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276

Introductions / Bureaucrat checking in

« on: December 14, 2014, 07:07:42 pm »

Hi everyone

I already jumped in on a bunch of threads but I figured I would introduce myself.
It's great to read Donald's answers in the Interview thread and I think it's amazing that he has given so much of his time to this community.

I dig the Bureaucrat card because I'm a bureaucrat IRL.
I should start wearing a pink shirt and a beret to work and doing all my paperwork with a quill.

~ Jake

277

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The list of Donald's fake cards

« on: December 12, 2014, 12:35:31 am »

Sorry to unceremoniously get this thread back on track, but I've been reading through the "Interview" thread and came across this:

Baptism - Action, $2
Name a card. If a card with that name would be trashed this game, instead, it goes to heaven.

278

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The list of Donald's fake cards

« on: December 10, 2014, 12:23:15 am »

I must say though that Ironscout is brilliant. It could actually be an official dominion card!

Hmm... not sure, but I think Band of Scouts is strictly better.

279

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: December 09, 2014, 09:52:59 pm »

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!

280

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: December 09, 2014, 07:48:50 pm »

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?

281

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The "wait, you can DO that?!?!!" thread

« on: December 03, 2014, 10:19:14 pm »

The difference between terminal and non-terminal draw is way too detailed, the only thing you have to explain that all Action cards have an implicit -1 card, -1 action because it costs one action to play it and you lose the card itself from your hand. This is super simple. Saying that Soothsayer gives all of the other players a "free non-terminal draw with +2 cards on it" is much more confusing than saying that Soothsayer gives all of the other players a "free Lab effect".

Seriously, you're new to Dominion and somehow you are expected to be able to make sense of the concept that drawing a card on another players turn is a "free Lab effect"?
You are going to have players sitting around wondering where the hell their second card draw went and when they get to play the extra action.

The only reason you know that describing it that way makes sense is because you are a veteran.
That really is an advanced concept.

What I am saying is that for new players it is much more useful to explain the broad concepts than to continually refer back to other cards they may not even be that familiar with.
Knowing concepts like cantrips, non-terminal draw, terminal draw, etc, is really important to spotting the relationships between different cards.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that understanding why a Hunting Party is similar to a Lab is more useful to a player than simply knowing that it's a "Lab variant".

282

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The "wait, you can DO that?!?!!" thread

« on: December 03, 2014, 06:39:22 pm »

Describing cards as being variants of other cards is confusing, in my opinion, because the question becomes "what aspect of the comparison card do you consider the core one?"

Take Lab & Smithy as a couple of basic cards that often form the basis of a comparison:

Lab is +1 action, +2 cards.
Smithy is +3 cards.

So, if a card is just +2 cards, is that like a Lab or like a Smithy?

Those of us who have played a lot or even just read a few strategy articles will immediately "know" the answer is that it is more like Smithy than like Lab.
But that's really only because we are already familiar with the concepts of "terminal draw" and "non-terminal draw".

If someone is new to the game you can't assume they understand these concepts, so describing a card as being "a lab" is much less useful than actually explaining the difference between terminal and non-terminal draw and describing cards as such.

283

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: How do you make an effect un-thronable?

« on: November 27, 2014, 05:16:58 pm »

I've more or less given up on finding a wording that disallows you to take durations in hand.

I don't understand why it's difficult to find a wording for that.
"Duration" is a specific card type and there are plenty of existing cards that reference specific card types.
Jack of All Trades in particular has the wording "You may trash a card from your hand that is not a Treasure".

What's wrong with the wording "You may take in hand any card currently in play that is not a Duration"?

I'm not quite sure if I made it clear that "when you put this into play" is supposed to make it unthronable? because you only put the physical card into play once, even if you play it twice. I think.

It hurts my brain to think about whether or not this actually works to make it unthronable.
So, whether or not it technically does the job it's generally a bad idea including wording on a card that is guaranteed to confuse players.

I feel like "The first time you play this copy of Believer..." is more straightforward, but even then I kind of feel like the goal of making a card unthroneable is not really a good one.
I think it's better to identify the problem you are trying to eliminate and write the card around that.

Am I right in thinking the problem that it becomes a self-sustaining loop?
Why don't you just make it that it can't pick up copies of itself?

"You may take in hand any card currently in play that is not a Duration or a Believer".
Job done.

Throning it makes it more powerful, sure, but that's kind of what throning does.