes! And I mean they are. "Play a card, then do a thing" turns out to be crazy complex. But as you can see it didn't kill the card.
Why does Search trash itself? The ability seems hard to abuse, when supply piles only empty a few times per game (and usually at the very end).
It's actually for power level reasons. Specific games where it seemed like, this is too generous.
Why did Insignia not get +Buy? I'm fine with the other no-plus-buy loots, but Insignia is the strangest one to me.
If the set had never come out, possibly Insignia would have eventually gotten +Buy. Or changed. The Loots tried to be very different from each other, then gradually got closer together as part of balancing the pile. The idea was always to not make them all identical because what's the point to that, and Insignia is a casualty of that. But anyway. It started out with no +Buy because the Loots were all different cards and like only two of them had +Buy. Gradually the Loots changed; then at some point the set was published.
Why does Deliver not have "once a turn," if it's only useful to buy once?
It never came up. In general I don't see the beauty of adding text to remind you that you don't want to do something. If it had been a question - if people had been all "hey what's going on here" - then it could have gotten it to remove that confusion. There was no such confusion.
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Was it intentional for recent expansions/2E's to have multiple Cursing attacks in them? Or is it just a side effect of Witches being "easier" to design (compared to Militias/Knights/Spies/etc.)?
It's something I've decided to embrace, due to all the ways Witches are the best attacks. They're simpler, they work, they're the most fun. As you know, Militias are less fun and harder to vary the attack on; Knights are hated/loved; Spies are awful; and none-of-the-above Duration attacks are just hard to come by.
Could copper attacks be an alternative, that is cards that deal out coppers instead of curses?
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Was it intentional for recent expansions/2E's to have multiple Cursing attacks in them? Or is it just a side effect of Witches being "easier" to design (compared to Militias/Knights/Spies/etc.)?
It's something I've decided to embrace, due to all the ways Witches are the best attacks. They're simpler, they work, they're the most fun. As you know, Militias are less fun and harder to vary the attack on; Knights are hated/loved; Spies are awful; and none-of-the-above Duration attacks are just hard to come by.
Could copper attacks be an alternative, that is cards that deal out coppers instead of curses?
He's talked about this before; it's bad because Coppers aren't limited in supply like Curses and Ruins are. A deck with 5-10 curses sucks, sure, but a deck with 40 coppers? You just don't get any interesting decisions the rest of the game.
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Well, conditional Copper junkers like Swindler, Jester and Mountebank are fine.
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Was it intentional for recent expansions/2E's to have multiple Cursing attacks in them? Or is it just a side effect of Witches being "easier" to design (compared to Militias/Knights/Spies/etc.)?
It's something I've decided to embrace, due to all the ways Witches are the best attacks. They're simpler, they work, they're the most fun. As you know, Militias are less fun and harder to vary the attack on; Knights are hated/loved; Spies are awful; and none-of-the-above Duration attacks are just hard to come by.
Could copper attacks be an alternative, that is cards that deal out coppers instead of curses?
He's talked about this before; it's bad because Coppers aren't limited in supply like Curses and Ruins are. A deck with 5-10 curses sucks, sure, but a deck with 40 coppers? You just don't get any interesting decisions the rest of the game.
Correct; I have tried "Each other player gains a Copper" a number of times, including in Plunder, and it has yet to survive, except on Mountebank which you may note I replaced. It's possible when it doesn't happen every time, e.g. on Jester and Noble Brigand, though I'm not thrilled with it on Jester and I also replaced Noble Brigand.
There are too many Coppers, and the pile doesn't scale with the number of players.
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To be both a devil’s advocate and a glutton for punishment, the Copper pile might not scale in size for the number of players but it certainly scales with how quickly it burns out, right? In a 4-player game there are only 32 Coppers left; that’s basically the Curse pile. You’ll get a lot of Coppers quickly but it won’t last any longer than a Witch race. In a 2-player game there are 46 Coppers, but they’re coming in at 1/3rd the speed. If there’s good trashing you’ll have no trouble sweeping them out, and if there’s bad/no trashing then there’s no way either of you can Attack often enough to hand out all of them anyways.
I know such things are never that simple, but the math looks a lot better than I would’ve expected.
But baseless hypothesizing aside, thank you for not giving us the bad cards we think we want.
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Was it intentional for recent expansions/2E's to have multiple Cursing attacks in them? Or is it just a side effect of Witches being "easier" to design (compared to Militias/Knights/Spies/etc.)?
It's something I've decided to embrace, due to all the ways Witches are the best attacks. They're simpler, they work, they're the most fun. As you know, Militias are less fun and harder to vary the attack on; Knights are hated/loved; Spies are awful; and none-of-the-above Duration attacks are just hard to come by.
Could copper attacks be an alternative, that is cards that deal out coppers instead of curses?
He's talked about this before; it's bad because Coppers aren't limited in supply like Curses and Ruins are. A deck with 5-10 curses sucks, sure, but a deck with 40 coppers? You just don't get any interesting decisions the rest of the game.
Correct; I have tried "Each other player gains a Copper" a number of times, including in Plunder, and it has yet to survive, except on Mountebank which you may note I replaced. It's possible when it doesn't happen every time, e.g. on Jester and Noble Brigand, though I'm not thrilled with it on Jester and I also replaced Noble Brigand.
There are too many Coppers, and the pile doesn't scale with the number of players.
That makes a lot of sense. Thanks to you an the other replies for explaining that.
I suppose that there are reasons for not limiting the Copper pile to 10 per player as a setup instruction for such cards.
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But baseless hypothesizing aside, thank you for not giving us the bad cards we think we want.
I'm there for you!
I have given "Copper attack" a lot of chances. It's so simple!
Charlatan tried to give out Coppers. I fixed it by giving out Curses and turning them into Coppers.
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I suppose that there are reasons for not limiting the Copper pile to 10 per player as a setup instruction for such cards.
You mean 10 per player after the first; 10 Curses with 2 players, not 20.
It's not completely off the table but has never sounded attractive.
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Why does Search trash itself? The ability seems hard to abuse, when supply piles only empty a few times per game (and usually at the very end).
It's actually for power level reasons. Specific games where it seemed like, this is too generous.
Was this with the Lost City version of Search? I can see that being broken, but I don't see how the current terminal-silver version can be "too generous."
Nowadays, would you do Chameleon as a Trait? As a Way, it needs "follow this card's instructions," and I'm sure that rules thread is enough evidence about how the wording is a can of worms.
Since there were concerns about First Mate tracking, were there also concerns about Siren and the stop moving rule? I'm sure casual players will never even think about Siren tricks, but "what cards let you dodge Siren and why" has come up a lot on the internet.
I'm sure you've seen me hate on Dark Ages all the time in discord/spec chat/this thread, so uh what are your thoughts on it today?
Would you say that some cards are more designed for irl-bring-a-few-expansions-to-game-night instead of online-ladder-full-random? For example, I can see Elder being more interesting in heavy-Allies games, but I haven't really been excited by it when playing online.
You've said on discord that you "blew it" on Lackeys's cost (specifically: "No amount of having blown it on Lackeys makes it good to blow it on Sea Chart, that's how I see it"). Can you elaborate on that?
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Was this with the Lost City version of Search? I can see that being broken, but I don't see how the current terminal-silver version can be "too generous."
Yes it was that version. I kept it trashing when I switched it to +$2.
We can even say, with the published version, you don't always want them back once they cash in.
Nowadays, would you do Chameleon as a Trait? As a Way, it needs "follow this card's instructions," and I'm sure that rules thread is enough evidence about how the wording is a can of worms.
If it's the current thread, that one's attacking Harbor Village and Moat, not so much "follow this card's instructions." Which is you know not a phrase I'm delighted to be using, but I think it's doing the trick?
Chameleon as a Trait seems a lot less interesting; it would often show up on something it had no effect on.
As I've mentioned, if I were making the main set today, well in addition to Reactions being like Sheepdog not Moat, I would also put "Attack" in the middle of text, so that you e.g. Moated Minion after they picked to attack with it. I mean I would try that at least and see if it worked out; I don't need to commit-without-testing in this fantasy. Anyway. That's the fix for Moat. Harbor Village, there were several things I could have done, including making some other card. I wasn't thrilled with "play an action, then see if your amount of $ went up," which would have been clear enough for rules-pokers (I think?).
Ways added a lot of fun gameplay; today I am not possibly deciding "why did I do those."
Since there were concerns about First Mate tracking, were there also concerns about Siren and the stop moving rule? I'm sure casual players will never even think about Siren tricks, but "what cards let you dodge Siren and why" has come up a lot on the internet.
There were concerns about, making it work, and making it clear how it worked.
At some point, when I've got a cool card on my hands and you can say, "but these interactions require you to know the stop moving rule," I throw my hands in the air and say, "15th expansion!" It's the 15th expansion. The cards have to keep doing new things. This is what happens.
Maybe there is a phrasing that better does the concept, with less rules knowledge invoked. When you look for it, make sure to avoid "would," and try to keep the text fitting on the card in that font size.
I'm sure you've seen me hate on Dark Ages all the time in discord/spec chat/this thread, so uh what are your thoughts on it today?
From 2007 through the break after Guilds, Dark Ages was my favorite expansion. It has lots of card interactions, that's the draw.
The sets ramped up in polish as of Adventures, and there are a bunch of those sets at this point. Then I made 2E's for the main set and four earlier expansions. So at this point Dark Ages stands out for not having gotten that treatment. It has a few problematically powerful/monolithic cards, and a bunch of duds.
We might disagree on specifics though.
Would you say that some cards are more designed for irl-bring-a-few-expansions-to-game-night instead of online-ladder-full-random? For example, I can see Elder being more interesting in heavy-Allies games, but I haven't really been excited by it when playing online.
Well zero cards are designed for online. These days I do worry a little about online, because of e.g. Changeling. Which I mean, made it out with no regard for online whatsoever; online would deal with it somehow. But you know, I might think, will this card make you click pointlessly a bunch, can I fix that without really sacrificing anything.
You've said on discord that you "blew it" on Lackeys's cost (specifically: "No amount of having blown it on Lackeys makes it good to blow it on Sea Chart, that's how I see it"). Can you elaborate on that?
In context I was just fighting a classic poor line of reasoning. Sea Chart was being complained about, and compared to Lackeys. But, as a wise man once said, "No amount of having blown it on Lackeys makes it good to blow it on Sea Chart, that's how I see it." Comparing something to an overpowered card doesn't tell you how balanced it is. I mean unless it's even more powerful. It's great to be weaker than Lackeys; that's the goal in fact.
I don't think I have any deep insights into Lackeys. Villagers were stronger than they looked. Coffers were too but we caught that. I mean maybe I blew it there somewhere but we did know that Coffers were stronger than they looked. But you know. I haven't done the post-release work on Lackeys to know what it would look like with more time spent on the set. I don't know that charging more is the fix. For casual players it seems fine; experts empty them and I mean it sure looks like I could have done better.
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Maybe there is a phrasing that better does the concept, with less rules knowledge invoked. When you look for it, make sure to avoid "would," and try to keep the text fitting on the card in that font size.
I often can't help but think Magic terms when reading Dominion cards. Did you ever consider "as an additional cost, trash an Action from your hand"? Or is the issue just that it's far too strong with gainers? I mean technically you can rules-write your way out of that too, just by saying that either additional costs must be paid in order to gain a card, or that additional costs are considered part of a card's cost (and thus pretty much only Lurker can gain it).
Also inspired by Magic... with the unpopularity of Possession, have you ever tried other versions of "Control an opponent during their turn" effect? Magic had just 1 for a long time, and now it's not that uncommon. And the effect is far more powerful / game-wrecking in Magic than it is in Dominion.
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Maybe there is a phrasing that better does the concept, with less rules knowledge invoked. When you look for it, make sure to avoid "would," and try to keep the text fitting on the card in that font size.
I often can't help but think Magic terms when reading Dominion cards. Did you ever consider "as an additional cost, trash an Action from your hand"? Or is the issue just that it's far too strong with gainers? I mean technically you can rules-write your way out of that too, just by saying that either additional costs must be paid in order to gain a card, or that additional costs are considered part of a card's cost (and thus pretty much only Lurker can gain it).
I don't know if I considered that; I'm sure plenty familiar with it. I wouldn't possibly have said "additional costs must be paid to gain cards" or what have you; when you gain a card directly, you aren't paying the cost, and man let's not confuse those things.
The best way to do an additional cost is to make a symbol for it and put it right in the cost, like Potion. I've considered that family of mechanics, for different costs. Then of course you couldn't Workshop it. So far I haven't felt like I was getting enough there, relative to how confusing symbols in the cost have turned out to be.
I could have just added "first" to get rid of a bunch of the combos and thus confusion associated with them. Somehow I didn't.
Also inspired by Magic... with the unpopularity of Possession, have you ever tried other versions of "Control an opponent during their turn" effect? Magic had just 1 for a long time, and now it's not that uncommon. And the effect is far more powerful / game-wrecking in Magic than it is in Dominion.
I have tried other versions of Possession. Who knows, maybe I could make a fixed version. Is what I thought. I have not made a fixed version.
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I could have just added "first" to get rid of a bunch of the combos and thus confusion associated with them. Somehow I didn't.
I feel like that would have been clearer for Siren. Oh well, it's more confusing now but probably also more fun now since trying to figure out how to get around the restriction can be fun for some people.
I have tried other versions of Possession. Who knows, maybe I could make a fixed version. Is what I thought. I have not made a fixed version.
I don't think it's really necessary at this point with all the different ways of getting extra turns, but I feel like one potential "fixed" version (depending on what you think needs to be fixed) would be to add the Outpost restrictions of first time playing it this turn and if the previous turn wasn't yours--good luck getting that to fit on the card, though.
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You’re working on non-Dominion projects now, right?
Would you rather expand upon Kingdom Builder, Winter Kingdom, neither, or both?
Have you ever been interested in developing cooperative board games?
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You’re working on non-Dominion projects now, right?
Yes.
Would you rather expand upon Kingdom Builder, Winter Kingdom, neither, or both?
I'd rather make another related game than add more to those.
Have you ever been interested in developing cooperative board games?
I've made a few; I've got two we play some now.
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Did you ever consider or test Buy tokens?
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Did you ever consider or test Buy tokens?
Read the Secret History of Dominion: Renaissance (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=19203.0).
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Since the last few expansions didn't contain much in the way of alt-VP and you took out Silk Road from Hinterlands without replacing it: Is there something you came to dislike about the color green? Is the design space too limited? Do you think green cards are boring? Are you withholding them for a future expansion?
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Green cards are quite hard to make interesting.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8559.0
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Since the last few expansions didn't contain much in the way of alt-VP and you took out Silk Road from Hinterlands without replacing it: Is there something you came to dislike about the color green? Is the design space too limited? Do you think green cards are boring? Are you withholding them for a future expansion?
I have nothing against VP cards, and I haven't been saving them up; in fact Allies started out pursuing a Victory cards sub-theme (and you can read about a few in the Secret History). The cards just didn't work out. As noted in the link, it's hard to make a good new one that isn't just "N VP, also does something else."
Hinterlands 2E might have replaced Silk Road with a new VP card, but the update pack was a limiting factor there, since VP cards require 2 extra cards.
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Hi Donald,
Of course I have played Dominion and it's expansions a thousand times and enjoyed it a lot. But as much as playing I love reading and re-reading the secret stories about the development of the cards and expansions and outtakes. I also find very aesthetically beautiful the way cards combine in expansions (I'll write some note on it any time soon).
These days I was staring at the Allies expansion and something got me curious...
The Empire's Landscapes they are like endgame modifiers... You have the normal game and bam... a Landscape "alters" they way scores are tallied at the end.
The Allies' Allies were they at one point intended to be something like "start game" modifiers?
I'll try to give an example... Band of Nomads... if you take out the favor part... it could be something like a new rule. "At this game, when you gain a 3 cost card you may choose: +1 card, +1 action or +1 buy"
The same can be made by other Allies: Gang of Pickpockets. "At this game you always discard a card at the start of your turn"
I know, not all Allies can serve this purpose: Eg. Island Folk, Desert Guides...
Thanks for offering all the support for your game, improving it, answering doubts and curiosities and explaining the intricacies of game design aspects (which I enjoy as much as play).
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The Empire's Landscapes they are like endgame modifiers... You have the normal game and bam... a Landscape "alters" they way scores are tallied at the end.
The Allies' Allies were they at one point intended to be something like "start game" modifiers?
No; the entire idea to Allies was to have lots of different kinds of tokens, where the Ally tells you what the tokens do this game.
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What are your thoughts on Ruins? My hot take is that it's the least successful mechanic in Dominion history. Even for other mechanics that could be considered a "failed experiment" (artifacts, hexes, overpay etc.), there's at least 1-2 cards that I like; I can't say the same thing for Ruins. Also yikes, it eats up 50 cards in an expansion.
What are your thoughts on Silver Mine? It's been mocked a lot as a bad Sculptor.
Now that some time has passed, what are your thoughts on the Loot pile in general? I think at this point, it's the least liked mechanic in Plunder?
Innovation has some tricky rules around it, and yet there have been a lot of those effects recently (especially in 2022). Is this a mix of "we're already a bunch of expansions in" and "it's fun and popular"?
What other wordings of Reckless were tried? I'd be most curious about finding a Flagship-like wording (with some parenthetical that stops infinite loops).
You've said that Rich is your least favorite thing in Plunder. When you were making the set, did you worry that the gameplay may resemble what you dislike about Lucky Coin?
In your opinion, what expansion is the closest to "perfect"? (if this question is too hard to answer, just say Prosperity 2E)
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My hot take is that it's the least successful mechanic in Dominion history. Even for other mechanics that could be considered a "failed experiment" (artifacts, hexes, overpay etc.), there's at least 1-2 cards that I like; I can't say the same thing for Ruins.
Your insolence cannot go unpunished. I challenge you to a hotdog eating contest to defend the honor of Ruins.
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Now that some time has passed, what are your thoughts on the Loot pile in general? I think at this point, it's the least liked mechanic in Plunder?
Least liked by the competitive online community, which I will remind you makes up far less than 1% of the Dominion-playing world. Based on my IRL experience so far, I think Loot will end up being the most-liked mechanic in Plunder overall.
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What are your thoughts on Ruins? My hot take is that it's the least successful mechanic in Dominion history. Even for other mechanics that could be considered a "failed experiment" (artifacts, hexes, overpay etc.), there's at least 1-2 cards that I like; I can't say the same thing for Ruins. Also yikes, it eats up 50 cards in an expansion.
Eating 50 cards is certainly a bummer. Aside from that, I still like the premise. Ruinses are more interesting than Curses. I could see it being Ruinses from the start, no Curses.
Artifacts still sound fine, even though I wasn't happy with all the cards. I bet I could end up with 5 worth doing in the long run. Hexes are too complex, they are a top failed experiment. Overpay still seems fine; its key problem is, the cards end up crazy wordy. I revisited it with Hostelry. Potions loom as an especially disliked mechanic. I think they're fine, but there are sure a lot of players who don't like them, and I don't think it's just the other problems in Alchemy making Potions look bad.
What are your thoughts on Silver Mine? It's been mocked a lot as a bad Sculptor.
I remain happy to have done it. They can't all have a million words and require non-supply piles and do something no card has done that generates a dozen-page rules thread.
Now that some time has passed, what are your thoughts on the Loot pile in general? I think at this point, it's the least liked mechanic in Plunder?
Well done Donald X., slam dunk, amazing mechanic. Go listen to Tom Vasel rave about it. Everything can't be aimed at expert players. Even in the 15th expansion, where it's more reasonable to aim things at experts.
Innovation has some tricky rules around it, and yet there have been a lot of those effects recently (especially in 2022). Is this a mix of "we're already a bunch of expansions in" and "it's fun and popular"?
It's those things plus "what a great idea, why hadn't I done this years earlier." I mean I had it years earlier; it took until Innovation for it to stick.
What other wordings of Reckless were tried? I'd be most curious about finding a Flagship-like wording (with some parenthetical that stops infinite loops).
I can share all the printed wordings; it's too much work to look up all considered wordings.
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/212660788786102272/1073390580463317132/reckless_shrine.PNG?width=855&height=796)
There were always issues, problems any which way.
You've said that Rich is your least favorite thing in Plunder. When you were making the set, did you worry that the gameplay may resemble what you dislike about Lucky Coin?
Well, I didn't worry about that enough, or it wouldn't be in the set, but sure, that's basically the issue. Sometimes Rich is on a card you already wanted, and then you end up not getting to have as much fun with the board, at least unless your opponent cooperates with you (which the bot does not).
In your opinion, what expansion is the closest to "perfect"? (if this question is too hard to answer, just say Prosperity 2E)
Oops, missed this question.
Certainly revisiting the expansions pushes them way up. Man I dunno. I have the least amount of information about my mistakes in Plunder; it's looking pretty amazing. Allies is still looking great.
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Have you ever tried reusing a Victory card mechanic, e.g. a version of gardens with a different cost and a different ratio of cards to points?
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Have you ever tried reusing a Victory card mechanic, e.g. a version of gardens with a different cost and a different ratio of cards to points?
I've tried just slightly different things.
There's some room for new cards that are a different size of an old card, e.g. Pilgrim being a bigger Courtyard. Sometimes the change in size will be interesting enough. In general they are bound to be unexciting though.
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Under what circumstances do you kill a combo?
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Under what circumstances do you kill a combo?
Let's run through some combos (no way I'm doing all of them lol):
Combos in the same set:
-Spell Scroll / Shaman (and/or Scrounge): both in the same set; reusing Spell Scroll forever sounds problematic, so it got killed
-Gamble / Stockpile: both in the same set; I you could argue that this combo is less likely to be relevant in multiplayer, but the problem here is Stockpile already being too strong
-Gamble / Village Green: both in the same set; this changed more because of rules, not power level
-Student / Fellowship of Scribes: both in the same set; not really problematic though
Combos across sets:
-Masterpiece / Guildhall: in different sets; not a concern
-Throne / Tactician: the thing here is, it's not just Tactician / one other specific card; it's Tactician / an entire archetype of cards, so it got changed
-Pursue / Patron: in different sets, but it trivially infinite loops; got errata'd
-Siren / a bunch of cards: if these combos ever get errata'd out, it'll be because they confuse people, not because of power level
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Under what circumstances do you kill a combo?
When a card isn't out yet, the issues are:
- how often does it happen - more of an issue if 2 cards rather than 3, if within a set rather than spread across sets, if a card plus a category of card rather than specific cards
- how powerful is it
- how confusing is it
- do we catch it
When the cards are already out, there has to be a rules problem; power level isn't enough.
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When the cards are already out, there has to be a rules problem; power level isn't enough.
Is King's Court + Masquerade an exception to this? Or did you consider that a rules problem?
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When the cards are already out, there has to be a rules problem; power level isn't enough.
Is King's Court + Masquerade an exception to this? Or did you consider that a rules problem?
I mean. Which is friendlier: the friendliest answer, or the most accurate answer? I try to be friendly, but some people crave accuracy.
I'll try again. In every case, there's everything to consider that there is to consider for that case, and I consider all the things I manage to, and I arrive at whatever decision I arrive at, or sometimes fail to. This has no exceptions except the ones I've missed. It doesn't tell you anything either, but hey, that's the price we pay sometimes.
KC + Masq was a very minor change that no-one would notice except if they knew about the combo. The change stopped people from preying on other people with it while having essentially no other effect on the game. I did not list these things in my answer to the other question though, you've got me there.
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Initially Embargo tokens and Coin tokens was used by only one card (Embargo and Pirate Ship)
In Prosperity VP tokens got used by 3 cards and with the 2nd Edition 4 cards, but Empires made VP tokens be used by more ~25 card (card+events+landscapes)
Coffers started with 4 cards until Renaissance...
So it's relatively common to see the increase of usage of a material...
I was thinking about the Ruins... It's a nice mechanics but used by only 3 cards... Could we see in a future some new use for them? In a Promo or in a new Expansion... I'm thinking to trying to make Cursers give Ruins instead! E.g. Witch: +2 cards, every other player gains a Ruins... Would it make the game unbalanced or "broken"?
P.S. I know designers don't comment on variants, it's just something that I'm willing to try and wish to know if it would make the game going to a direction not intended...
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There’s a pretty big difference between cards and tokens though. Using Ruins in a future set means having to use up 50 cards in that set to provide ruins, which is 4 other Kingdom cards that you aren’t getting. People who already have dark ages would be annoyed at buying a set where 10-20% of the cards are pointless extras. With tokens, you just throw a few extra tokens into a set for whatever extra production cost that is; it doesn’t replace other cards.
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People who already have dark ages would be annoyed at buying a set where 10-20% of the cards are pointless extras.
People who don't read the rules would be super excited about getting to junk their opponent with 100 Ruinses instead of 50, though!
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I was thinking about the Ruins... It's a nice mechanics but used by only 3 cards... Could we see in a future some new use for them? In a Promo or in a new Expansion... I'm thinking to trying to make Cursers give Ruins instead! E.g. Witch: +2 cards, every other player gains a Ruins... Would it make the game unbalanced or "broken"?
P.S. I know designers don't comment on variants, it's just something that I'm willing to try and wish to know if it would make the game going to a direction not intended...
The problem with doing more with them is that you need those 50 cards. I don't think it will ever be worth it to have another expansion include them. You can imagine a "treasure chest" expansion, full of cards that add to other expansions, without including the extra components from those expansions; I don't know if RGG would go for that though. I mean the idea of the extra cards for other expansions would be fine; it's not including the needed components that's the problem.
I don't mind people playing whatever variants they like. Obv. Ruinses do not hurt as much as Curses, so using Ruinses instead would change how powerful all of those cards are. But some of those cards are strong anyway.
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As far as I can tell, Donate is the only Event that affects a future (non-extra) turn without any method to track it: Delay, Inheritance, etc have an Action card; Ferry, Pathfinding, etc have a token. Is this an intentional precedent, or just a side effect of the 2022 errata? Is tracking here simply not an issue because of the price? Did you ever try adding other Duration-type "next turn" Events?
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Worth noting that Donate started out as "after this turn" instead of at the start of next turn. So it's a question about not the design of Donate itself, but of the choice of wording in the errata.
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As far as I can tell, Donate is the only Event that affects a future (non-extra) turn without any method to track it: Delay, Inheritance, etc have an Action card; Ferry, Pathfinding, etc have a token. Is this an intentional precedent, or just a side effect of the 2022 errata? Is tracking here simply not an issue because of the price? Did you ever try adding other Duration-type "next turn" Events?
I have a hunch there isn’t anything deeper going on than “This happened to be the best wording.”
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As far as I can tell, Donate is the only Event that affects a future (non-extra) turn without any method to track it: Delay, Inheritance, etc have an Action card; Ferry, Pathfinding, etc have a token. Is this an intentional precedent, or just a side effect of the 2022 errata? Is tracking here simply not an issue because of the price? Did you ever try adding other Duration-type "next turn" Events?
My mission was to preserve the original Donate as well as possible while having a wording that worked. That's how it got that wording. It tends to be very memorable; no worries about forgetting it so far.
In general it is not great to have an Event that does something on a future turn, unless something specifically provides tracking. Summon affects your next turn, and the card you set aside provides the tracking there.
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I've played Dominion on-and-off for years, and there is just one tiny little thing that bothers me about the game.
The Guilds flavor text description mentions specifically cheese graters cheesemaking, and cheese destruction, and yet there are no cheese or cheesemaker-themed cards in Guilds or any other set.
Shoemakers were also mentioned, and they finally got represented a few years later in Nocturne with the Cobbler card.
Will these long-hoped-for cheese-themed cards ever come to pass, in a forthcoming 2nd edition, as a promo or in a new set?
I think it would only brie a gouda thing.
Also, I love the prosperity 2nd edition update, thank you for making it.
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I've played Dominion on-and-off for years, and there is just one tiny little thing that bothers me about the game.
The Guilds flavor text description mentions specifically cheese graters cheesemaking, and cheese destruction, and yet there are no cheese or cheesemaker-themed cards in Guilds or any other set.
Shoemakers were also mentioned, and they finally got represented a few years later in Nocturne with the Cobbler card.
Will these long-hoped-for cheese-themed cards ever come to pass, in a forthcoming 2nd edition, as a promo or in a new set?
I think it would only brie a gouda thing.
Also, I love the prosperity 2nd edition update, thank you for making it.
I'm there for you!
I couldn't include a cheese maker back when, due to lactose intolerance. These days I've learned that cheese loses lactose as it ages; cheese two years old or older is fine. So a cheese maker in Guilds would be fine now, but for any new expansion, it's still an issue: for a while it would be too new.
I'd recommend a substitute, but there really is no substitute for cheese.
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Donald X, Is there any reason you haven't posted on the forum in a couple of months?
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Donald X, Is there any reason you haven't posted on the forum in a couple of months?
Just a lack of things I felt I should respond to. I still check the forums every day. Most of the current online Dominion traffic is on the discord though, and the (currently down) reddit is a distant second.
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Hello, any updates on the new promo card named Farm iirc?
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Hello, any updates on the new promo card named Farm iirc?
See this thread: https://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=21686.0
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Hello, any updates on the new promo card named Farm iirc?
I have no update, for either the German version or English version.
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I was playing some PlunderXCornucopia and had a thought:
Is Sack of Loot just a stealth revision to Bag of Gold? http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg368773#msg368773 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg368773#msg368773)
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I was playing some PlunderXCornucopia and had a thought:
Is Sack of Loot just a stealth revision to Bag of Gold? http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg368773#msg368773 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg368773#msg368773)
The premise wasn't that it was replacing Bag of Gold, but they're sure both uh cloth that you have in a shape that lets it hold treasure for you.
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Any news about a possible new expansion Donald X GOATnnarino
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Any news about a possible new expansion Donald X GOATnnarino
I expect a new expansion next year.
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Would you support "insurmountable VP lead" being programmed as a win condition in Dominion Online?
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Would you support "insurmountable VP lead" being programmed as a win condition in Dominion Online?
It is technically possible to have an insurmountable VP lead while being unable to end the game (e.g. you bought Annex with a deck that produced no $), so in some fringe cases this would actually change the game.
More importantly though, this would probably be very annoying to maintain. You have to take trashing attacks into account, and also probably forced play of trashers (e.g. with Golem), and how all this interacts with cost reduction... seems like a signifcant amount of coding would have to be done for each new expansion. I don't think this is realistic even if Donald X. approves.
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Would you support "insurmountable VP lead" being programmed as a win condition in Dominion Online?
There would be a lot of situations where it would look insurmountable but technically wouldn't be. Or situations where it wouldn't be reasonable to expect the program to figure it out.
It doesn't seem worth pursuing, when the upside is, you don't need to play through your victory, or it breaks ties. I might support an "offer a tie" feature.
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The main thing I had in mind is after you secure more than half the available VP with a megaturn (and there's nothing the other player can do about it), your remaining deck could be awful and you could be slogging for quite a while to get to the end. I try to resign if I notice that I'm behind by more than the available VP and there aren't any trashers etc. that can change that, but sometimes I don't notice.
Speaking of which, has your opinion on VP tracking changed over time?
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The main thing I had in mind is after you secure more than half the available VP with a megaturn (and there's nothing the other player can do about it), your remaining deck could be awful and you could be slogging for quite a while to get to the end. I try to resign if I notice that I'm behind by more than the available VP and there aren't any trashers etc. that can change that, but sometimes I don't notice.
I see what you mean--it would be a nice feature if possible, but I think this would be hard to program because what about things like Ritual, Wall, Keep, etc. that can change the points without being directly tied to specific VP/curses in the supply?
I like Donald X's suggestion of "offer a tie," since I was thinking about the potential issues with something like Collection+Stampede where the game can be unending (are there any other two card combo cases?).
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I might support an "offer a tie" feature.
A drastic change of opinion from the "you must play until you starve" days. ;D
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Speaking of which, has your opinion on VP tracking changed over time?
I don't have earlier Donald X. with me, but it's fine; aside from Gardens etc. it's not hard to track it yourself, but I don't need to make people do that. It doesn't so much change how you play, as it means you aren't mumbling scores to yourself.
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The main thing I had in mind is after you secure more than half the available VP with a megaturn (and there's nothing the other player can do about it), your remaining deck could be awful and you could be slogging for quite a while to get to the end. I try to resign if I notice that I'm behind by more than the available VP and there aren't any trashers etc. that can change that, but sometimes I don't notice.
I see what you mean--it would be a nice feature if possible, but I think this would be hard to program because what about things like Ritual, Wall, Keep, etc. that can change the points without being directly tied to specific VP/curses in the supply?
I don't think this is a problem, if any card regarding with changing points, the program may simply not make the judge.
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I like Donald X's suggestion of "offer a tie," since I was thinking about the potential issues with something like Collection+Stampede where the game can be unending (are there any other two card combo cases?).
You can replace Stampede by another Horse gainer for another (usually weaker) unending two card combo. There are also older two-card combos that can lead to unending "infinite VP" situations, e.g. Fortress/Bishop and King's Court/Monument. (The latter needs a trasher in the kingdom, but so does Collection/Stampede).
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How strong did you think Frigate was during playtesting? How strong do you think Frigate is now?
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I like Donald X's suggestion of "offer a tie," since I was thinking about the potential issues with something like Collection+Stampede where the game can be unending (are there any other two card combo cases?).
You can replace Stampede by another Horse gainer for another (usually weaker) unending two card combo. There are also older two-card combos that can lead to unending "infinite VP" situations, e.g. Fortress/Bishop and King's Court/Monument. (The latter needs a trasher in the kingdom, but so does Collection/Stampede).
All of your examples tend to benefit from more engine-building however, it is basically never optimal to stop gaining cards. This is different with Collection/Stampede, which is the main problem with that combo.
Also you can Collection/Stampede without a trasher. 10 Horses is enough to draw all your starting cards plus 5 Collections.
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How strong did you think Frigate was during playtesting? How strong do you think Frigate is now?
During playtesting my guess was that it was on the weak side, though fine. Now, more or less the same. Some people are scared of it, but I endlessly saw tracer build engines despite Frigate being in play every turn. It's an attack card; it's intentionally bothering the other players, that's what attacks do.
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I like Donald X's suggestion of "offer a tie," since I was thinking about the potential issues with something like Collection+Stampede where the game can be unending (are there any other two card combo cases?).
You can replace Stampede by another Horse gainer for another (usually weaker) unending two card combo. There are also older two-card combos that can lead to unending "infinite VP" situations, e.g. Fortress/Bishop and King's Court/Monument. (The latter needs a trasher in the kingdom, but so does Collection/Stampede).
All of your examples tend to benefit from more engine-building however, it is basically never optimal to stop gaining cards. This is different with Collection/Stampede, which is the main problem with that combo.
With a golden deck of 5 Fortresses and 4 Bishops, gaining other cards does not help you at all once the Bishops are all gone. Gaining any VP card or terminal card hurts you since it increases the risk of not being able to play all your Bishops each turn. (Adding e.g. a Lab and a 5th Bishop may increase your average VP/turn, but if both players do this, you just get another stalemate.) Of course there are boards where building an engine from the start can win before the golden deck is ready, but not every board supports a stronger engine.
Also you can Collection/Stampede without a trasher. 10 Horses is enough to draw all your starting cards plus 5 Collections.
Right, but only if you manage to buy 5 Collections without a single Silver or other support card in your deck, which would take a very long time without shuffle luck. I suppose you can buy two Silvers in the opening and only get three Collections instead of five, for a 30VP/turn golden deck.
In the end, Collection/Stampede is clearly the strongest unending two-card combo (due to Stampede's anti-engine clause and the highest VP gain per turn), but it's not the only one.
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When playtesting non-Dominion games, do you feel a need to use external blind playtesters? Or do you trust the people you know to give good feedback? Or some third option I didn't think of?
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When playtesting non-Dominion games, do you feel a need to use external blind playtesters? Or do you trust the people you know to give good feedback? Or some third option I didn't think of?
It's a good idea to have people who haven't been playtesting the game the whole time try out the intended-to-be-final version. Usually I manage this at least a little.
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Adventures added +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +$1 tokens. It added a permanent +Card Duration (Hireling) and a permanent +Action Duration (Champion).
To me, the obvious extension of those new ideas is permanent +Buy and +Coin Durations[..]
Reading through the backlog and this post from 5 years ago predicted Endless Chalice. Cool.
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Is there any plan for physical reprints of Captain/Prince with the 'Command' type?
I've held off on buying them from BGG because I don't want to cause confusion with new players when using Flagship or Maroon.
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Is there any plan for physical reprints of Captain/Prince with the 'Command' type?
From my perspective, yes, I'd like the up-to-date wording used the next time they're printed, for all cards. The promos aren't intended to be limited edition; they get reprinted as needed. I don't know what the current stock is though. And the next time they get reprinted, it's possible that we'll miss the step where I say, here is the up-to-date wording.
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Is there any plan for physical reprints of Captain/Prince with the 'Command' type?
I've held off on buying them from BGG because I don't want to cause confusion with new players when using Flagship or Maroon.
Just play with the text you have. That has always been the way to play Dominion. If someone manages to pull off some loop with Flagship and Captain, great for them - it will surely not happen often, if at all.
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To my knowledge, the difference between the prototype version of the game that you play, and the version that we got, is different in the following ways
* Different art, font, icons, aspect ratio, stuff that doesn't matter functionally
* The new expansion(s) you're working on
* Tweaks to a bunch of Hinterlands cards ($2 Mandarin, moving the +Buy from Margrave to Cache, etc.)
Are there any other tweaks? Do your throne rooms secretly say "non-duration"?
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To my knowledge, the difference between the prototype version of the game that you play, and the version that we got, is different in the following ways
* Different art, font, icons, aspect ratio, stuff that doesn't matter functionally
* The new expansion(s) you're working on
* Tweaks to a bunch of Hinterlands cards ($2 Mandarin, moving the +Buy from Margrave to Cache, etc.)
Are there any other tweaks? Do your throne rooms secretly say "non-duration"?
I don't have those tweaks to the Hinterlands cards - I took them out when I made Hinterlands 2E. My prototype is functionally the same as published cards, except you know, when there's upcoming errata and I already printed it out for myself (and any new cards I have that aren't published yet). In a few cases there was a non-functional wording change I never bothered to print, like an "including this" or something. And I never printed out City with that name (my copies say Boomtown); I think that's the last one of those. At one point I had several wrong names, but finally printed some of them.
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What can you tell us about Rising Sun (the board game, not the Dominion expansion)?
Do you meet with IRL playtesters at a game store, or do they come to your house?
What are the chances that you do something like this (https://youtu.be/CYoeaylUSUU?si=V5_ec7dKuPnOeKC5) or that (https://youtu.be/idXSqSmJfig?si=XwNlZZT8-oEWFRIA) again?
What card avatar do you use on TGG?
Nowadays, do you prefer to use "each time" instead of "when"? (Frigate and Deliver both use “each time.”)
What do you think of those Quartermaster games where they gain a bunch of cards, but the cards just sit on them forever and you never put them in your hand?
What do you think of Falconer, aka my favorite Dominion card?
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What can you tell us about Rising Sun (the board game, not the Dominion expansion)?
- It's the new Dominion expansion, best guess currently is that it will come out in March.
- Art has started, unless it hasn't, I sent Jay the artist notes but haven't seen any sketches yet.
- Spielbox wanted a promo and to find out if a new expansion was coming, and we told them the name and estimated date, and they immediately put that up on a kickstarter. So that's how you guys know this set is coming already.
- The promo has no special connection to the expansion.
- More information may be a few months away. I really don't know, but we get nothing special out of getting people excited now about a set coming out in March.
Edit: man I don't know how I was supposed to read this question correctly. All I know about the board game is that it exists.
Do you meet with IRL playtesters at a game store, or do they come to your house?
I do both. At various points in my life it's been all one way or all the other or always both. Currently I have games twice a week at my place and then sometimes make it to a game store. Where I play with whoever wants to play.
What are the chances that you do something like this (https://youtu.be/CYoeaylUSUU?si=V5_ec7dKuPnOeKC5) or that (https://youtu.be/idXSqSmJfig?si=XwNlZZT8-oEWFRIA) again?
Ah, Swindler. Everyone complained about me thinking about that last turn but man this game is tricky. I don't even remember doing that commentary.
They both could happen again. It's never super-exciting to play because I mean I'm just some guy. With the quarterfinals happening for the Championship now, I immediately thought, I could do some commentary. I can always pointlessly tell stories about cards, or mention what the TGG bot would be doing. I haven't felt like stepping in and treading on any of the other speakers yet though.
What card avatar do you use on TGG?
Smugglers! And man, there's a card to crush the bot with. It will just endlessly pass on buying cards.
Nowadays, do you prefer to use "each time" instead of "when"? (Frigate and Deliver both use “each time.”)
I think probably "each time" would have been better in general from the start, though now there's a lot of weight behind "when" so probably I keep using that in most places.
What do you think of those Quartermaster games where they gain a bunch of cards, but the cards just sit on them forever and you never put them in your hand?
If the set had had even more time spent on it, maybe it would have come up, and I might have tried a version that always alternates, see how that goes (if there's a card, take it, otherwise gain a card onto it). The bot has taught me to be terrified of Quartermaster pile-outs; it will get out four of them in any game with it, and they will pile up cards. I like having the card be as flexible as possible, but it certainly looms, this ability to just stock up cards you're never taking.
What do you think of Falconer, aka my favorite Dominion card?
I still like it fine. I'm a big fan of the Sheepdog family in general, Reactions that you can play in some circumstance. That's how Reactions should have always been, and started out as, and at last they got back there with Sheepdog.
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Does Rising Sun have any "Whoops this card is flawed in concept" outtake cards that you can show us yet?
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Does Rising Sun have any "Whoops this card is flawed in concept" outtake cards that you can show us yet?
I think you'll have to wait for the secret history for that kind of thing...
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Does Rising Sun have any "Whoops this card is flawed in concept" outtake cards that you can show us yet?
I'm looking at the secret history, thinking, "the secret history needs its fun too."
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Does Rising Sun have any "Whoops this card is flawed in concept" outtake cards that you can show us yet?
I'm looking at the secret history, thinking, "the secret history needs its fun too."
The secret histories are one of my favorite parts of a new expansion coming out! Have you done secret histories for some of your other games? If so where can they be found?
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Does Rising Sun have any "Whoops this card is flawed in concept" outtake cards that you can show us yet?
I'm looking at the secret history, thinking, "the secret history needs its fun too."
The secret histories are one of my favorite parts of a new expansion coming out! Have you done secret histories for some of your other games? If so where can they be found?
On BGG - recently I looked for all the threads he started there (https://boardgamegeek.com/threads/user/203908?parenttype=boardgame&sort=recent), most of which are secret histories. :)
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Are there cards that haven't been replaced that you think are stronger than you thought they were during playtesting? Any that you now think are weaker than you thought they were?
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Are there cards that haven't been replaced that you think are stronger than you thought they were during playtesting? Any that you now think are weaker than you thought they were?
While I talk more about card power level than I used to, I still try to steer clear of it. It's like a spoiler. It's not my role. And such an open-ended question, man, it's so easy to avoid answering. Ask players instead.
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Are you likely to answer questions of the form "What problems were caused by this obvious-ish card idea I have that I assume you also had years ago and never made into a set because it had non-obvious not-worth-solving problems that you found in playtesting" ?
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Are you likely to answer questions of the form "What problems were caused by this obvious-ish card idea I have that I assume you also had years ago and never made into a set because it had non-obvious not-worth-solving problems that you found in playtesting" ?
No, but you could post it in variants and possibly LastFootnote will tell you.
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Didn't know this thread existed :o
Some questions, feel free to redirect me if you've answered them before:
- What's your approach for designing a cardpool? Does it differ between mixes and expansions? Do you do any math to figure out how often you expect Kingdoms to have e.g. an attack? Or do you just playtest a ton to see how a sufficient number of Kingdoms feel?
- Do you have an opinion on how the full random cardpool currently is? Do you ever wish you could, for example, dump 30 villages into the pot?
- Taking a longer view: there're two interesting trends I've seen over the last few years with the full cardpool. One, we've been trending towards faster and faster games turns-wise across all skill levels. Two, individual cards and pairings of cards (from combos such as Donate/MS, to interesting in-set interactions such as Silver Mine/Rope, to card+archetype such as Proc/Horse) become less and less frequent as time goes on. Do either of those matter to you?
- Have you played many other deckbuilders? And if so, are you willing to comment on their design decisions or things they've changed? As one example, I've been having a lot of fun playing Astrea, a dice-focused deckbuilder (5 second pitch: StS but with dice instead of cards, so something like a grandkid of Dominion), and find it really funny how it inherited the whole "discard your hand at end of turn" thing from StS, which explicitly chose to follow the Dominion rather than Magic paradigm there.
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What's your approach for designing a cardpool? Does it differ between mixes and expansions? Do you do any math to figure out how often you expect Kingdoms to have e.g. an attack? Or do you just playtest a ton to see how a sufficient number of Kingdoms feel?
I worry about the percentage of cards that are: villages, +buy, draw, trashing, attacks/interaction, $5's, other costs, cantrips, $5 cantrips. And how much the set mechanics are used. Sometimes other factors mess with the numbers; especially, the idea that terminals that use an Action from your hand, e.g. Remodel, count less towards how many terminals you have.
For expansions the idea is always, that you might own any mix of expansions, and I want to have a good percentage of everything no matter what.
For mixes (tournaments run on the discord using 75 cards I've picked out from across expansions), well I've specified the entire environment, and sometimes that environment specifically wants to be light on something or heavy on something.
Do you have an opinion on how the full random cardpool currently is? Do you ever wish you could, for example, dump 30 villages into the pot?
Later sets ramp up the percentages slightly to deal with the fact that there are so many cards; it's just a math thing you're stuck with.
I'm happy with how things have gone. I didn't know to value $5's as highly in the very early days, but I caught on and also got to revisit the old sets. Probably more interaction would be good; it's hard to come by interactive cards that work well and aren't identical to things already existing and aren't hated.
Taking a longer view: there're two interesting trends I've seen over the last few years with the full cardpool. One, we've been trending towards faster and faster games turns-wise across all skill levels. Two, individual cards and pairings of cards (from combos such as Donate/MS, to interesting in-set interactions such as Silver Mine/Rope, to card+archetype such as Proc/Horse) become less and less frequent as time goes on. Do either of those matter to you?
The intention isn't to speed up games; I think part of this is, I responded to how players in general were less fond of attacks than I'd expected, and well if you have fewer attacks, the game is faster. But really, what matters is that we had a fun game; I'm happy to make a one-turn game if it's fun.
It's great to have random pairs of cards come up less often; it makes those games more special. Pairs within sets will always come up plenty, because again many people do not own everything. And then there are all the people who mostly play the recommended sets, which will showcase some of that stuff.
Have you played many other deckbuilders? And if so, are you willing to comment on their design decisions or things they've changed? As one example, I've been having a lot of fun playing Astrea, a dice-focused deckbuilder (5 second pitch: StS but with dice instead of cards, so something like a grandkid of Dominion), and find it really funny how it inherited the whole "discard your hand at end of turn" thing from StS, which explicitly chose to follow the Dominion rather than Magic paradigm there.
In general I avoid deckbuilders, because I still might make more, and I don't want any "oh he copied this from someone else." Man, I didn't, let's get that straight. My notes for a Dominion Dice game go back to before Dominion was published.
I have specifically avoided Slay the Spire. Sir Martin always says how great it is and well, glad you're having fun, but, it's not for me, I can play other games.
I have played a few though, I mean like once each. Off the top of my head:
- Eminent Domain - one of my go-to examples from years ago of how you could be inspired by Dominion without copying every decision I'd made. It's got a Puerto Rico aspect to it and I mean from one game it was fine.
- the Knizia one - I was very sad to see how little he innovated here. Bleah.
- the cows one - Your deck is cows, you make circuits on a board and periodically show them off? I Chapel'd down and won, hooray. It was fine and also again not very derivative, hooray.
- the one with a bag of pure vanilla chits that are like Monk and Knight and things? - And the sequel. It had a certain charm. The uh special ability tiles needed tons of work, both the mechanism and then what they were.
I've never played Ascension, but for me it will always be the game I chose not to make. I outline this in that old BoardGameNews article, from when Dominion was first published. I considered a line of cards and you buy one (I think the editor, W. Eric Martin, referred to that as Show Manager style), and thought, it will suck when a good one shows up and someone else gets to buy it. I considered a mix of resources; one seemed better (and when I tried adding a resource, it was the least popular mechanic ever).
People always talk about how other games don't restrict you to one Action per turn. I of course did that specifically so that I could then break that rule; it gave me something to do, a way to vary cards. It's not that you absolutely have to have that; in fact your game doesn't need to be a Dominion rip-off at all, it can be say that you build a set of cows you're showing off once per lap, and then "action limit" is a nonsensical term. I mean really that's it: for people trying to just copy Dominion, well I think the best game there is the one I made, and I mean of course; I didn't intentionally do something I thought was inferior. I've endlessly gone over ways I've blown it, e.g. how Reactions work (should all be played Sheepdogs not revealed Moats), or how the Curse pile scales, or the whole "what if the card is gone" scene (e.g. Procession'd Durations); but these aren't anything people are talking about in this context.
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Do you have plans of updating cbtest14? Is this a reference that anyone else will understand?
When you need new playtesters, how do you decide who to invite? Do you narrow down a list of potential candidates and then interview them?
What do you think of Exploration post-errata? It and Bonfire have been the 2 cards that people are the most sad about.
You've called Souk a "problem card" (along with Fortress). In what situations does it break the game? Is the +$7 the problem?
How do you feel when people hate on Allies for leading to “slow games” when (let's be honest) their complaints are actually about pre-errata Voyage and Warlord?
What tips do you have for brainstorming new cards (Dominion or otherwise)?
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Do you have plans of updating cbtest14? Is this a reference that anyone else will understand?
I stopped updating it in June of 2010. Probably that was right around when we started testing on isotropic.
When you need new playtesters, how do you decide who to invite? Do you narrow down a list of potential candidates and then interview them?
No, nothing like that. There's no one set thing. When I was doing Adventures I looked at what people were posting and who was doing well in league; I wanted some mix of "is good" and "posts a lot." When we were testing on dominion.games I kept inviting more people who were good, hoping they would somehow get in some games, until I'd invited one too many and one leaked information.
One key thing I have learned is, if someone offers themselves up, I can't have that person. So now you know. It's a filter on who they are that makes them a poor candidate.
What do you think of Exploration post-errata? It and Bonfire have been the 2 cards that people are the most sad about.
It hasn't bothered me.
You've called Souk a "problem card" (along with Fortress). In what situations does it break the game? Is the +$7 the problem?
It rewards you in a big way for not having cards in hand, which can be trivial e.g. with Villa.
How do you feel when people hate on Allies for leading to “slow games” when (let's be honest) their complaints are actually about pre-errata Voyage and Warlord?
Allies is a decision-heavy set, that's part of its character. So I mean it's fair to find it slow. It's not something I can do every time out, but there are people who appreciate those kinds of cards.
What tips do you have for brainstorming new cards (Dominion or otherwise)?
It's hardest when you don't have anything yet; you can build on what you've got, once you've got some stuff. At the beginning, it was a real question, would I even manage 20 good cards for Dominion.
Here are some classic tricks.
- Look at all of your data, and see what triggers and effects it produces, then pair them up.
- Look at all of your rules, and see which ones you can make exceptions to.
- Consider different basic forms of program flow and what they get you.
- Look at what you've got so far; see what will work with it.
- Categorize what you've got so far; see what holes there are that you can try cards for.
- Look for classic variations on what you have so far; especially, little, big, and lots.
- Flavor can inspire new ideas.
- Look at your other games, see what ideas from there will port over.
- Look at the world through the lens of rules on cards. Any random time when you have an idea, write it down.
- Look at what didn't work in the past that maybe now you can fix up.
- When you've got 15 expansions, you really want a strong direction to help you get going. You've got a mechanic to try and you put it through its paces.
Here are some examples of those.
- You have $, you have cards in hand; we could let you somehow make $ based on the cards. We can say discard them (Vault), or count them in reverse (Souk).
- The rules have phases going in a particular order. We can mess with the order (Villa); we can add a phase (Night).
- There are so many very basic program flow things. We can give you a choice of costs (Animal Fair), choice of effects (Pawn), just do multiple things (Jack of All Trades), do some things now and some things later (Durations). You can do loops, e.g. repeat-until (Library).
- Let's see there are a bunch of Villages, maybe something can interact with those (Diadem).
- At one point I looked at all the basic pairings of resources, what had I not done yet that was worth doing. Not for e.g. Bazaar and Worker's Village, which had just been saved for later. I don't remember if I got a specific card this way.
- Hamlet is a little village, Bustling Village is a big one, Port is two villages.
- Siren is an example of a card that started with flavor. What would a Siren do?
- I'd had Durations in games for years; Greed for example is from 2003, though it was published after Dominion, and has a few Durations. An idea from Rising Sun ultimately goes back to Nefarious.
- I do write down ideas whenever I have them. I'm looking at a notebook page from work on Adventures; the first thing is the VP card that turned into Wall.
- Horn of Plenty is an example I've talked at length about where the original card ("+$1 per Action you played this turn") failed (turning into Conspirator at the time) but I remembered it and worked on it more.
- Plunder had multiple themes from the start, it had Treasure - Durations and next-time Durations and Loot all on day one. So I could get right to looking at, what could I do with these mechanics.
Of course there are other ways to get card ideas too. Village for example, the idea was to limit Action plays specifically so I could make that card. Cards needed things to do.
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Trait outtake from the secret history of plunder
Instead of following its instructions, may play cheaper card with restrictions. Way of Band of Misfits. Ways were poor here, and Band of Misfits is awful here. So slow.
Why are ways poor in traitland?
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Trait outtake from the secret history of plunder
Instead of following its instructions, may play cheaper card with restrictions. Way of Band of Misfits. Ways were poor here, and Band of Misfits is awful here. So slow.
Why are ways poor in traitland?
Because they're Ways. We had Ways, they were called Ways, they're in Menagerie.
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Trait outtake from the secret history of plunder
Instead of following its instructions, may play cheaper card with restrictions. Way of Band of Misfits. Ways were poor here, and Band of Misfits is awful here. So slow.
Why are ways poor in traitland?
Because they're Ways. We had Ways, they were called Ways, they're in Menagerie.
You also had landmarks but that didn't stop plateau shepherds from making its way into Allies. (not to mention Obelisk and the project-y events, but their mechanics weren't in a set yet.)
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Trait outtake from the secret history of plunder
Instead of following its instructions, may play cheaper card with restrictions. Way of Band of Misfits. Ways were poor here, and Band of Misfits is awful here. So slow.
Why are ways poor in traitland?
Because they're Ways. We had Ways, they were called Ways, they're in Menagerie.
You also had landmarks but that didn't stop plateau shepherds from making its way into Allies. (not to mention Obelisk and the project-y events, but their mechanics weren't in a set yet.)
That line of reasoning never gets you anywhere. Each example you can find will either be one I would do differently today, or an exception with good reason.
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Trait outtake from the secret history of plunder
Instead of following its instructions, may play cheaper card with restrictions. Way of Band of Misfits. Ways were poor here, and Band of Misfits is awful here. So slow.
Why are ways poor in traitland?
Because they're Ways. We had Ways, they were called Ways, they're in Menagerie.
You also had landmarks but that didn't stop plateau shepherds from making its way into Allies. (not to mention Obelisk and the project-y events, but their mechanics weren't in a set yet.)
That line of reasoning never gets you anywhere. Each example you can find will either be one I would do differently today, or an exception with good reason.
Which category does plateau shepherds fall into?
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Trait outtake from the secret history of plunder
Instead of following its instructions, may play cheaper card with restrictions. Way of Band of Misfits. Ways were poor here, and Band of Misfits is awful here. So slow.
Why are ways poor in traitland?
Because they're Ways. We had Ways, they were called Ways, they're in Menagerie.
You also had landmarks but that didn't stop plateau shepherds from making its way into Allies. (not to mention Obelisk and the project-y events, but their mechanics weren't in a set yet.)
That line of reasoning never gets you anywhere. Each example you can find will either be one I would do differently today, or an exception with good reason.
Which category does plateau shepherds fall into?
Plateau Shepherds is fine. No regrets.
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Since you errata'd Possession with the multi-turn errata, have you considered it giving even more errata? Such as:
a) Treating returning to its pile the same as trashing. (so that Way Of The Horse can no longer nuke decks)
b) Putting the deck on the discard at the end of the turn, so that the normal turn cannot be ruined by topdeck shenanigans, or by triggering nasty shuffles?
Obviously, this'd make Possession even more wordy, and probably still as inpopular, so I'd totally respect it if you actively decided against it.
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Since you errata'd Possession with the multi-turn errata, have you considered it giving even more errata? Such as:
a) Treating returning to its pile the same as trashing. (so that Way Of The Horse can no longer nuke decks)
b) Putting the deck on the discard at the end of the turn, so that the normal turn cannot be ruined by topdeck shenanigans, or by triggering nasty shuffles?
Obviously, this'd make Possession even more wordy, and probably still as inpopular, so I'd totally respect it if you actively decided against it.
I have not.
It only got the multi-turn errata because that was a sweeping change. I reached the point eventually where I just decided to ignore Possession; it's that messed up.
I'm not super into those changes otherwise. I try not to errata cards beyond fixing the rules and making text clear.
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Do you have any resources you'd recommend for a hopeful game designer?
I've read a lot of game theory stuff, but, surprisingly, that is more about econ than fun games.
I'm struggling to find a way to make sure asymmetrical game play is balanced. Any suggestions on what to research?
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Do you have any resources you'd recommend for a hopeful game designer?
BoardGameGeek probably has some stuff?
Writers write; game designers design games. Make a bunch of games and you will learn things; that's all I had myself.
The biggest lesson I can pithily sum up is: it has to be fun to lose. Mostly people lose; you have say four players, only one winner.
I've read a lot of game theory stuff, but, surprisingly, that is more about econ than fun games.
My introduction to game theory was the William Poundstone book Prisoner's Dilemma. It had some cool stuff, and made me think, I should make a game theory game, since games were not really so related to game theory. And I did, Pirate's Dilemma. It made you read 8 cards a turn and consider a 2x2 grid of payoffs. I later simplified this concept down to 2 cards; still a payoff grid but with a hidden axis. That was still hard for a lot of people but seems usable in an actual game. That particular game, man it had a few hardcore fans but it never felt close to publishable.
I'm struggling to find a way to make sure asymmetrical game play is balanced. Any suggestions on what to research?
Obviously the main things you can do are:
1) make the game as balanced as possible aside from that aspect;
2) playtest a lot
Once in a while you can just do the math on a bunch of things; usually not though. Sometimes you can do computer simulations.
In the world of non-Donald-X. games, politics is frequently used to balance asymmetrical games, but I hate that.
In general games are asymmetrical; an asymmetrical game just pushes this more. In Dominion for example, we have the same options, isn't this super symmetrical? But the idea is that the board is actually a puzzle, that it's not just clear what the best thing to do is. So the different cards are desperately trying to be close in power level. They have more leeway to vary than if we just started with different cards, but this element is still there. In a less symmetrical non-asymmetrical game, it will be like, you draw a hand of random cards at the start; there we go, it's asymmetrical. So it's really not such a big leap to a fully asymmetrical game.
The biggest thing is just, well with say that hand of random cards, even though players figure out, "these are the better cards these are the worse ones," that doesn't cover every possible hand. Whereas with the asymmetrical game, maybe you have five roles, and well, players work out the best and worst ones and so much for that. You could try to mitigate this with the other kinds of asymmetry, e.g. those starting hands. There's also uh general "make the players balance this" things e.g. bidding, but, well for me it would need to feel like a great fit otherwise or I wouldn't be satisfied. I mean if it was a bidding game, with another varying start condition so this wasn't merely "have people figured out the overpowered role yet," then it could be fine. We turn over two Twists to modify the game, they change how good the roles are, we bid on roles, and then go on to bid on other things.
Drafting can actually make it good to have disparity - you don't want highs too high or lows too low, but may actively want cards to not all be just as good. So you could draft roles plus other things at the start. I don't need to first pick a role but can only take one. Instead of "someone is handed the best role" it's "someone has the first option at the best role, but may still value something else over it." You can even make that typical, I mean make the other things you draft at the start tend to be more significant than the roles. Well now I am just designing a game.
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Any news on Rising Sun? Normally we get to see the box art and the small text introducing the mechanics some months before the release, will this change or is it still too early?
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Any news on Rising Sun? Normally we get to see the box art and the small text introducing the mechanics some months before the release, will this change or is it still too early?
I know people helplessly ask, but no new news actually makes it out that way.
The cover isn't done; I guess that's new news. There is no set schedule for releasing that image and that text. When it happens it will get posted.
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Any news on the sun, that big ball of hydrogen and some other stuff that illuminates earth?
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Any news on the sun, that big ball of hydrogen and some other stuff that illuminates earth?
I’ve been informed that it’s rising in the morning.
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Any news on the sun, that big ball of hydrogen and some other stuff that illuminates earth?
I’ve been informed that it’s rising in the morning.
Ah, and it's foreshadowing. Calling it now--next expansion is either "Setting Sun" or "Rising Moon." Twilight phase will be the new mechanic--after Buy phase and before Night phase.
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Any news on the sun, that big ball of hydrogen and some other stuff that illuminates earth?
I’ve been informed that it’s rising in the morning.
Ah, and it's foreshadowing. Calling it now--next expansion is either "Setting Sun" or "Rising Moon." Twilight phase will be the new mechanic--after Buy phase and before Night phase.
Well, first comes Dominion: High Noon. With cowboys.
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Thank you. This is good advice.
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How have you managed to avoid jsh giving you the on notice role in discord? Last I checked...
* you created Chariot Race
* jsh hates Chariot Race
What's it like having playtesters that love to argue with you and each other? This could range from things like your commas, or card errata, or if a new card is unfun and/or too strong.
What kind of Dominion rules questions do you find fun to answer, and which ones are the least fun?
For Band of Misfits/Garrison, why did you decide that it's required that the Garrison be in play for it get any tokens?
Has creating new games gotten harder or easier over time?
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How have you managed to avoid jsh giving you the on notice role in discord? Last I checked...
* you created Chariot Race
* jsh hates Chariot Race
Probably I made some points back in the music tournaments.
What's it like having playtesters that love to argue with you and each other? This could range from things like your commas, or card errata, or if a new card is unfun and/or too strong.
It's like a cool breeze on a summer day. It's like when you trip on a sidewalk crack, and can't believe you tripped on it, and go back, and try to purposefully trip on it, and you just can't.
All the games have to please me first; if I'm not having fun, they're not happening. Then they have to please my playtesters; that also can stop them from being. So the playtesters loom large.
A few of them go way back. I met Sir Martin in 1994, Sir Destry in 1997. Ingix was a fellow Magic rules guru arguing about what they should do in 6E, in the late 90s.
The commas, man, I am just in the right there. Card errata, well it's very helpful to have people weighing in. Unfun, too strong, man I like having as many opinions as I can get, as much evidence.
What kind of Dominion rules questions do you find fun to answer, and which ones are the least fun?
I guess I prefer the ones where I'm confident in the answer, less so the ones where it's a real question which way I should go.
For Band of Misfits/Garrison, why did you decide that it's required that the Garrison be in play for it get any tokens?
It's a physical game first and foremost. So I mean. The tokens have to go somewhere.
Has creating new games gotten harder or easier over time?
The initial step, of convincing myself to put in the work to get a prototype to find out if it's at all worth pursuing, has gotten harder. Probably everything else has gotten easier. I have plenty of ideas waiting for their day. There are lots of problems that I just know solutions to now. I know what I like in terms of phrasings and layout; years have gone into that and it's still never done, but you know.
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What is the process before you reveal the front-page information on new expansions? Like the Rio Grande Games page that says Loot and Traits are in Plunder with 500 cards total.
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What is the process before you reveal the front-page information on new expansions? Like the Rio Grande Games page that says Loot and Traits are in Plunder with 500 cards total.
I write it. Then I don't think about it at all, and one day RGG posts the functionality blurb somewhere, or a distributor does. I don't know their processes.
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Do you see next-time Durations as being a thing we can expect in a lot of future expansions like Reactions and Events are, or as a thing that might pop up again once or never?
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Do you see next-time Durations as being a thing we can expect in a lot of future expansions like Reactions and Events are, or as a thing that might pop up again once or never?
It's not off the table to do one here and there. The only special pull is, it's a thing a card can do. I do need those.
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I don't know if this is the right time to ask (maybe you haven't even thought about this) but do you plan on anyone to keep doing Dominion after you are done with it? Maybe give playtesters more "power" while you're still providing ideas etc?
Or will it end after you're done?
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I don't know if this is the right time to ask (maybe you haven't even thought about this) but do you plan on anyone to keep doing Dominion after you are done with it? Maybe give playtesters more "power" while you're still providing ideas etc?
Or will it end after you're done?
It's possible at some point someone else will make an expansion, with me helping out; it's hard to see me not wanting to make sure it's good enough and uh true to the spirit. It's not something I'm pursuing though; I'm happy just slowing down the pace and still being the Dominion expansion guy. They're fun projects; I know they'll work in advance, I know what I'm doing, everyone is happy to playtest them, there's a publisher happy to publish them, and players happy to buy them. For me the reason to not make them is to have time to work on anything else; from time to time I expect it will always be, okay now another Dominion expansion sounds like fun. But I mean it's hard for anyone to predict the future. And it's not just up to me.
Eventually I'll be dead, and who knows what will happen then. Well may the world go, when I'm far away.
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I saw that WotC is having problems with some of their artists using AI tools and it's causing quite the commotion in that community. Do you or RGG have any policies around that?
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I saw that WotC is having problems with some of their artists using AI tools and it's causing quite the commotion in that community. Do you or RGG have any policies around that?
So far just, don't rip off someone else's art or photo.
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Do the artists get to maintain the rights to their work, or do you or the publisher purchase the rights? If ownership is not with the artist, any chance of a Dominion Art Book or something similar sometime in the future? I'd absolutely pay to see high-res versions of the artwork.
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Do the artists get to maintain the rights to their work, or do you or the publisher purchase the rights? If ownership is not with the artist, any chance of a Dominion Art Book or something similar sometime in the future? I'd absolutely pay to see high-res versions of the artwork.
I don't own any art; I think the publisher does. I don't imagine there's enough interest in a book; you could mention your interest to the publisher and see if it piles up.
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Do the artists get to maintain the rights to their work, or do you or the publisher purchase the rights? If ownership is not with the artist, any chance of a Dominion Art Book or something similar sometime in the future? I'd absolutely pay to see high-res versions of the artwork.
I don't own any art; I think the publisher does. I don't imagine there's enough interest in a book; you could mention your interest to the publisher and see if it piles up.
You can find a list of all art at
https://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Gallery_of_illustrations
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Have you ever answered a rules question wrong on purpose, just to see how many people would believe you? Or is that too evil for someone in your shoes to try and pull?
Were there any new playtesters for Rising Sun? If so, do you know them online or in-person? (You don't have to name them if you or them don't want it revealed.)
What's more boring: picking cards for recommended sets, or naming them?
Do you still read Mark Rosewater’s Blogatog, and have you ever asked questions and/or sent him your thoughts on MTG that way? Do you have plans of starting your own version of Blogatog?
After finishing a new board game / expansion, do you take some time off, or immediately try to get a new project going?
When you run out of cards / sleeves to use for a prototype, where do you get more? Do you resort to unsleeving your other prototypes?
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Have you ever answered a rules question wrong on purpose, just to see how many people would believe you? Or is that too evil for someone in your shoes to try and pull?
No; I've left questions unanswered because they were about upcoming products, and I've failed to point out a rules hole that I knew existed but which players hadn't spotted.
Were there any new playtesters for Rising Sun? If so, do you know them online or in-person? (You don't have to name them if you or them don't want it revealed.)
Man, do they want to be revealed, dz? And do I secretly know you in person? That would be creepy. You started on MCB though.
What's more boring: picking cards for recommended sets, or naming them?
Write-in for answering questions about them.
It takes way longer to pick the cards than to name the sets, so that part is worse. Then we have to test them, but that part is fine, it's playing Dominion. For naming, the main issue is just, have I used this name already?
Do you still read Mark Rosewater’s Blogatog, and have you ever asked questions and/or sent him your thoughts on MTG that way? Do you have plans of starting your own version of Blogatog?
I think this is my Blogatog. I don't read it anymore (I've glanced at it once in a great while); I still look at previews for new sets, but it's gotten so that I don't even read all the cards there. Some are so wordy that it's a chore to read them.
I've never sent a question to Blogatog, but I've played games with Mark in person uh several times. I've been to the apartment he had, then the house he had, but not to the house he had after that one. We played my prototypes, back when I was nobody, and also my Magic cards. And two of his prototypes, neither of which has come out. He's talked about one in his column. This all went down from 1997-2003.
Years later I typed up a bunch of comments about how to fix up Magic - templates / rules / design - and email'd it to him. He replied but I don't think ever read all that stuff. They certainly haven't made any of the changes, even the most blatantly correct and easy ones. Once in a while I see how the templates have fallen even further, and think, I could poke him about that.
After finishing a new board game / expansion, do you take some time off, or immediately try to get a new project going?
I try to have multiple projects going at all times. Finishing an expansion isn't such a sharp dividing line; less and less is accomplished, it feels like it's about done, but until it's printed something could still change. Even when we stop playing it, it may come up, someone notices a wording that could be better, or I pull it out for some new players and then oops I should fix this. You can always make the game / expansion better; you just have to be done at some point.
So anyway. There have been periods where I played a bunch of games that weren't mine; just, my current projects weren't ready and well I like playing games. But it wasn't like I wasn't working on new games then; I just didn't have them ready to trot out.
I prefer working on multiple projects, so that when things stall on one I can look at another, or even, I can just take a break from one by working on another. Sometimes one project demands a lot of time though, so I get nothing or very little done on other projects, and this certainly happens with Dominion expansions.
Of course any given day might be time off. There's no real time pressure until the publisher has the game and things are moving forward there.
When you run out of cards / sleeves to use for a prototype, where do you get more? Do you resort to unsleeving your other prototypes?
I do unsleeve other prototypes, and also just buy sleeves online. Clear backs are better than colored backs - the colored-back sleeves tend to bend at the corners immediately, then break eventually - but sometimes a prototype has 3 decks and sure wants different backs, and while I can print out backs (I did for Temporum) it's easier to use colored-back sleeves. I buy heavy-duty awesome sleeves online, but in the past I had tons of cheap ones, and they're still floating around in prototypes, and still get reused.
Dominion's original sleeves went out of print, and while Sir Martin always pushes for resleeving everything, that's never happening. So now it has a mix of sleeves. Which isn't so different really, you could always tell the new cards from the backs due to wear on sleeves, which eventually becomes a thing. Those sleeves were amazing though, most of them are still functioning all these years later.
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Base 2e, Intrigue 2e, and Empires, are about as old today as base was when it got a 2nd edition. If you were to do 2es for Cornuguildsia, Dark Ages, Adventures, and Empires (throw in Nocturne if you want), which cards would you take out?
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Base 2e, Intrigue 2e, and Empires, are about as old today as base was when it got a 2nd edition. If you were to do 2es for Cornuguildsia, Dark Ages, Adventures, and Empires (throw in Nocturne if you want), which cards would you take out?
I don't want to put much work into answering this, but for Adventures all I ever want to replace is Warrior, and for Empires, man, there might not be anything. I ban Keep online but I think it was fine to print it.
For Cornucopia the easy highlight is Harvest; for Guilds, Masterpiece. Dark Ages has lots of cards that could go at this point, but the first one out would be Rebuild.
Nocturne wants to be split up into two expansions, one with Night and Spirits, one with Heirlooms, Boons, and Wishes (neither with Hexes). It's not a matter of replacing a few cards.
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Did you consider making the 2nd editions that came out last year into 400 or 500 card expansions?
Similarly did you consider putting Durations into Prosperity or Hinterlands? Or landscapes into any of them?
What's your latest thinking on how you decide how many cards to put in an expansion?
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Did you consider making the 2nd editions that came out last year into 400 or 500 card expansions?
I didn't. The second editions are a way of doing new expansions without actually selling new expansions; hiding the new stuff where it can be ignored. For example there's an expansion's-worth of cards between Seaside / Prosperity / Hinterlands 2E; for sure we would have sold more of those cards if they'd been an expansion. Wait, these sound awful; why did I do these? Ah yes, the key thing was to get rid of the cards being replaced. I wanted the products to be better; they didn't need to be larger too.
Similarly did you consider putting Durations into Prosperity or Hinterlands? Or landscapes into any of them?
I considered Duration cards. As you may know, originally Durations were going to be in each set after Seaside. That would have been fine, but didn't happen (story in secret history). There was no special need to put Duration cards into the 2E's though; it could have happened but didn't.
I didn't consider landscapes; they're a lot of work when what I'm really doing is replacing duds.
What's your latest thinking on how you decide how many cards to put in an expansion?
Mostly it's just, how many cards does this expansion seem to want to be? However there is one significant factor, which is tokens; the tokens make the set more expensive, as do more cards, so if it has tokens it's more likely to be smaller card-wise.
And then, there are certain ideal sizes for publishing that a set is bound to stick to - hence a set with 330 cards is unlikely.
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I didn't. The second editions are a way of doing new expansions without actually selling new expansions; hiding the new stuff where it can be ignored. For example there's an expansion's-worth of cards between Seaside / Prosperity / Hinterlands 2E; for sure we would have sold more of those cards if they'd been an expansion. Wait, these sound awful; why did I do these? Ah yes, the key thing was to get rid of the cards being replaced. I wanted the products to be better; they didn't need to be larger too.
Thanks for prioritizing making the game better. Replacing some old cards was a great idea in terms of making the average kingdom more fun.
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I hope it's fine when someone asks a question as his very first post here. :D
What's your view on custom modifications of cards? Such as taking a little black permanent marker, crossing out the +Buy on Wharf and writing a +Buy on Merchant ship? Or perhaps putting a +something on Harvest.
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What's your view on custom modifications of cards? Such as taking a little black permanent marker, crossing out the +Buy on Wharf and writing a +Buy on Merchant ship? Or perhaps putting a +something on Harvest.
Have the fun you want to have! I personally customized some of my Hinterlands cards, before making Hinterlands 2E.
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I hope it's fine when someone asks a question as his very first post here. :D
What's your view on custom modifications of cards? Such as taking a little black permanent marker, crossing out the +Buy on Wharf and writing a +Buy on Merchant ship? Or perhaps putting a +something on Harvest.
Yes, but don't use a black marker! Use card sleeves with a piece of paper tucked into them or just put a neutral +Buy token on the Merchant Ship pile.
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Are you prepared to deal with all the "dude that card did NOT deserve to get removed" comments for Cornucopia/Guilds 2E?
How do you feel when a playtester suggests something, you try it, and immediately realize it’s no good? (Spoilers for the Rising Sun secret history: this happened all the time.)
What’s the secret history of inviting DZ as a playtester? I know the story from my perspective but what’s the story from your perspective?
What’s it like creating card mixes for the mix tournaments? Do you get initial feedback on the mix from playtesters/whoever wants to moderate the mix?
What’s your favorite Dominion emoji on the discord?
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Are you prepared to deal with all the "dude that card did NOT deserve to get removed" comments for Cornucopia/Guilds 2E?
A small price to pay if it means we get a Cheesemaker/other cheese-related card.
I'll place bets now:
Cornucopia:
Horse Traders, Remake, Fortune Teller
Guilds:
Taxman, Journeyman, and maybe Soothsayer? (Given Charlatan and Bandit, even though Soothsayer remains unique).
Donald wouldn't break up the Butcher, Baker and Candlestick Maker, would he?
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Are you prepared to deal with all the "dude that card did NOT deserve to get removed" comments for Cornucopia/Guilds 2E?
I've got my bunker stocked.
How do you feel when a playtester suggests something, you try it, and immediately realize it’s no good? (Spoilers for the Rising Sun secret history: this happened all the time.)
The main thing is just, you know that happens constantly with my own ideas too; I'm not friendlier to those. You don't see all of them but man. So you know, I don't want someone to feel bad, but what can you do, there's work to be done.
What’s the secret history of inviting DZ as a playtester? I know the story from my perspective but what’s the story from your perspective?
Sometimes it seems like, there aren't enough people playtesting or commenting. I look for people who have positive characteristics for the job. They talk a lot, know things, are into the game. I was eyeballing you as a potential playtester, but there wasn't any Dominion playtesting going on. Then I invited you anyway. Then you played lots of Moon Colony Bloodbath, it worked out great.
What’s it like creating card mixes for the mix tournaments? Do you get initial feedback on the mix from playtesters/whoever wants to moderate the mix?
Usually I just make the list. Sometimes the tournament runner wants to mess with it a little. Rarely has there been any other input. Sometimes Cave says "that's just 74 cards."
It's fun making lists. I put in everything obvious, then either I need to find more stuff the mix can do, or now I'm worried about how many villages etc. I have. In the end I know the mix will work, because playing with random cards works. There's not a lot of risk here, it's just the joy of lists. And then, seeing games played with this particular environment of cards.
What’s your favorite Dominion emoji on the discord?
They're not really my scene. Wine Merchant is pretty appropriate, a successful emote.
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What's your view on custom modifications of cards? Such as taking a little black permanent marker, crossing out the +Buy on Wharf and writing a +Buy on Merchant ship? Or perhaps putting a +something on Harvest.
Have the fun you want to have! I personally customized some of my Hinterlands cards, before making Hinterlands 2E.
Thanks for the quick reply! Would you mind sharing some of those Hinterlands card customisations you made?
Regarding some removed/replaced cards: Thief was too weak in the base game, and Noble Brigand suffers from being limited to silver, gold and forcing you to pick up what you trashed. But now with many powerful kingdom treasures such as from Prosperity 2E and Plunder, and loot from the latter expansion, Thief suddenly seems much more interesting, having been the only card that can both trash from all your opponents and then pick up whatever you liked between those. Do you think a fused version of the two cards would be a viable option, basically a steal-capable thief that doesn't trash coppers? Bandit always giving gold is nice and reliable, but the ability to take someone's loot or crystal ball or bank or buried treasure or or or... would just be so nice, I think.
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What's your view on custom modifications of cards? Such as taking a little black permanent marker, crossing out the +Buy on Wharf and writing a +Buy on Merchant ship? Or perhaps putting a +something on Harvest.
Have the fun you want to have! I personally customized some of my Hinterlands cards, before making Hinterlands 2E.
Thanks for the quick reply! Would you mind sharing some of those Hinterlands card customisations you made?
They were posted to the discord:
https://discord.com/channels/212660788786102272/499250664690679808/741894379739807857
* Margrave's +Buy was moved to Cache
* Duchess doesn't let other players look at their own decks
* Fool's Gold dropped the Reaction
* IGG costs $6, makes $2, and doesn't have the option of gaining a copper.
* Mandarin costs $2
* Noble Brigand makes $2 instead of $1.
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Regarding some removed/replaced cards: Thief was too weak in the base game, and Noble Brigand suffers from being limited to silver, gold and forcing you to pick up what you trashed. But now with many powerful kingdom treasures such as from Prosperity 2E and Plunder, and loot from the latter expansion, Thief suddenly seems much more interesting, having been the only card that can both trash from all your opponents and then pick up whatever you liked between those. Do you think a fused version of the two cards would be a viable option, basically a steal-capable thief that doesn't trash coppers? Bandit always giving gold is nice and reliable, but the ability to take someone's loot or crystal ball or bank or buried treasure or or or... would just be so nice, I think.
I can't listen to your card ideas, and they should only go in the "variants and fan cards" subforum.
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Sorry, wasn't meant to be a card idea, but I got sidetracked while typing. Question was meant to be more like, if you think Thief would be more interesting again now that there's so much diverse and powerful treasure compared to what it was like when it was removed.
They were posted to the discord:
https://discord.com/channels/212660788786102272/499250664690679808/741894379739807857
* Margrave's +Buy was moved to Cache
* Duchess doesn't let other players look at their own decks
* Fool's Gold dropped the Reaction
* IGG costs $6, makes $2, and doesn't have the option of gaining a copper.
* Mandarin costs $2
* Noble Brigand makes $2 instead of $1.
Thank you!
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Obviously I'm not Donald, but I can echo his prior statements from around the release of 2E and claim they're still relevant today.
Sorry, wasn't meant to be a card idea, but I got sidetracked while typing. Question was meant to be more like, if you think Thief would be more interesting again now that there's so much diverse and powerful treasure compared to what it was like when it was removed.
It still doesn't change the fact that in the early game Thief trashes your opponent's coppers for them.
This only ends up being a pitfall in games with beginners.
It also has weird scaling in 3-4 player games, allowing for extreme random power turns where you steal multiple 4+ cost treasures in one swoop (or else just improves their decks and leaving you with a pile of copper that you won't pick up. Actually, having the option to pick up 3 copper from Thief is a huge pitfall for new players). You also need to take into account that a card will most frequently be played with the others within its own set, and there are only base treasures in the base game.
Bandit fixed everything wrong with Thief. She doesn't help thin your opponent's deck, and always earns you a valuable treasure. It is not a new player trap as Gold is the most neutral "good" card you can possibly gain.
Even if Thief has the utility in modern games of sometimes grabbing you Loot or Fortune, the chances of that happening are very low, and just not worth it.
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Actually, having the option to pick up 3 copper from Thief is a huge pitfall for new players).
Not more than picking up Coppers with an extra +buy (which the rulebook actually offers as a possibility).
(I'm not disagreeing with anything else you said.)
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Since you've abandoned the idea of "all non-Supply cards cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/a/ae/Coin0star.png/16px-Coin0star.png)," how much would the Prizes cost if you made Tournament nowadays?
Probably $7*.
You're on record for saying that you'd make Prizes cost $7 if you made them today, or, well, 2 and a half years ago. I can imagine that you didn't, to keep the changes minimal, but was there any voice to change their cost during playtesting?
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Since you've abandoned the idea of "all non-Supply cards cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/a/ae/Coin0star.png/16px-Coin0star.png)," how much would the Prizes cost if you made Tournament nowadays?
Probably $7*.
You're on record for saying that you'd make Prizes cost $7 if you made them today, or, well, 2 and a half years ago. I can imagine that you didn't, to keep the changes minimal, but was there any voice to change their cost during playtesting?
We considered it. Possibly it was the move still; mostly they're $0* because Prizes were. There is still a little "this makes it clearer that you can't buy these."
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Thanks for all the fun over the years--Dominion is the best designed game I've ever played. The simplicity of the base design that invites such complexity and iterations is incredible. I love the way you balance the cards and I'm very grateful. Also, thank you for making new sets for the love of it--I can tell it's not primarily for the money. Especially because you guys sell the update packs separately, etc. Anyways, just wanted to tell you thanks. And I love the new update pack cards that just came out!
Blessings to you and your family
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How do you feel about cards that sometimes have effects which will be irrelevant in some games? (Like Footpad, some games you wont be able to gain in action phase). Do you care about how small the chance is of this happening, do you look to not have many of these, or do you just not care at all (footpad is basically 2 way different cards in the 2 scenarios) Just your general thoughts
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Of course this goes back to original Dominion where you can have Moat with no attack.
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How do you feel about cards that sometimes have effects which will be irrelevant in some games? (Like Footpad, some games you wont be able to gain in action phase). Do you care about how small the chance is of this happening, do you look to not have many of these, or do you just not care at all (footpad is basically 2 way different cards in the 2 scenarios) Just your general thoughts
At the moment there are 37 cards that have the “When you gain another card” triggered effect.
And A LOT more other triggered effects.
All of them will be irrelevant sometimes, that’s just part of the game.
(https://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Triggered_effects#When_you_gain)
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How do you feel about cards that sometimes have effects which will be irrelevant in some games? (Like Footpad, some games you wont be able to gain in action phase). Do you care about how small the chance is of this happening, do you look to not have many of these, or do you just not care at all (footpad is basically 2 way different cards in the 2 scenarios) Just your general thoughts
At the moment there are 37 cards that have the “When you gain another card” triggered effect.
And A LOT more other triggered effects.
All of them will be irrelevant sometimes, that’s just part of the game.
(https://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Triggered_effects#When_you_gain)
They don't have the 'in an Action phase' clause.
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How do you feel about cards that sometimes have effects which will be irrelevant in some games? (Like Footpad, some games you wont be able to gain in action phase). Do you care about how small the chance is of this happening, do you look to not have many of these, or do you just not care at all (footpad is basically 2 way different cards in the 2 scenarios) Just your general thoughts
At the moment there are 37 cards that have the “When you gain another card” triggered effect.
And A LOT more other triggered effects.
All of them will be irrelevant sometimes, that’s just part of the game.
(https://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Triggered_effects#When_you_gain)
They don't have the 'in an Action phase' clause.
Correct, but the question specifically was "cards that sometimes have effects being irrelevant in some games".
Footpad was just an example.
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How do you feel about cards that sometimes have effects which will be irrelevant in some games? (Like Footpad, some games you wont be able to gain in action phase). Do you care about how small the chance is of this happening, do you look to not have many of these, or do you just not care at all (footpad is basically 2 way different cards in the 2 scenarios) Just your general thoughts
At the moment there are 37 cards that have the “When you gain another card” triggered effect.
And A LOT more other triggered effects.
All of them will be irrelevant sometimes, that’s just part of the game.
(https://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Triggered_effects#When_you_gain)
They don't have the 'in an Action phase' clause.
Correct, but the question specifically was "cards that sometimes have effects being irrelevant in some games".
Footpad was just an example.
But unlike Footpad, most of the 37 cards' effects (e.g. Blockade, Watchtower, Tiara, Trader,...) aren't irrelevant in any kingdom, because they also trigger on buying cards, which you can do in any game.
Very few of those can ever be irrelevant (e.g. Labyrinth would only be irrelevant in a game without extra gains AND without extra buys, which is much more unlikely than a game without Action phase gains).
However, besides Moat and other Attack Reactions, Conspirator and Market Square are other examples of cards with irrelevant effects in a significant number of kingdoms.
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How do you feel about cards that sometimes have effects which will be irrelevant in some games? (Like Footpad, some games you wont be able to gain in action phase). Do you care about how small the chance is of this happening, do you look to not have many of these, or do you just not care at all (footpad is basically 2 way different cards in the 2 scenarios) Just your general thoughts
It's a concern when the card is absolutely nothing without the interaction, e.g. Tomb. For landscapes it seems sufficiently tolerable that I went ahead and made Tomb anyway. For kingdom cards, well they do something at least; Moat is relevant sometimes with no attacks. And of course cards that do everything they do are sometimes going to go untouched just because the board has something better to do.
For Footpad itself it's not much of a concern; it's always got the top, and that's what you buy it for anyway.
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My guess is this is probably already answered somewhere, but I couldn't find it. How likely are we going to see more 2nd editions past the Cornucopia/Guilds one?
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My guess is this is probably already answered somewhere, but I couldn't find it. How likely are we going to see more 2nd editions past the Cornucopia/Guilds one?
Donald can't answer that because the 2e can only release once the 1e sets are out of stock, and if people know there's a 2e coming then they won't buy the 1e.
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My guess is this is probably already answered somewhere, but I couldn't find it. How likely are we going to see more 2nd editions past the Cornucopia/Guilds one?
Donald can't answer that because the 2e can only release once the 1e sets are out of stock, and if people know there's a 2e coming then they won't buy the 1e.
That makes perfect sense.
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I was looking into picking up a copy of cornucopia and guilds 2e when it releases but one thing kind of irked me. I was wondering why the rewards had a cost of zero. From my understanding most out of supply cards (ex. Horses, loot, ghost, ect) have a cost. The two explanations I have seen are that it emphasizes that they cannot be bought and that it is so that it never feels like the correct play to remodel your reward. However to me neither of these make much sense because most out of supply cards have a cost so if anything it costing zero adds confusion. Also I think remodeling a prize into a province is much less of an issue than having someone swindle it into a curse.
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Also I think remodeling a prize into a province is much less of an issue than having someone swindle it into a curse.
There are rather more kingdom cards that act like Remodel than there are that act like Swindler.
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Also I think remodeling a prize into a province is much less of an issue than having someone swindle it into a curse.
There are rather more kingdom cards that act like Remodel than there are that act like Swindler.
Fair but how is rewards and different then say loot
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I was looking into picking up a copy of cornucopia and guilds 2e when it releases but one thing kind of irked me. I was wondering why the rewards had a cost of zero. From my understanding most out of supply cards (ex. Horses, loot, ghost, ect) have a cost. The two explanations I have seen are that it emphasizes that they cannot be bought and that it is so that it never feels like the correct play to remodel your reward. However to me neither of these make much sense because most out of supply cards have a cost so if anything it costing zero adds confusion. Also I think remodeling a prize into a province is much less of an issue than having someone swindle it into a curse.
At the time they were the only non-supply cards; it was helpful to have them cost $0. It actually helped make it clear that you couldn't buy them. The Swindler vs. Remodel thing, that stuff doesn't weigh nearly as heavily for me. We thought it was more fun to not Remodel our Prizes, and it was always clear that this meant you could Swindler them.
As the years went by I learned that it was better to have costs reflect power level, for all the various things that interact with costs. So if the Prizes happened today, they'd have expensive costs, like Loot. At the same time people have gotten more used to non-supply piles, so there's less importance to trying to advertise that you can't buy the card. And the cards do still say "This is not in the Supply" (sometimes capitalized correctly), and you can put an asterisk by the cost.
But there I was making C&G2E, and well it's not like I would change the cost of Prizes, that's a functional change beyond what I do. Then they turned into Rewards and somehow didn't change from costing $0. For people who get expansions in order, the old reasons still contribute; it's not so bad. But it's not what I'd do with new cards.
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Then they turned into Rewards and somehow didn't change from costing $0.
Thanks for the response this here is kind of what I was wondering. I also just wanted to say thank you so much for making dominion because it is the best board game I have ever played.
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I really like when “setup:” and “overpay:” are bolded. I think this is especially helpful IRL games with newer players. Will this print of corn/guilds 2E have that bolded?
On a similar note, why don’t Charlatan and Footpad have some sort of visual reminder that they change the rules? A bolded “law:” for example. Their below the line texts are easy to overlook (especially IRL) and quite unprecedented/unexpected considering 99% of kingdom piles don’t modify rules. Did you consider other ways to implement those rules changes?
Thanks!
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I really like when “setup:” and “overpay:” are bolded. I think this is especially helpful IRL games with newer players. Will this print of corn/guilds 2E have that bolded?
Yes.
On a similar note, why don’t Charlatan and Footpad have some sort of visual reminder that they change the rules? A bolded “law:” for example. Their below the line texts are easy to overlook (especially IRL) and quite unprecedented/unexpected considering 99% of kingdom piles don’t modify rules. Did you consider other ways to implement those rules changes?
No-one in playtesting ever said "hey we should add a word to these cards." I mean it's that simple; lots of things never come up, that's one of them. Possibly the cards should have been a unique color, to draw your attention at the start of the game; it didn't come up, and they sure aren't.
The precedents are Baker and Young Witch! Two cards in the same box as Footpad. In the old days on isotropic, it was easy to miss Baker; one player would say "Baker Alarm!" And later Doug added that as an automatic thing. I can imagine online wanting a little box at the start of the game that reminds you of Baker / Footpad. And I mean maybe that will happen; not due to me going over there now and seeing "hey" but I sure don't need to rule it out.
From my perspective, everything modifies the rules. Woodcutter modifies the rules. It's easier to remember because you have to buy it to start getting the effect. But I broke this with a whole mechanic eventually, Landmarks, and no-one ever says, "we can't remember Tomb." So it seemed fair game. I think with Footpad the issue is that the bottom isn't sufficiently related to the top (it's related, but it's very mild). This in turn was due to, the bottom rule was different (an unforgettable "you have 6 cards hands this game"), and that didn't work out (it's not at its best on a Militia, would you believe).
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On a similar note, why don’t Charlatan and Footpad have some sort of visual reminder that they change the rules? A bolded “law:” for example. Their below the line texts are easy to overlook (especially IRL) and quite unprecedented/unexpected considering 99% of kingdom piles don’t modify rules. Did you consider other ways to implement those rules changes?
No-one in playtesting ever said "hey we should add a word to these cards." I mean it's that simple; lots of things never come up, that's one of them. Possibly the cards should have been a unique color, to draw your attention at the start of the game; it didn't come up, and they sure aren't.
The precedents are Baker and Young Witch! Two cards in the same box as Footpad. In the old days on isotropic, it was easy to miss Baker; one player would say "Baker Alarm!" And later Doug added that as an automatic thing. I can imagine online wanting a little box at the start of the game that reminds you of Baker / Footpad. And I mean maybe that will happen; not due to me going over there now and seeing "hey" but I sure don't need to rule it out.
From my perspective, everything modifies the rules. Woodcutter modifies the rules. It's easier to remember because you have to buy it to start getting the effect. But I broke this with a whole mechanic eventually, Landmarks, and no-one ever says, "we can't remember Tomb." So it seemed fair game. I think with Footpad the issue is that the bottom isn't sufficiently related to the top (it's related, but it's very mild). This in turn was due to, the bottom rule was different (an unforgettable "you have 6 cards hands this game"), and that didn't work out (it's not at its best on a Militia, would you believe).
I would argue that there is a difference here. The extra effect on Baker only occurs once during setup so it doesn't need to be remembered throughout the game. And the presence of something extra on the table, like a Landmark or the Bane pile, is a reminder that there is something that affects the game. However cards like Charlatan and Footpad are just one of the 10 piles in the kingdom so there is nothing extra on the table, but they affect the game at times when I'm not handling those cards which makes it easy to forget that those effects exist.
That said, even though I like the idea of a bold prefix for these effects, I don't think it would make enough of a difference for me. I'm considering just printing the continuing effects on separate cards to put at the middle of the table as visual reminders.
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Is 'Shop' a noun or a verb?
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Is 'Shop' a noun or a verb?
Since it is a kingdom card and not an event I would assume it is a noun.
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Is 'Shop' a noun or a verb?
Some people actually wanted me to never answer this for Duplicate. Maybe I should respect that here too. Something that can safely be left a mystery.
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Is 'Shop' a noun or a verb?
Some people actually wanted me to never answer this for Duplicate. Maybe I should respect that here too. Something that can safely be left a mystery.
And at least with Shop it makes no difference to the pronunciation, unlike for Duplicate.
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What's your favorite kind of strategy in Dominion? (e.g. trying to draw all of your cards in your deck every turn, noticing 2 cards that synergize too well with each other and using almost-exclusively those, etc.)
What portion of boards do you want that kind of strategy to be viable?
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What's your favorite kind of strategy in Dominion? (e.g. trying to draw all of your cards in your deck every turn, noticing 2 cards that synergize too well with each other and using almost-exclusively those, etc.)
What portion of boards do you want that kind of strategy to be viable?
My favorite thing is for something exotic to come up, some experience I haven't had before, didn't know about. I'd like that to always happen! In all of my games, and also all games that aren't mine.
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Cornucopia-Guilds 2E has a few more obscure or archaic names for cards - Footpad, Housecarl, Demesne, Coronet. Did you seek out lesser known words and is it something you'll be doing more moving ahead?
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Cornucopia-Guilds 2E has a few more obscure or archaic names for cards - Footpad, Housecarl, Demesne, Coronet. Did you seek out lesser known words and is it something you'll be doing more moving ahead?
They're fun once in a while. I don't try to have a bunch of them or anything, and didn't there, but then I also try to name cards things that cards aren't already named.
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From CoolKid1182 in the Discord: “Base having such poor payload is too bad because it sort of teaches the idea that you should buy treasures/golds as payload.” What do you think of that?
What’s your favorite April Fool’s DomBot feature so far?
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From CoolKid1182 in the Discord: “Base having such poor payload is too bad because it sort of teaches the idea that you should buy treasures/golds as payload.”
Base game has 4 Peddlers with Market, Vassal, Poacher and Merchant.
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From CoolKid1182 in the Discord: “Base having such poor payload is too bad because it sort of teaches the idea that you should buy treasures/golds as payload.” What do you think of that?
What’s your favorite April Fool’s DomBot feature so far?
The base game is doing its best, I mean my best; I'm trying to lead not mislead, etc. People start out buying all the pretty cards, then lose to money because they can't play their actions; it's a real problem that you have to see past that to building good decks. If there was a better way to mark that path well sorry; at least a few people got past money and had fun.
I don't want to look back at what all of the April Fools features have been. I put some work into one that hasn't happened, presumably because it's too much work for Cave; that one would have been great. I wrote the text you get evaluating your performance, so I'll pick that one. Hooray for me! Sometimes I'm that loser making the big money game; sometimes I write enigmatic paragraphs about bags of blood.