Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Blueswan on April 21, 2013, 01:24:51 am
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You have all expansions at your disposal. You need to design a kingdom that is easy to understand, yet will intrigue the beginner. Also, you need to come up with something better than the official "first play" kingdom from the base set.
My secret agenda for this is that I want to introduce the game to my extremely game-reluctant wife, but either how, I thought this was an interesting task.
EDIT: I don't personally own Intrigue, Hinterlands or Alchemy yet, but I won't let that be a hindrance here. It's more fun if you can use all expansions. I'm buying them soon anyway.
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I don't have a specific setup, but here are a few thoughts in general on a set with which to introduce the game to a beginner:
Don't include any game-warping cards or combos. Leave out Ambassador, King's Court, Mountebank, Hunting Party, Sea Hag, Rebuild, etc.
It should probably include at least one attack. You can include a reaction if you want, but that's not necessary. Make sure the attack isn't too strong, though.
Include at least one card with each of the four main abilities: +Action, +Card, +Buy, +$. For +Action and +Card, they should do more than replace themselves - use a card with at least +2 Cards and one with at least +2 Actions.
These are general ideas, but any set you use to introduce a beginner to the game should probably include most of these.
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You have all expansion at your disposal. You need to design a kingdom that is easy to understand, yet will intrigue the beginner. Also, you need to come up with something better than the official "first play" kingdom from the base set.
My secret agenda for this is that I want to introduce the game to my extremely game-reluctant wife, but either how, I thought this was an interesting task.
EDIT: I don't personally own Intrigue, Hinterlands or Alchemy yet, but I won't let that be a hindrance here. It's more fun if you can use all expansions. I'm buying them soon anyway.
I think the first game set really is a reasonable answer to this.
It has a little bit of everything: +Cards, +Actions, +$, +Buy, an Attack, a Reaction, a trasher, a gainer.
All of the little bits of everything are in their simplest possible forms, so it's easy to understand. The draw is Smithy, not Library; the gainer is Workshop, not Ironworks.
It has some cards at all prices which are reasonable to buy.
No cursers, so players won't get locked out of the game by having hands full of nothing.
The main problem with going beyond that is that anything more adds complexity - the base set really does have the simplest versions of a lot of cards. For introducing people to the game, simplicity is good, so don't get too fancy!
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I'll take a crack at it...
Haven - why not introduce them to Duration cards? "Save a card for next turn" is a very easy concept
Steward - trashing & choices
Tunnel - kingdom Victory card and defense against Miltia (replacing Gardens)
Village - +Actions
Workshop - differentiate "Gain" and "Buy"
Gardens - contrast with Steward's trashing to show varying strategies; differentiate "Kingdom card" and "Action card" (one of my friends who had enough Dominion experience to avoid this mistake once based her strategy on using Universities to gain Gardens because to her, the 10 piles that changed every game were "the Action cards")
Militia - an Attack card; also helps reinforce that Cleanup is part of your turn
Smithy - +Cards
Cache - like Gardens Tunnel, show that Kingdom cards don't need to be Action cards; the fact that it's a cheaper Gold helps illustrate that Coppers are generally bad, but the exception to that rule is also present here (Gardens)
Haggler - on-buy effect that's easy to grasp
Market - +Buy, +$
So my first try includes half of the official first set, plus one more Base card, then 1 from Intrigue, 1 from Seaside, and 2 3 from Hinterlands. A pretty balanced spread of card costs, I don't think there's any individual thing that's too difficult, but it does introduce a lot of different concepts. For more expansion variety, Village and Smithy could probably be swapped out. If a defense for Militia must be present, maybe swap out Haven for Lighthouse?
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Gardens - contrast with Steward's trashing to show varying strategies; differentiate "Kingdom card" and "Action card" (one of my friends who had enough Dominion experience to avoid this mistake once based her strategy on using Universities to gain Gardens because to her, the 10 piles that changed every game were "the Action cards")
I would actually hold off on gardens, unless you plan on playing the set more than once to demonstrate different strategies. I play with a lot of new players, so typically I show them trashing is good in the first game, and that actions are nice but so is money, and save alternate VP's for the second or third game. Its hard enough for many people to get the mechanics down! I would switch gardens with moat, to get reaction cards in there, or if you want to keep VP's in, tunnel is pretty simple
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I think you have to start with what various things need to be described in the kingdom. That means:
All the basic bonuses
Semi-good trashing but no Chapel, possibly a TFB
Making choices
Duration cards
A gainer
A village
A cantrip
A reaction of some sort
A weak attack
Low- and high-cost cards.
Let's start with Market, the original Jack of All Trades. It explains all the standard bonuses. Great.
A village with something interesting to it: Squire. Also a great card for making choices.
A weak trasher or TFB: Salvager comes to mind.
An attack, and a paired defensive reaction. So, a discard attack, with Tunnel as a reaction? Or a gaining attack, with Watchtower as a reaction? Watchtower works well with Squire, so let's go after a minor junking attack. How about Young Witch, with a good bane... say, actually, Squire as bane. So that gets us Young Witch and Watchtower
Something that gets us +Cards easily. Smithy is pretty basic. Menagerie could be interesting. Hunting Grounds is probably too expensive, but has an interesting synergy with Salvager... salvage for $6 and a Duchy in the endgame? Hrm. Yeah, Hunting Grounds
Some alternate VP card that won't be an obvious runaway combo. Gardens without a huge enabler (Workshop), or Fairgrounds.... yes, Fairgrounds. First-time players buy a little of everything, might as well make it worth their while.
I agree that Haven is a nice, simple card for introducing Durations.
Haggler as suggested by michaeljb, a nice on-gain, or even BV... Hrm, Border Village. It's not game-breaking.
Oddly enough, no $5s in here other than Market. Council Room could lead to a BM game, so no. Lab is so bland. Embassy is too much like HG. Hmmmm. Wharf is too much. Attacks are too strong. Perhaps a non-power $5 that works well like Harvest... no. Cartographer. A meaningful but not overpowered card.
What do I have?
Haven
Squire
Watchtower
Salvager
Young Witch
Market
Cartographer
Border Village
Hunting Grounds
Fairgrounds
Let's add Warehouse for a sifting demonstration. OK, there you go:
Squire, Haven, Watchtower, Warehouse, Salvager, Young Witch, Market, Cartographer, Border Village, Hunting Grounds, Fairgrounds
As serakfalcon says... this board would need multiple play-throughs to understand.
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Don't include any game-warping cards or combos.
Workshop
Gardens
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I think Cornucopia is a good expansion for beginners - they often do the "that looks nice, I'll have one of those" thing and end up with lots of different things that don't fit together well; with Cornucopia they can learn the game mechanics without needing to be told not to just buy one of everything. Fairgrounds is a good choice, I'd also put Menagerie in because it's simple enough and makes it easier to use such decks. Not sure I like Border Village in there; Fairgrounds and Hunting Grounds are already both $6, and another one just means beginners will never buy Gold.
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Don't include any game-warping cards or combos.
Workshop
Gardens
Thank you for your constructive feedback ::)
I'll just say swap out Gardens and put in Fairgrounds. Keeps the victory kindgom card, add some competition for Gold, but not something they'd want to buy too early when they need Gold most.
Or like serakfalcon suggests, Tunnel (and definitely Haven over Lighthouse) to have an interesting defense against Militia. OK, yeah, that sounds better. Tunnel is my final answer.
Not that this really matters anyway, using the suggested First Game has worked out fine for me teaching people so far.
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Why put in choice cards like Steward or Squire? New players *already* have many choices! There's 16 cards to choose from to buy, and at any given point five or more cards to choose from to play. Don't overcomplicate things - in someone's first game, "do I play the village or the smithy first" is a choice.
When in doubt go with the most vanilla version of the bonus that you can find.
You need those extra choices only after some of the choices with more obvious right answers have become so simple as to be automatic and not register as choices at all. That takes some time.
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Yeah guys, I thought the point of the first game kingdom was to be simple, not incredibly complex. (Do not confuse this with lacking depth, though.)
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Thank you for the suggestions so far. For the record, I'm not disputing that the official "first game" is a good place to start, I was just wondering if something better could be made from all expansions instead of using just the base game.
As for that official "first game", I just find it a little dull, I guess. Workshop and Woodcutter are a bit pointless without something like Gardens or $4 cards you want a whole bunch of. The $5 cards are weak. Smithy might even be too powerful here. The two trashers (Remodel and Mine) are a bit weak, but I suppose having one of them here would be fine.
I do like having Cellar (simple sifter), Moat (basic reaction card), Village (simplest village), Militia(basic attack card hat hurts but doesn't crumble your opponent) and Market (a bit of everything) in there though.
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As for that official "first game", I just find it a little dull, I guess.
You find it dull because you've played this game a lot. It is not dull to a player playing their first game.
Workshop and Woodcutter are a bit pointless without something like Gardens or $4 cards you want a whole bunch of. The $5 cards are weak. Smithy might even be too powerful here. The two trashers (Remodel and Mine) are a bit weak, but I suppose having one of them here would be fine.
You're talking strategy. All that may be irrelevant to a beginner, who is still trying to explore individual card effects.
(BTW, have you read http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/07/30/building-the-first-game-engine/ ? This is not a dull Kingdom at all. Remodel, workshop, and Mine are all very playable here and can improve the engine.)
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My focus would not be on specific bonuses and card types, but rather on "fun". For me this automatically includes Menagerie and Fishing Village. Maybe Wishing Well. My point is that I would want to create a couple of "hurray" moments for the beginner throughout the game. Activating Menagerie is definitely fun and FV enables a lot of terminal spamming.
Tribute can be included, just some basic randomy cards maybe. Militia is a very basic attack, but Menagerie makes it more fun. And throw in the obvious Market and I'm halfway done.
You need to demonstrate Curses, otherwise you get asked "why include them"? I would use Jester for this and hope it hits a Victory card at least once. Harem is fun with both Jester and Tribute. Will fill in the rest later.
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Woodcutter is definitely the most useless card in the first game kingdom, but every other card has its place.
Plus, there are a whole bunch of $<4 cards in that kingdom that you want: Village and Smithy! So Workshop is very good.
How about improving the first game kingdom? The two duds are Moat and Woodcutter. You'd probably want to replace Moat with another $2 and Woodcutter with something $3-4.
Menagerie seems like a solid suggestion for a first game, but I fear that the beginner will have trouble understanding how to activate it. I disagree that it is necessary for the first game to have something that gives out Curses. There are plenty of opportunities for one to understand why Curses are in the kingdom. Just play another game...
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Okay, here's my full set:
$2
Vagrant
$3
Menagerie
Fishing Village
Wishing Well
$4
Throne Room
Cutpurse
$5
Tribute
Jester
$6
Harem
Fairgrounds
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Menagerie seems like a solid suggestion for a first game, but I fear that the beginner will have trouble understanding how to activate it.
It's easy enough to understand the text on the card; if they didn't figure it out, you can give them that "ah-ha" moment by playing it and revealing a hand with one more Menagerie.
For the second game, let them choose some of the cards!
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Here's my kingdom:
$6
Fairgrounds (already explained)
$5
Laboratory (A very simple, but powerful card. It's also great because it's non-terminal and a lot of noobs have the "I liked this so I'm going to get another one" attitude.)
Witch (Do I want one action or do I want to deal out curses? It's great in combination with Lab, because it shows that cards that look a bit similar are sometimes quite different and it makes it clear why the Curse pile is there and also teaches them the correct size of the pile right away (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5930.msg185389#msg185389))
Cache (this card always makes it easy to make people believe that Coppers are bad for you)
$4
Cutpurse (It's another simple attack, but much less powerful than Witch)
Spice Merchant (A TFB, has interaction with Cutpurse and Cache which is easy to spot and you can even point it out if you want to, and gives the required +buy. It's also non-terminal)
$3
Village (has to be there)
Steward (A trasher without a benefit, but doesn't become useless unlike Chapel)
Watchtower (A way to counter both Cutpurse and Witch, also introduces the "don't always play everything" thinking)
$2
Pearl Diver (It's my favorite card and fits in)
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Okay, here's my full set:
$2
Vagrant
$3
Menagerie
Fishing Village
Wishing Well
$4
Throne Room
Cutpurse
$5
Tribute
Jester
$6
Harem
Fairgrounds
I would be careful with Throne Room with beginners. It can get strange, and especially when they don't know what to buy. In general, I think alt VP's shouldn't be in. They won't go for Provinces. Many beginner already say "Why can't I just buy all the coppers and Estates?" so any kind of alt VP gets them thinking that you don't need Provinces (which you may not in a rush, but it's their first game).
It also depends on who the beginner is. If they don't play games, make it VERY simple. If they already play many board games but just want to try this one out, you can add some complexity since they will grasp it faster. But ALWAYS play their first set-up more than once, so they get a chance to try what you did one their first game.
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Woodcutter is definitely the most useless card in the first game kingdom, but every other card has its place.
Plus, there are a whole bunch of $<4 cards in that kingdom that you want: Village and Smithy! So Workshop is very good.
How about improving the first game kingdom? The two duds are Moat and Woodcutter. You'd probably want to replace Moat with another $2 and Woodcutter with something $3-4.
Menagerie seems like a solid suggestion for a first game, but I fear that the beginner will have trouble understanding how to activate it. I disagree that it is necessary for the first game to have something that gives out Curses. There are plenty of opportunities for one to understand why Curses are in the kingdom. Just play another game...
Moat's presence is quite important for a first game I think. Notably, a lot of people's first game will be with 3 or 4, and there, Moat is definitely a card worth considering - throwing 3 militia BM and 1 moat BM into the simulator, Moat wins 60%, while the three militias win about 11% each. Of course, this doesn't tell you if it's actually good in a real (beginner) game, but I suspect it often would be.
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Thanks for this thread.
I agree that the original beginner's set has nothing wrong with it for teaching beginners. Zero. It's perfect.
However, I'm just tired of playing with it. It's as simple as that. I teach this game every month or so, at the minimum. I need to spice it up for my own sake, just a tad bit. The most interesting question this thread could answer is "Suppose you don't own the base set. A beginner wants to play. What do you use to teach them?"
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Ok I'll take a shot at this even though the first kingdom is a great way to do this
$5
Apprentice - Trash for benefit and more cards. Showing a new player different ways to draw more cards is always a good idea. Not overwhelmingly difficult to understand (especially with no potion cost cards in play).
Market - +Card, +Buy, +Action, +Coin. Nothing better for a first game.
Rabble - A generally simple attack that isn't a curser or a hand size attack. It's also important to have a +3 card draw. Normally I wouldn't include this, but given part of the OP's idea is that he doesn't Smithy-BM available this is the next best option for +3 cards I think.
Laboratory - Simple easy way of increasing hand size without dead draw
$4
Cutpurse - Discarding others copper is not too strong, but it can still hurt.
Moneylender - Get rid of those coppers that are being discarded. Also doubles as a get rid of copper because it is bad card.
$3
Village - Have to have a village and the simplest one will do nicely.
Warehouse - Sifter and I think easier to understand than Cellar. Or at least the decision on what to discard is easier.
$2
Haven - Simple duration that also is cheap. Allows a card to be bought even when overactioned.
Moat - With an attack (any attack) in the set I think having a way to block is important in the first game.
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It's easy enough to understand the text on the card; if they didn't figure it out, you can give them that "ah-ha" moment by playing it and revealing a hand with one more Menagerie.
No, that's not what I meant. What I was hinting at was that the beginner will have trouble getting his deck into a state where he can consistently activate it. Menagerie is a pretty high-skill card and its primary redeeming quality in this kingdom is that it's fun to use... when it works (it also strengthens the engine). I suppose that if you didn't have the base set and wanted to design a first game kingdom, Menagerie would work.
Plus, it exacerbates Village-idiot problems because Menagerie is a cantrip when it fails.
Moat's presence is quite important for a first game I think. Notably, a lot of people's first game will be with 3 or 4, and there, Moat is definitely a card worth considering - throwing 3 militia BM and 1 moat BM into the simulator, Moat wins 60%, while the three militias win about 11% each. Of course, this doesn't tell you if it's actually good in a real (beginner) game, but I suspect it often would be.
But the OP said that he was going to introduce his wife to the game. That heavily implies 2-player, at least to me. Furthermore, in actual gameplay, you're not going to have 4 players going for some sort of BM.
Anyway, I think Matt_Arnold's suggestion is great. I personally don't own the base set and contemplate from time to time how I would introduce beginners to the game. Some suggestions that I have for good cards to include:
Courtyard - Short, sweet, and simple. It's also $2.
Masquerade - Also short, and passing cards is interesting and not very confusing at all. It's a trasher, and cheap at $3.
Conspirator - I'm kind of loath to include this card. Its redeeming quality is that beginners would love to activate it.
Trading Post - Pretty basic trasher; I suppose it's also good at demonstrating the strength of Silver, but in any case, this helps all sorts of strategies.
Lighthouse - Moat that's not in the base set; problem is that it's a Duration and it's spammable.
Fishing Village - I'm just a little bit concerned about the strength of this card, and also the fact that it's a Duration.
Smugglers - Might be fun for a first game.
Warehouse - Very basic, and it's like Cellar.
Caravan - Again, concerned that it's a Duration and very easily spammable.
Cutpurse - Probably not good with more than 3 players.
Salvager - It could be a little difficult to get beginners to use this card.
Bazaar - Only vanilla bonuses.
Wharf - It's just so good, maybe too good.
Apprentice - Same deal as Salvager.
Possession - Nah, just kidding.
Obviously, Potion cards are no good in first games. Otherwise, I'd totally love to play with Apothecary.
Worker's Village - It's Village with +buy...
Vault - Problem here is that it's a little too wordy; otherwise it's not a very difficult card to understand.
Fortune Teller - Innocuous enough to be on this list.
Menagerie - Already been discussed to death.
Farming Village - This is really wordy for the end effect, otherwise it's probably okay.
Jester - It's a fun card when you hit something good.
Oasis - The issue is that it could lead to Village-idiot problems.
Oracle - A cheap, somewhat innocuous attack.
Cartographer - I feel that the strength of this card will be lost on many players.
Embassy - The +5 cards just makes this look awesome; it's also a simple card.
Stables - Given that the likelihood of trashing Coppers is low, Stables at least gives players something good to do with them.
Armory - It's like Workshop! Could lead to some rule confusion. Or it could lead to Armory, gaining Armory, then Armory, gaining Armory...
Ironmonger - Issue is that it's wordy.
Scavenger - It seems pretty basic; the second part could lead to some rule confusion, though.
Catacombs - It's pretty much perfect for a terminal +3 cards, but it's too bad that the on-trash clause clutters it a little.
Hunting Grounds - Same deal as Catacombs, except +4 cards.
I'm sure plenty of good kingdoms can be made from these... and this list is by no means exhaustive.
If you don't mind introducing Durations to new players concurrently with everything else, Seaside looks like it has the best options. I deliberately didn't include alt VP or kingdom Treasures because, let's not confuse people here. I suppose that Harem and Island wouldn't be terrible ideas because they do something in your deck, but when I played my first game, I couldn't imagine Victory or Treasure cards other than the basic six.
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But the OP said that he was going to introduce his wife to the game. That heavily implies 2-player, at least to me.
Yes, indeed. If I ever manage to persuade her to play, it will almost certainly be a 2-player game. However, I will also introduce the game to people at work where we will play 3 or 4 player. :)
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Okay, here's my full set:
$2
Vagrant
$3
Menagerie
Fishing Village
Wishing Well
$4
Throne Room
Cutpurse
$5
Tribute
Jester
$6
Harem
Fairgrounds
I would be careful with Throne Room with beginners. It can get strange, and especially when they don't know what to buy. In general, I think alt VP's shouldn't be in. They won't go for Provinces. Many beginner already say "Why can't I just buy all the coppers and Estates?" so any kind of alt VP gets them thinking that you don't need Provinces (which you may not in a rush, but it's their first game).
It also depends on who the beginner is. If they don't play games, make it VERY simple. If they already play many board games but just want to try this one out, you can add some complexity since they will grasp it faster. But ALWAYS play their first set-up more than once, so they get a chance to try what you did one their first game.
Throne Room was a late entry and so was Fairgrounds.
The reason I included Throne Room is because I remember my first games with my friends and parents, all beginners at the time. The first time they TR-ed a card they got this euphoric feeling that I want beginners to have. Yes, it may be a bit complicated at first, but I can just talk them trough it and once they hear: Well, you can draw a bunch of cards and get a bunch of actions they're always delighted.
I want beginners to enjoy playing their cards whatever they might be. Beginners also have a tendency to just buy one of every type just to "see what it does" and Fairgrounds rewards them for it.
I don't think Provinces won't get bought with a decent Fairgrounds setup if you happen upon $8 anyway. More likely than not they won't even know or realize they've hit a Fairgrounds benchmark. Good old Vagrant will make them happy instead of sad when they pull up a bad card from their deck. :)
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Okay, here's my full set:
$2
Vagrant
$3
Menagerie
Fishing Village
Wishing Well
$4
Throne Room
Cutpurse
$5
Tribute
Jester
$6
Harem
Fairgrounds
I would be careful with Throne Room with beginners. It can get strange, and especially when they don't know what to buy. In general, I think alt VP's shouldn't be in. They won't go for Provinces. Many beginner already say "Why can't I just buy all the coppers and Estates?" so any kind of alt VP gets them thinking that you don't need Provinces (which you may not in a rush, but it's their first game).
It also depends on who the beginner is. If they don't play games, make it VERY simple. If they already play many board games but just want to try this one out, you can add some complexity since they will grasp it faster. But ALWAYS play their first set-up more than once, so they get a chance to try what you did one their first game.
Throne Room was a late entry and so was Fairgrounds.
The reason I included Throne Room is because I remember my first games with my friends and parents, all beginners at the time. The first time they TR-ed a card they got this euphoric feeling that I want beginners to have. Yes, it may be a bit complicated at first, but I can just talk them trough it and once they hear: Well, you can draw a bunch of cards and get a bunch of actions they're always delighted.
I want beginners to enjoy playing their cards whatever they might be. Beginners also have a tendency to just buy one of every type just to "see what it does" and Fairgrounds rewards them for it.
I don't think Provinces won't get bought with a decent Fairgrounds setup if you happen upon $8 anyway. More likely than not they won't even know or realize they've hit a Fairgrounds benchmark. Good old Vagrant will make them happy instead of sad when they pull up a bad card from their deck. :)
Those are good points. TR is fun the first time you play it :) I might still wait for the second game when they get the grasp of the basic gameplay.
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Throne Room was a late entry and so was Fairgrounds.
The reason I included Throne Room is because I remember my first games with my friends and parents, all beginners at the time. The first time they TR-ed a card they got this euphoric feeling that I want beginners to have. Yes, it may be a bit complicated at first, but I can just talk them trough it and once they hear: Well, you can draw a bunch of cards and get a bunch of actions they're always delighted.
I want beginners to enjoy playing their cards whatever they might be. Beginners also have a tendency to just buy one of every type just to "see what it does" and Fairgrounds rewards them for it.
I don't think Provinces won't get bought with a decent Fairgrounds setup if you happen upon $8 anyway. More likely than not they won't even know or realize they've hit a Fairgrounds benchmark. Good old Vagrant will make them happy instead of sad when they pull up a bad card from their deck. :)
Those are good points. TR is fun the first time you play it :) I might still wait for the second game when they get the grasp of the basic gameplay.
Throne Room is indeed really cool, but you have to ensure someone is counting the cash accrued; Throng Rooming something like a Tribute mid-turn can lead to a lot of counting problems once you get to the Buy phase. It's even a problem with Market for new players.
Also, there's no drawing (except the unreliable draw of Tribute). Throne Room is no fun without drawing. +Actions with terminal draw also give players a chance to get used to treeing the cards as they lay them out rather than just putting them on the table in order (although that may not be a necessary thing for the first game)
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In the end, the "First game" set-up is one of the best for beginners. If you want to spic it up try replacing the Village with some variant that's not too crazy, or something similar with another card.
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I agree that the "first game" is a good setup for the first game. However, since you have other sets, you might as well try to make the game a bit more exotic. The "first game" includes Mine, which is an intriguing card to start with. I think adding a few cards form Cornucopia that care about variety helps. You don't wan't Dominion to seem like a game where "there are 10 kingdom cards every game, and you choose 2 or 3 to use in your deck". As far as duration cards go, why not have Tactician?
Using the "first game" as a model, some things to consider:
1) Not only do you want cards that satisfy most of the possible roles for Dominion cards (drawing, TfB, + actions, + buy, attack, reaction, sifting), but each card should more or less be dedicated to its role. Power cards like Margrave that do a bunch of things at once draw too much attention to themselves. You don't want a must-buy in the kingdom.
2) Have a $2 cost card in the kingdom. You don't want to have a new player start with 5-2 and be like "This sucks! The game is already unfair".
3) Include a market-variant card that's still good when spammed.
I might as well try to suggest a kingdom while I'm at it.
2$
Squire
3$
Warehouse
Menagerie
Village
4$
Militia
Horse Traders
Remodel
Caravan
5$
Bazaar
Rabble
Mystic
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As others said, don't include cards with choices (either directly like pawn or indirectly like swindler). Courtyard is about the limit of where I would go. They already are trying to figure out how this game works and what's good or not, no need to give them even more action paralysis.
I agree with what others said about the first game set, but if you want to spice it up, try to pick similar cards (e.g. worker's village or bazaar for village, courtyard or similar for smithy). In particular, I think cards that lend themselves to treasureless engines or alternate victory cards may confuse the issue; you want them to pick up the basic concepts of the game as a whole, not unrepresentative edge cases.
Also try to limit the bookkeeping aspect of things; this is one reason I would be tempted to hold off on duration cards, since the "did I play that this turn or last turn?" aspect can be annoying to keep track of when you're already trying to remember what everything does.
Avoid cursers; you want her to have fun, not discover the "joys" of a torturer chain her first game. Once she's seen how a regular game goes (and hopefully enjoyed it), then you can hit her with the torturers. And obviously, King's Court-Goons-Masquerade pins are right out.
Ideally, you want a game where they can both learn things and have fun.
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$2: Courtyard
$3: Oracle, Village
$4: Envoy, Bureaucrat, Silk Road, Horse Traders
$5: Council Room, Mine
$6: Hoard
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I haven't seen this suggested yet, so I'll just throw it out there.
For a beginners' first game, I don't even get the kingdom cards out until I've explained all of the mechanics of the game except for actions, just try and skip over the "buy random action cards and fail" phase of learning the game.
Then when I get the kingdom cards out, the first game we play has only five Kingdom cards. For this set I prefer something like
Village
Smithy
Market
...and if we're feeling ambitious, Militia and Library to reinforce that we aren't playing multiplayer solitaire.
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I think the best beginners kingdom depends on the beginners, but not so much their skill level as well as their personality.
Some people like to do a lot of discovering on their own and the kingdom should allow this. Others are easily confused and turned off by "complex" games so vanilla cards probably work best for them.
When you're trying to make some one else enthusiastic and hope he or she will play more games with you, part of your design strategy should be what type of gamer the other person is. Be careful with mean attack cards (yes, even Bureaucrat) and too complex engines.
If I look back at games with my parents we started off pretty basic, but pretty soon added Seaside and other expansions. I picked the kingdoms semi-randomly, avoided Torturer for example, and they liked to see me pull off crazy stuff. They just enjoyed my company and applauded my double Colony turns while I explained them that buying money is almost always a good option. So after the early games they didn't buy every action card anymore but sometimes Silver and Gold.
Your mileage may vary as always.