I taught Dominion to some folks this past week. Two friends and one of their mothers. Everyone really liked it, which is always great, including the mother (who I figured wouldn't really get it, but she wound up winning, so there you go).
Anyway, as I usually do when teaching new people, at the end of the game I whipped out the Randomizer deck to show everyone (really just the mother) the other cards from the base game. Throne Room got some oooohs and ahhhs, and Witch got some gasps when I revealed the Curse card, but then we came to Chancellor.
I have two questions for Chancellor:
- How do you explain the purpose of Chancellor to new players?
- Why is Chancellor in the base set?
Obviously only Donald can answer #2 definitively, but I'm sure some of us have theories. To me, it seems like it would fit better elsewhere. It synergizes with Counting House in Prosperity. It complements Intrigue's "choice" theme. And it definitely has an effect on your next turn, ala Seaside.
"What's the point of Chancellor?" Mom asked.
I tried to explain to her that it acts as a sort of "deck accelerator" and helps with "cycling" and that
entire articles had been written about it, but by then she had moved onto figuring out the math of Gardens.