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451

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Mechanic idea: tribes

« on: June 09, 2018, 06:44:44 pm »

Playtesting update, OP updated:

Mead Hall - trashing changed from on-play to on-buy. There's much less chance of it being imbalanced like this.
Highland Village - as suggested, removed the bottom and costed it $5. It's still doing plenty like this.
Banner - removed bottom, and halved the VP; now it's comparable to Vineyard, where in exchange for points off likely fewer piles it gets points off itself, and it's a bit easier to gain multiples of.
Gamekeeper - Silver gain limited to $4 cost Kins and over. Some openings were too strong.
Telltale - removed + $1 on Kins, made the Curse gain hit only the first played Kin but it's put onto deck. Hits less often but strongly when it does hit. The tribe is to be its own 'lure'.

And two new ones, each gone through various forms to reach as they are through testing. They may still need work:

Chief - Action Kin, $8 cost.
Choose one: draw until you have 7 cards in hand; or + $4, reveal your hand, and discard the highest costing non-Victory card.
-
In games using this, when you gain a second differently named Kin on your turn, you may gain a Chief.

This tries to make a little minigame - if you can get two different members of the tribe to join you, you win the Chief. It's expensive otherwise, but tries to be a worthwhile prize. So in theory this becomes more available when the tribe is good, though sometimes this is just what you need in a game and the tribe is worth getting regardless. Hopefully the top bit is balanced? When you can gain it easily, when gaining or +Buys are available, it gives something still needed but not always reliably.

Reassign - Night Kin, $2+ cost.
Trash another Kin you have in play. If you do, gain a Kin costing up to $6.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it by $3, to move your Recruit token onto a non-Victory, non-Kin Supply pile costing $1 or more. (Cards from that pile have the Kin type.)

The principle is: you get to swap your Kins around fairly freely, and so have differing upgrade paths. You can make another pile be Kin exclusively to you to give you more flexibility, so you can Recruit a card that's easy to get and upgrade it to something better later, or bring a final power card into the tribe. It's a Night because getting to play the cards you want to change first seems to make it actually relevant. I tried to make it cost $2 so it can be an easy pickup with a spare buy to change later. It seemed to be too good if you could Recruit Coppers to upgrade them, or at least it was too automatic a thing to do and all the fun flexibility of this card was taken away. The Kin you gain caps at $6 because of Chief, and probably King's Court.

452

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 07, 2018, 07:48:34 am »

Commanders - I get the elegance of implying one passive effect with something there's only one of, a top discard pile card. But how reliable can it be in practice? Basically, I'm raising the thought: why aren't these using their own mat? Since you have multiple Commanders you seem to want to enable switching between different 'command modes' when there is more than one in a kingdom, and a mat would make this simpler, even if it is adding more components.
That Risen King giving a global effect on trash is well discussed. I firstly wonder when you'd choose to trash one and get an advantage out of it for yourself, and secondly if there is more than one in the trash, I think you'd gain a card per copy in the trash?

And the global effect theme doesn't stop there. Funeral takes a lot of setup that affects everybody. Who's going to be the one to get a Bridge on the mat? It's bound to be asked. Suppose somebody goes for it, adding Funeral and Bridge to their deck; everyone else rushes Bridges ignoring everything else, and then...what does he do now? He would even have to lose his Bridge and so fall behind. Or nobody does it because they're all depending on others, a bit like Bishop trashing. Perhaps if everyone's trashing Coppers someone could choose not to and make their Coppers Silvers, and this is the best use for it?

Border Wall shares a similarity with Lost Temple in that you use a Buy to do more, launch a junking Attack. Could be fun, though I'm confident this is a Peddler+ so costs at least $5.

453

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 29, 2018, 11:07:04 am »

I'll try to take a different slant on what others have said:

Lumber Camp - it's a simple card with a bonus that can affect when you play it in your turn. Easy to conclude it's fair and balanced as is, but could it cost $3 if Woodcutter was uninteresting at the price?

Canal - it can feel a bit boring to weaken your deck power for one extra point, and sometimes it won't even do anything. So yes it's a cheap cantrip you can pick up with a spare buy but will you want to, will it feel nice to? I get the sense this is a niche card, one that depends a lot on others for it to become worthwhile. But, in such cases (like overdraw, Inheriting Canals or something else, sifting), you get the same thing as with Gamble, an infinite source of VP that unlike Monument or Plunder doesn't compel players to bring the game closer to its end, so games can drag on.

Astrolab - test this out with Vault. Without handsize reduction Vault can guarantee you $6 without any Treasure in play, and later Astrolab will increase handsize for Vault to yield more $ from. You'd want this to be a very powerful combo, but not an imbalanced one.

Treaty - I'm thinking about a player's thought process with this one, right at the beginning of the game. Everyone could feel scared about buying any more than 1 copy of an Action card, or going for any payload Action, or really devising any definite strategy at all; because doesn't every game strategy hinge around a single card? By the time a Province is bought deck strategies are established. So surely everyone's going to be willing inside themselves, "please, everybody just take a $5".
So if you took that bit off, so everyone gets to open with an extra $5, is it really interesting?

454

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Mechanic idea: tribes

« on: May 26, 2018, 05:02:24 pm »

So much feedback, and it's all great! Thank you!

To start with, the colour: Holunder's said my thinking, you want to see clearly what's in the tribe and know what that means. A normal coloured Kin with 2 counters with the word 'kin' on them has you looking for something too often.

I'm pleased the majority of what has been said is that the concept is good but the execution poor. That's exactly what I felt but couldn't be sure without outside perspective. Truth be told the tribe idea didn't spring up like this immediately. It started without the 2 counters on other piles. So each Kin card had some ability to synergise with itself, in case it was the only Kin in a kingdom. Mead Hall, for instance, was:

Action Kin, $2 cost.
You may play an Action Kin from your hand twice; or if you have another Kin in play, any Action.

But I could think of few interesting ideas to fit this format. You could do this Mead Hall, and if it simply named itself for checking if it's in play instead of being a Kin, it could be a fine card. But if there were another Kin, a $2 Throne Room would be volatile. It couldn't be balanced in both cases.
So: since we want the Kin type to have self synergy across different cards, we make it happen by force, and then each Kin card can have more interesting functions. I then went adventurous with ideas, and some of those are on these 5 cards. With the consequences being mentioned by DoomShark and Gazbag. Maybe I was thinking about each card individually too much and failing to appreciate the whole kingdom more, as I should with this mechanic.

You've shown me clearly that not every Kin card should have an 'in games using this' effect, and what they do on play will have an influence on the other Kins that will still produce new play experiences.
So, each individual card:

Mead Hall - yes, 3 cards with trash on play in the kingdom, some of them possibly cantrip, is too much. But I also feel the pairing of (light) Kin trashing and Kin Throne is interesting; the effects self synergise, yet they don't make a strategy by themselves, and that's where the rest of the tribe comes in. The strategy opened up will change each game. So, keep the two parts together and tone down the trashing, and for that I propose to make it on buy rather than on play. Exactly like Plan, but if Plan and Mead Hall appear in the same game they can both be used fine.

Highland Village - with this the top appeared first, and then I thought of the cost increase bit on bottom, and put the two together with the top-deck bit stuck on. The top-decking isn't the main idea; it wants to be a card that helps make a deck of the other Kins. Certainly the bottom effect on this could go. (I thought of it as raising the cost of part of the kingdom could make interesting things happen with Remodels - OK, why not put it on a Remodel then, or any kind of tfb?) The top is probably enough, at $5 cost or maybe $4.

Banner - unanimous agreement to remove the bottom, and with hindsight I agree. The possibility of the other tribe cards giving VP can influence if they're bought, or Banner's viability can be affected by the strength of the tribe in the kingdom. That's all it wants to do.

Gamekeeper - mixed response, though Gazbag's point is fair; this was always variable terminal draw, but with the act of finding a Kin from the discard it may feel nicer if it were nonterminal. I tweaked it from simply "+3 cards, reveal a Kin in hand for +1 card" to make it a fairer fit with the Silver gaining - it's a net draw of only 2 unless you get both Silver and Kins. Embassy is a good point though. It may be too strong a sift.
But, like Highland Village, the two parts were thought separately and stuck together. The Silver gaining looks possibly interesting as it will help some potential tribe cards and hinder others, so could make for a good or bad tribe. But is draw the best top for it?

Telltale - the tension idea Holunder describes is sort of what I had in mind, though Gazbag is probably quite right that both parts are too strong as is. The lure and catch idea seems to have something; if the tribe is a more appealing lure, then the Attack is more viable. It's down to achieving this in a less obnoxious way.

Thanks once again for your time! It's great this idea has landed as well as it has.

455

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Mechanic idea: tribes

« on: May 25, 2018, 06:42:15 pm »

Now that I've got images working again, I've presented the first post hopefully better. I've also added 2 new cards, Gamekeeper and Telltale.

456

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 23, 2018, 05:09:18 pm »

Army:

Here is a recent test I did using Village, Smithy and Market. For brevity I've omitted some unnecessary details. 

Turn 6 - First Army, Turn 7 - Placed Village on Army mat, Turn 8 - Second Army, Turn 10 - Placed Smithy on Army mat, Turn 12 - First Army Play for Village+Smithy; Province, Turn 13 - Placed Market on Army mat, Turn 14 - Province, Turn 15 - Province x2, Turn 16 - Province x2.

Did you try this without using Army? It would be interesting to see if it adds any definite impact; 16 turns seems about average, and the same deck without Army could do the same? Also, if I understand correctly, you don't need to put Village on Army for its actions, as 1 Market by itself makes Army nonterminal ('playing' all the cards won't use actions).
As worded, playing all the cards on the Army mat leaving them there, is confusing with Reserve cards; if they don't go to the Tavern mat, they can't be called.

A little thing I note with Royal Decree that's probably only rules errata, but you play Treasures from opponents' hands, then buy Mandarin or Bonfire. Even though they are now on your deck or trashed, they still would get returned? Certainly snatching some Heirlooms away could get a bit unpleasant.

Moon Shrine - so this version has competition to get the bonus coffers, and it encourages spreading the VP around a bit more. Did you try raising the cost of the first version, or is $3 cost necessary to you? I just feel it would play better, but it's only a feeling.

Crane - this is probably a $5 cost card. It's a more flexible Lab. The setback is a bit questionable since if you make this the last Action you play it'll do nothing, and with multiple Cranes that won't be hard to do. Also, something I learned from a card I tried is that having leftover actions is something of a punishment in itself, your investments in the nonterminal Actions are less effective.

Difficult to call with Mimic, I've never played Alchemy. It could have the power to persuade players to buy potions? It first looks like a better Overlord for less cost, but comes at a different time so would play differently, and also can't be the card it was under as the would-be empty pile has now left the Supply. They slow down a 3 pile ending and encourage an engine instead. It feels like it will either be interesting, or make games annoyingly slow.

457

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 20, 2018, 12:38:26 pm »

Moon Shrine - thinking about it more, it may be that $3 is too cheap. Nonterminal 2 coffers may make it too similar to a Silver+, so could push the cost to at least $4. Or it could be too easy to buy many moon shrines, stockpile VP on the Provinces and use the coffers to buy them up before the opponent does.

Slumlord - maybe you intend for it to work on Treasures and Nights, maybe you don't. The concept is interesting, the theme fits well, and there's not a lot you can do to balance it other than taking the +Card off, should it need it. This is my favourite.

Stadium - another interesting concept, it's nice how it scales as your deck progresses. If there is a problem with it, perhaps it can be too volatile as a cantrip, many of them in play needing only 1 card in your next hand. But there's no +buy, it could be fine.

Lost Temple - it should be distinguished enough from Steward. Its use of buys may or may not be broken; being a Chapel that can later be a cantrip (or Lost City) may be too strong. Certainly one to test with Seaway.

Industrious Village - it requires treasure trashing or several cantrips to be worthwhile (save the only-Village scenario), things that indirectly benefit the standard Village anyway. It might be fun, or it might be uninteresting, I don't really know.

Blockade - going with Theta's interpretation, I guess you use this according to personal taste. It can be nice to get rewarded for kingdom analysing skills, including the speed of the game, but most times the game can be well defined, and then there isn't much VP difference to be had.

Gamble - what Puk said. But trusting that you mean you only want Kingdom cards to be named, it's an infinite source of VP, so when you can know your next hand you almost always do it. (So I'd encourage a flavour change, when the situation calls for it it's always right to gamble? So yeah, and gambling shouldn't give VP anyway.)

Overall, playtesting will tell a lot about whether the cards are balanced. Maybe you've done some, in which case it'll be good to see what you've found.

458

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 20, 2018, 04:19:00 am »

I like how these are trying to do different things. Most of them look like they have good potential.

Army - there are so many anti-synergies to keep in mind, like Goons then a Reserve, that this won't always be an easy card to play, so many new rules to keep in mind. But when you get it going it can be way too strong, so that it's always the optimal strategy in any kingdom. You lessen the need for +Cards, +Actions, and trashing all at once. I feel this would do with capping the number of Actions you can play at once to say 2 or 3?

Commander - definitely too strong; with just one other nonterminal card played, this does the same as lab, but it will do better than one as the turn progresses. And consider how multiples of this played stack up. So raising the cost I don't think would be enough to balance this. It probably needs a way to make it hard to gain as well.
Oh, and while I think of it, this 'breaks' Tactician.

Heir - volatile; it rewards a condition you want to meet even more. +Buy of course works, but +$3 feels too generous.

Royal Decree - with the current cost you can open with it and it be beneficial early on. On buy you can get $4 from other players' Coppers (note how the number of players affects the strength of this) so make this cost $3 <4>, and the rest of the debt can be paid turn 2. The next shuffle will see it at worst a silver with +Buy, not bad, and much more later on. Or if you first buy a Silver then this, and line then up next shuffle, it's $4 +Buy, which is hard to better.
So it does scale better later, like the other 8 debt cards, but the early advantage may make this too strong.

Out of time right now to look at the others in depth, but Moon Shrine and Slumlord do look interesting and balanced.

459

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Mixed bag of cards

« on: May 15, 2018, 05:37:28 pm »

Cottage - taking Duchy out the game would end up with a useless Annex and a 5-cost Confusion named Duke, but you could easily not play them with Cottage. And what would replace the Duchy will affect how big a swing buying a Province is; you won't catch up if by chance your opponent is one Province ahead and the Duchies are Mills. So yeah, change the Duchies with an event, or an Edict or what Seprix did.
And I guess Shepherd makes the top part look very pale, haven't played with it though. You don't seem rewarded anywhere nearly as well for a very green deck, but with drawing first then discarding it may be better as late game reliability than something to build your deck draw around.

Scrounger - I think Donald did discard to hand on a Militia variant, and took it out after it kept getting platinums. I suppose it's similar to Throning what you get, an extra play during the run through the deck, so 3 cards to hand I can imagine being very swingy.

Reallocate - connecting 2 cards with it, one of which for negative reasons, might be an unfun play experience overall. It could be seen as compelling to get the Curse in hand every time after the first play for a good reward, but that won't always happen.

Sellsword is my favourite here. It'll surely take some doing to get a permanent lock going with it, with your cards changing all the time. I don't see there's much you could do to change it, it either works or it doesn't.

Giant Spider to me looks a lot like Rogue. If you want your cards back you can get your own Rogue. Admittedly $5 may be hard to hit and you'd have to wait for it, so the spider is quite a bit kinder.
Ah, but then it strikes me that spider can lock all the $3-$6s out of opponents' decks permanently. This could be broken then.

460

Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Dynasties

« on: May 10, 2018, 12:12:24 pm »

Dominion: Dynasties

One day, I thought up the idea of a type on a kingdom card that gave other piles the type and interacted with them somehow. It looked pretty to me. What would work for flavour? Tribes seemed obvious. How would it play? Well players have to figure out what's going on before anything else. After dabbling a bit with this type, I made other cards to go with them, and then a set idea was born.

Dynasties has a playstyle theme of start-of-game analysis, focusing on that period just after the game is set up when you're thinking out your strategy. It should be great for people who like Dominion as a strategy game and play it often. It also seems to lend itself well to solitaire games.

Composition
- about 8 Kin-type piles
- 2 Kin markers
- 6 Induct markers
- at least 20 Tasks
- 10 Chiefs
- 24 non-Kin kingdom piles
- VP tokens

This makes for 392 cards. The remaining 8 can go on Tasks or more Chiefs as and when I'm getting to round the set off.

NEW MECHANICS
Below the explanation, I put up an example game.

The Kin type
Here's that pretty-looking type.

Kin Marker
When a Kin card is added to the game, put the 2 Kin Markers under different non-Kin kingdom piles after setup. This game, cards from those piles are also Kins.

Let's establish some terminology to avoid confusion: there are kingdom cards that have the Kin type on their bottom banner and a turquoise colour scheme. These are original Kins. If an original Kin is selected for the kingdom, get the Kin Markers out ready for after setup. No more than two original Kin piles should be selected; if you use randomiser cards, discard any original Kins drawn after the second and reselect. This helps to prevent analysis paralysis from too much interaction going on.

After setup - all ten kingdom cards and landscapes out, and anything extra they require done - each player selects a different pile that isn't an original Kin, starting with the player taking the first turn, for the Kin Markers to go under. If there are more than two players, shuffle a card from each chosen pile to randomly select two of them (returning those cards afterwards). Tuck the Kin Markers under each selected pile sideways, so the 'Kin' words show. Now, for the rest of the game, cards in those piles take on the Kin type; they'll all get one more thing for Courtier, and they'll all trigger Falconer.

So, the Kin type gets a new colour because it needs to give a clear visible reminder of what cards are affected by the original Kin's abilities. The original Kins will always affect themselves unless otherwise specified.

Quests
If Donald can reuse the name Menagerie, I can reuse Quest! It's the perfect word for these landscape cards. They have an Objective for players to complete, and a Reward for when they do. Players get some Completion tokens to put on Quests they complete (imagine coloured chits with ticks on), tracking similarly to Project cubes. A Quest can only be completed once. During the game, in a similar manner to using a Reaction effect, a player may interrupt game flow and declare they have completed one of the Quests, prove it to the other players if necessary, then put one of their Completion tokens on the Quest card and get the Reward straight away. A player can choose not to complete a Quest when they could do so.

The Quest cards should be kept separate from the other landscape cards you have, in two decks: one for Quests that can be completed in any game, and one for those that can't. 5 Quests (may change after playtesting) are put out per game, and they will count as one of the two landscapes recommended. They are always added to the game last.

Determining what Quests to include in a game when is quite liberal, since some Objectives require certain mechanics to be present in the kingdom (like 'trash 4 cards' requires a trasher), and players do well to pick all the Quests that are possible, shuffle them together, then draw 5 out. This is what I encourage.
For those who like following strict rules: some Quests could be shuffled into your WELPs, according to your desired odds of drawing one, and if one is drawn out randomly select others until you get 5. You might just shuffle all the Quests in, and if one of the first two is a Quest keep going through the deck of landscapes until 5 doable Quests are drawn out.
In addition to this, several of the kingdom cards in this set have extra banners on them, just like with Heirlooms, attaching a Quest to them. When one of these is selected, there will always be Quests. Shuffle all named Quest cards into the deck of possible Quests and draw 5 out (the named Quests may not appear; force them into the game if so desired).

* * *

So: the Kin type has players examine the interaction between all the Kin cards in the game, so they factor them in when deciphering their deck strategy. Quests give players recommended routes to take throughout the game, so there's planning ahead as well.

In terms of set design:

• Original Kins give a positive and negative impact to the other Kins, so what interactions are strong and weak is not always easy to assess.
• The other kingdom piles aim to be simple, so it's easier to see how Kins may affect them.
• They're also diverse, so Quests can more likely be doable.
• They also avoid randomness as much as possible, since strategy is the big focus.

Chiefs are a powerful non-Supply pile, obtained as rewards for various Tasks and other cards' mini-games.


Example game

CARD LIST




INDIVIDUAL CARDS
I give my positives (+) and negatives (-) on each design, not out of lack of confidence but for modesty. It is a set, so there are combos I'll keep quiet about so you can have the fun of finding them.

Original Kins

Banner - Victory Kin, $5 cost.
Worth 1VP per 3 Kins in your deck (round down)

It makes an alt VP strategy that will be different each game. The more collectable the other Kins are, the better it is.
+: one of the first simple ideas that clicked, it feels safe yet compelling.
-: hard to conclude balance.

Festival Grounds - Action Kin, $2 cost.
+2 Actions
+1 Buy
-
In games using this, when you gain a 3rd differently named Kin on your turn, you may gain a Chief.

Chief - Action Kin, $0* cost.
Draw until you have 6. cards in hand.
Gain an Estate to your hand for +2VP.
For every 3 cards you have in hand (round down), + $1.
(This is not in the Supply.)

If you can get three different Kins in the same turn, you win the respect of the Chief, a free payload card that plays a little differently in different decks. How hard will he be to get, what kind of deck would be made, and is it all worth it?
+: all the analysis involved here is great.
-: perhaps Chief is too strong, and the $ effect should probably go first so it's more a case of $ or draw.

Legend - Treasure Kin, $4 cost.
+1 Buy
When you play this, choose one: gain a Kin; or trash a Kin you have in hand or in play, for + $1 per $1 it costs.
-
In games using this, when you gain a Kin, each other player gets +1VP.

Every Kin you get leaves a permanent mark against your score, yet whilst you might look for Kin free strategies this can make them still options. Getting Kins no matter how expensive can be a breeze if you so desire, or you can Salvage them non-terminally. Failing all else this can self trash for a spike of $4.
+: This supports dabbling a little into the Kins, which the bottom part implies.
-: no real testing yet, could be imbalanced.

Mead Hall - Action Command Kin, $5 cost.
Trash this. If you do, set aside two Kins from the Supply that aren't Victories, Durations or Commands. Play them in either order, leaving them set aside. Return them to the Supply at Clean-up.

Fuse two Kins into one powerful one-shot card, including Treasures or Nights. Double up one of them, or form some amazing combo.
+: it has the feeling of being great fun sometimes.
-: some combos could be broken? And of course in some games this can do nothing.

Piper - Action Reaction Kin, $5 cost.
+2 Cards
You may play an Action Kin from your hand.
-
Directly after resolving an Action Kin, you may play this from your hand.

Make an engine by playing chains of Kins.
+: simple yet compelling.
-: maybe too strong in some cases. There's no real negative side to it unlike the other Kins, so it's less about analysis, so it feels kinda misfit.

Reassign - Night Kin, $4 cost.
You may trash a Kin you have in play, to gain a Kin costing up to $3 more than it.
You may move your Ally token onto a non-Victory, non-Kin Supply pile of your choice. (During your turns, cards from that pile are also Kins.)

The Ally token lets you choose a pile that counts as Kin type just for you, which sometimes will be very desirable with a second Kin card. Reassign itself lets you quite freely exchange kins around, so you can make good upgrade paths; but note that the trash happens before the token can be moved, so there's a limit to the flexibility.
+: this hopefully opens up a new compelling area of remodeling, and the Ally token a new strategic concept.
-: The upgrade could be too strong even if narrow. Nights are in the set almost entirely because of this; is there a better effect than the upgrade that could be used?

Rivals - Action Attack Kin, $3* cost.
+2 Cards
Each other player may reveal a Kin other than Rivals from their hand. Those who don't take Taunted, or if they already have it turn it over to Twice Taunted.
-
In games using this, Kins cost $1 more.

Taunted - State
When you next play an Action that has +Card, +Action, +Buy or +$ amounts in its instructions, choose one to reduce by 1, resolve it, then return this.
Twice Taunted - the same, but instead of returning it flip it over to Taunted.

Their presence makes the Tribe more expensive so generally worse (this basically costs $4, a sensible price unlike the others), and the worse they are the better this is. Its Attack will more likely land, weakening the next Action vanilla they get; two stacks, using a two-sided State for each player. Taunted reduces a number in the next Action's instructions, so Hireling would be made useless, and because you choose a number then resolve, Pawn is a counter to it.
+: it achieves the intended purpose of making Kins that are bad in a kingdom relevant.
-: How easy is it to remember the Kins cost $1 more? Is Taunted foolproof?

Travelling Merchant - Action Kin, $4 cost.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+ $1
This turn, cards cost $1 more if you have a Kin other than Travelling Merchant in play.
-
When you gain this, if you have any Kins in play, trash it.

You have a choice: either use these Peddlers, or use the other Kins. These only cost $4, but you can't gain them at all if you have one in play.
+: A simple but interesting matter to analyse in the game.
-: the bottom part could make this pretty bad, yet if it wasn't there it would probably be too good.

Other cards:
These aim to be simple and flexible to be most effective with Kins and Tasks, whilst forming combos using discarding, careful play order and the Buy phase as common themes.

Armoursmith - Action, $4 cost.
+4 Cards
If your deck and discard pile empty while this is in play, trash this.
-
You can't buy this unless you have a more expensive card than it in play.

Simple draw that can't be put in a full deck-draw engine so easily. It's rather strong early game, so you need to get more expensive cards or gainers first.
+: two pleasant twists to think around.
-: could easily be too strong with gainers.

Bridleway - Action, $6 cost.
+1 Buy
This turn, cards cost $2 less unless you've gained a copy of them during the turn.

Everything gets Princess-ed until they're gained; even if you gain something then play a Bridleway the cost isn't reduced. Effective if you get different things on your turn.
+: simple, powerful yet kept in check.
-: feels about right, I don't think there's anything bad with this?

Brute - Action Attack, $5 cost.
+ $3
Each other player who hasn't been affected by an Attack since their last turn reveals their hand and discards two cards that are the same.

This can be a nasty attack. Most of the time cards you have pairs of in hand will be useful, unless they're pure Victories in which case that hurts in itself. So, this can only work on those who haven't been attacked during the round of turns.
+: Definitely interacts with the set.
-: could be annoying in 3+ players when the player before you plays a different Attack first. Rules for 'being affected' by an Attack could be confusing; I'd have thought Pillage doesn't affect those who have 4 or fewer cards in hand since they're not its target. But with Rivals above everyone is a target, so they are affected whether they have a Kin in hand or not.

Caver - Action, $2 cost.
+2 Cards
If your deck is empty, + $2.

It can be a powerful +2 Cards + $2 when played at the right time, or it can be draw that changes its role once the deck is drawn.
+: Very simple, should be fun to try using well.
-: could be too strong for $2. Drawing it turn 4 when the other opening buy wasn't a drawer, so you draw the 2 cards that usually get left for turn 5, could make unpleasant random advantages.

Cooper - Action, $5 cost.
+1 Action
+ $1
Gain 2 Coppers to your hand. Then discard any number of cards and draw that many.

A fusion of Beggar and Cellar, making a flexible card that's initially powerful but slows down a little with the Coppers reducing how often you draw it.
+: Simple, diverse, has plenty of combos in the set, it fits right in but looks interesting out of it too.
-: some combos could be mundane (Engraver), and this has similarities to Goose.

Engraver - Action, $5 cost.
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may trash a Treasure from your hand. If you do: +1VP, or if you've trashed more than 1 Treasure this turn, +2VP.

A multipurpose card. A very desirable Copper trasher for an engine, or a dedicated VP strategy that burns through Coppers and the odd Silver.
+: it's simply nice.
-: games where players first empty out the Coppers and silvers before building to Provinces or 3-piling may not be pleasant.

Forester - Action, $4 cost.
+1 Buy
+ $2
Once this turn, when you gain a Treasure, you may play it.

A woodcutter that can easily inject money into the deck so that its +buy becomes useful throughout the game.
+: Really simple.
-: really boring maybe?

Goose - Action, $5 cost.
+1 Card
+1 Action
Choose one: +1 Card, discard a card; or + $1; or gain a Goose if you haven't yet this turn.

Fugitive or Peddler that can gain copies of itself slowly.
+: simple and effective.
-: it might be a little too much for a $5.

Highland Village - Action, $3 cost.
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Look through your remaining deck. Discard a card from it, then shuffle it.

How to make a plain Village interesting...? Here's one that works with the discarding theme, letting you get a key target in the discard pile or move some junk out of the way. 'Remaining deck' is what's currently in it after the +1 Card; if there are no cards in it, you don't shuffle the discard pile into a new deck.
+: simple, quite strong, fits the set but has plenty of use outside of it.
-: not for players who shuffle slowly!

Instruct - Action, $4 cost.
Do these in any order:
gain a Silver;
put a card from your discard pile into your hand;
trash a card from your hand and gain a card costing up to $1 more than it.

A fancy remodel that can do different things, from Workshop trash a Silver from the Supply, to remodel to hand with a Silver to bloat your deck, to getting generic good stuff.
+: Diverse remodel involving the discard pile.
-: maybe boring or too niche overall? Though some cards in a set need to be niche.

Neighbouring Village - Action, $3 cost.
+2 Actions
When you next play an Action from your hand this turn, add 1 more to each +Card, +Buy, +$ and +VP amount it gives you as you resolve it.

Village that likes careful thought as to play order, boosting the next Action you play from hand. Vault would be +3 Cards, discard any number of cards for +$1 each, then +$1 if you discarded any; you got a +$ amount then added 1 on to it, you did not add 1 to the instructions. 'Resolving' means the same as on Royal Carriage; Hireling doesn't give you anything as you resolve it so no bonus given, similarly to the VP from Goons and Groundskeeper.
+: it takes skill to use, careful lining up sitting well on a Village. It's unique especially with the VP niche.
-: the wording might be off, and the new mechanics confusing.

Potter - Action, $4 cost.
Gain a card costing up to $4. You may reveal an Action from your hand with the same cost as it, for +2VP.

A Workshop that can get you ahead on points if you play things right.
+: VP that involves some strategy and starting analysis.
-: Silvers may be points gained too easily with a $3 Action. 

Scrounger - Night Attack, $5 cost.
Gain a Gold. Put up to 3 cards from your discard pile onto your deck in any order, then shuffle the rest and put them at the bottom.

Non-terminal Gold gainer, but those Golds will come slowly as this and everything else in play miss shuffles. You get some control over how the discard pile disappears into the deck, which can make both simple and complex play.
+: it could make unique deck strategies.
-: too strong despite missing shuffles?

Thane - Action, $5 cost.
Discard a card. You may play an Action from your discard pile twice.

Throne from the discard pile. Your handsize reduces in exchange for having a potentially large range of cards to search from, or if you discard your target from hand then it's of course Throne Room.
+: two effects that go together brilliantly.
-: some may not like the large search range to find a target, so that it's less skillful than other Thrones.

Weaponsmith - Action Attack, $5 cost.
+3 Cards
You may discard two cards. If they cost a total of $5 or more, each other player gains a Curse.

Discard something useful, more than 2 Estates, to launch an Attack.
+: It's a curser that works better later on.
-: some may not like the choice to discard in games where there's no self-benefit.


Tasks

Appease - Task
Objective: have 2 Duchies in your hand, revealed.
Reward: +4VP

Bring 2 Duchies together in peace. This may affect when you would normally get Duchies, as effectively bringing them up to 5VP each can be worth it.
+: A good way to make Duchies more relevant more often, and help deviate gameplay away from typical Province rush.
-: hard to find specific bad points with this one...

Build - Task
Objective: gain 4 cards on your turn.
Reward: +3VP; at the start of each of your turns, +1 Card.

Project effects can work as rewards, the Accomplish token serving the same purpose as the Project cube. Can you gain a big load of cards at once this game?
+: There are several different possible ways to complete this, to be a different experience each game.
-: it depends entirely on +buys or gainers being in the kingdom.

Demolish - Task
Objective: trash 4 cards on your turn.
Reward: +4VP, gain a Gold.

Can you trash a big load of cards at once this game?
+: There are several different possible ways to complete this, to be a different experience each game.
-: it depends entirely on a trasher being in the kingdom.

Explore - Task
Objective: have 8 differently named cards in play.
Reward: +5VP

The Horn of Plenty experience without the kingdom Treasure being there. How will the kingdom let you do it?
+: Some games will call for a variety strategy, a nice thing to let randomness decide.
-: sometimes impossible. Maybe not that fun. Investigate below might be enough of variety.

Gather - Task
Objective: produce $15 or more.
Reward: +1 Buy, +3VP

How easily can you get a big spike of money this game?
+: Always possible yet can take very different paths to get to.
-: if a double Province route is possible you'll probably go down it anyway.

Impress - Task
Objective: complete 2 other Tasks on the same turn.
Reward: +5VP, gain a Chief.

Extra points if you can complete the 2 other Tasks drawn together. You may want to wait declaring accomplishment for one so you can do this.
+: A simple extra twist to add.
-: how often will it be doable?

Investigate - Task
Objective: have a hand of 5 or more cards with no copies in it, revealed.
Reward: +3VP

Get a big enough hand of all different cards.
+: Always possible.
-: can be quite hard to remember.


Conclusions
Nothing stops you from playing with 3 or more of the original Kin cards, just too many can lead to analysis paralysis and too much going on. Having 2 opens up a fun interaction between them, just enough, or one can be influential on its own. I've tried to cover a wide variety of different relationships with them; one thing that's somewhat missing is one that completely supports other Kins. I'm working on it. At the least I hope I've got across the feel for compelling diversity and replayability I get with the Kin mechanic. But I have struggled with sound execution of it; maybe some of the ideas here still use it poorly. You be judge.
The Tasks are very much a work in progress. They're not very well designed for all random games (not necessarily a bad thing) and the rewards are likely not balanced. 3 seems like a sensible number to comprehend each game, but nothing says you can't do more or less.
If you have any ideas, feel free to post them; I don't pretend to know everything about the dos and don'ts of these mechanics.

461

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Sultan

« on: April 29, 2018, 06:51:04 pm »

Welcome to the forum.
As you're new to making fan cards, I'll give you some tips I've found useful myself to making compelling ideas.

• Firstly, try to think of things that the current Dominion cards don't do, things that initially seem interesting to you. Likely you've done this. I like to aim to be different; if an idea isn't that innovative, it likely won't add much to the game. But there's nothing wrong with being similar.
• Check that the idea isn't broken in some way, either in functionality or in being overpowered. Think about all the implications that it will have, and check that no official card comes to any problems with it. This can be hard, and most likely that's how this forum will help. At least, it will give you direction for playtesting, the bottom bullet point. In time, you'll get used to principles to follow. There are reasons official cards don't do certain things you'll get familiar with*.
• Try to express your ideas as if they were written on official cards. The simpler you can explain them, the easier it will be to sort out the rules for them, to continue with the other bullet points here and to get better feedback from this forum. It's best if you use phrases that already exist on official cards.
• And the important but fun bit, playtesting. Check how the card plays, run it against official cards you think it could be strong with, and also feel how interesting it is to play. You might be able to make it more exciting, or you need to simplify it; I've learned myself that simpler is better. If you have a play group your fan cards will be played with, you may want to do a bit of solo testing first, to make clear any immediate problems so your group doesn't have to suffer through them.

Loosely speaking you can do these points in order, but you'll likely go back and forth to get an idea good. So, let's compare your Sultan:
It's definitely different. Probably the idea excites you.
It changes vanilla bonuses, so the stronger implications of it will be with cards that give lots of vanilla. It makes them very flexible. You'd run through some of these and see what would be strong. Examples that come to mind as well as those already posted are Wine Merchant becoming +4 Cards +1 Action, and (Grand) Market +3 (+4) Cards +1 Action or some on Coins.
Sultan is so different that wording could be tricky. Types, for instance, are the words on the bottom of a card, like 'Attack'. Teacher uses the word 'bonus' for its tokens, so this is the term you'd likely use. The wording at present implies you choose vanilla that other players get outside of turn, as majiponi pointed out with Council Room. This can bring you back to the broken test; I'll add Caravan Guard.
Playtesting, though, I imagine will be very telling about the quality of Sultan. As well as thinking through all the things identified above and the other posts here, I don't think it would be a pleasant play experience. There's just so much extra decision making, and a fair bit of mental pressure as you choose whether +Card or +Coin is best in your current situation, what's still in your deck. There's also the issue of tracking what you chose for each card, as Holunder9 brought out. So, a principle you can draw from this is that it's good for cards to be rigid. If you make cards flexible (like Steward or Count), make sure they don't overwhelm.

And you mention about making a set. It seems strange to make a set about 'card interaction'. Really, the whole game of Dominion is about card interaction. Do you perhaps mean cards that adjust what others do, like how Sultan changes the vanilla of other cards? Hopefully the principles of ease of tracking and play experience can help. It could be said that Village interacts with Smithy to change what it does; it means Smithy can draw Action cards and they be usable. If there is no Village, it can only draw Treasure or Night cards. And Throne Room is entirely dependent on interaction.

*Another great help is the stickied post, the guide to fan card creation by rinkworks.

A lot of stuff here, hope something helps.

462

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Revolution

« on: April 26, 2018, 04:47:14 am »

Fun fact: Weather cards that change conditions of play every turn for all players also are an expansion to my favourite non-Dominion board game, Lifeboat.
I think the conditions there were Stormy, Rough Seas, Foggy, Dead Calm, Rain, Muggy, Hot, Windy and, for reasons that I'm not entirely sure of, Sunday. Clear Sky did nothing but shuffle the discards back into the pile.

This is nice. So Clear Sky makes things a bit more random than the Weather here and sometimes there will be a weather that never shows up? I don't know the game Lifeboat, but I imagine in Dominion you'd prefer to have an idea what's coming and strategize, than have it fully random. Changing may be unpleasant for this reason.

Sorry, meant to reply to this earlier. Clear Skies also has the effect that there are more rounds without weather effects, without having to print more than one blank. But yes, there absolutely can be games where one weather never comes up. It's not as much of an issue in Lifeboat, because the game is heavily communication based and randomness can be cancelled out by convincing others to backstab somebody, but I certainly see that people might dislike the fact that a card they wait for fails to appear in Dominion (or another appears too often). It wasn't so much of a suggestion, more like an interesting anecdote, or so I thought.

I found it an interesting anecdote, though I admit that didn't come over very clearly. I thought it would be good to draw the comparisons for general game design theory, and I appreciate seeing here how the Weather affects Lifeboat, how the same idea differs to add fun to a different kind of game.

Furnace: This cards seems like Remake level strong to me, even ignoring the exhaust to play it immediately mechanic. Personally I don't think cards that can trash 2 or more cards at once and give economy at the same time should cost less than $5. It's not like broken trashers are particularly uncommon among the official cards though so maybe it isn't a problem. I do think that the exhaust to play immediately mechanic isn't the best fit for a $4 cards though, just because if you get it on turn 1 the exhaust doesn't do anything because you aren't playing any actions turn 2 regardless. 

I get what you say about economy. I guess the $ are there to justify the +Buy from an earlier version; for some reason a multi trasher with +Buy appeals, and that's the basis for this card. Now I've got this exhaust-to-play on it, that justifies the +Buy and the $ could go.
And about turn 1, it still seems OK despite Exhausted doing nothing, as you typically only trash an Estate, and this hinders its trashing ability later.

Canal: I like this, $6 seems like a good cost for it. It's still probably broken half the time because cost reduction, but at least you can't accidentally buy out the Provs in one turn like with Bridge/Troll. This is thronable, I assume the wording is annoying as an in-play effect or something?

Wording should be fine as a while-in-play, I just haven't come to the conclusion of needing it yet. If it needed to go to $6, then likely it could need a further nerf and this would be it. +1 Buy + $4 is already hefty, but Throning it to 2 Buys + $12 is rather generous.

Components: Seems hard to trigger considering it adds 2 Silvers to your deck, I guess that balances being able to open with 2? Are Spinning Mule and Steam Engine in the OP the other machines? Steam Engine might have tracking problems? Maybe not? Patent and Steam Engine both seem much stronger than Spinning Mule to me, I guess that's fine.

All correct. From the feel as I've tested them, it wouldn't surprise me if the whole group was proven flawed because Components are too swingy and luck dependant. Or if they're only reliably enabled with sifters, or the Weather. Some games have seen a Spinning Mule played on turn 7 get a runaway victory (keep the Coppers, and you can draw them, the Components Silvers, the $1 on this and whatever you do with Prototype to get at least $13), other times something like a turn 17 Prototype.
Steam Engine should track OK, you can put the Action tokens on the card instead of beside them, and leave them on there for Durations.

Foreign Art: Wow seems really strong, in an engine this diverting itself is basically a bonus because you want to draw it at the end of the turn. Diverting other things does make this less good in earlier parts of the game but I'm not sure it matters all that much considering how good this is as endgame payload? Less good in money, there the diverting actually matters. Insane engine payload though, should probably just be +$3 to be honest.

This is sensible. I twigged how the engine makes Diverted almost a non-issue, but not how diverting Treasure would actually be a benefit. My thinking with $4 over $3 is that it wouldn't really have much to set it apart from Gold except its +Buy, and it could go to $6 if it needed to, but that's not the best reasoning to go with.
If this were an Action, might there be something more to it?

Innovator: So individually these two effects are Watchtower and Secret Chamber. Two weak effects, is being able to exhaust for both really enough to make this worth $5? I know there's some self synergy there but I think this is really weak and could probably cost $3?

Yeah, an untested idea, full discard then draw just seemed strong at first.

Thanks for the feedback and the compliment.

463

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Revolution

« on: April 15, 2018, 04:36:43 pm »

Fun fact: Weather cards that change conditions of play every turn for all players also are an expansion to my favourite non-Dominion board game, Lifeboat.
I think the conditions there were Stormy, Rough Seas, Foggy, Dead Calm, Rain, Muggy, Hot, Windy and, for reasons that I'm not entirely sure of, Sunday. Clear Sky did nothing but shuffle the discards back into the pile.

This is nice. So Clear Sky makes things a bit more random than the Weather here and sometimes there will be a weather that never shows up? I don't know the game Lifeboat, but I imagine in Dominion you'd prefer to have an idea what's coming and strategize, than have it fully random. Changing may be unpleasant for this reason.

Also, I'm not entirely sure whether this is coincidence, but my Edicts both have a similar color scheme and look as your weather cardss, being blue sideways cards that define rule changes. Most basically do things like your weather cards, but as Edicts don't change mid-game, I also made a few of them just alter the setup. Check them out if you like.

I did bear your Edicts in mind and tried to make them different. I just thought sky blue was the colour for Weather cards. But yes, Edicts make more definite impacts on kingdoms than Landmarks, which only imply them with VP, and you achieve different things to them too. It's a nice way to make the various strategies available in Dominion more and less relevant, and they should improve the game

I went ahead and put all my current updates on the OP at once. The changes:

Advancing Village - that new version I thought of is broken, it can go on infinitely with draw to X. The old version stays.

Blueprints - theme change to Furnace. Remodel basically is blueprints. For the most part, all the Exhausted cards now involve an industrial building.

Canal - it's strong enough to go to $6 cost. It's rather easy to make a Province-Duchy deck with it.

Purist - down to +3 Actions, 4 was too many and now the Action and Treasure parts look more comparable.

Components - a general cleanup of the group. This is no longer a Traveller and specifies gaining a Prototype from its pile.
Prototype came to confusion when it was Throned before. Now it works cleanly by being a Machine itself (and not a Traveller) and saying 'exchange this for a Machine'; you can either get a final upgrade, or another Prototype to essentially make self-discard.
Patent no longer has +Buy as an option, but the +Cards, +Actions and +$ are doubled to 2 each. This makes it more consistently the power card it should be.

Two new ones:

Foreign Art - Treasure, $5 cost.
$4
+1 Buy
When you play this, take Diverted and put this on it.

Local Art's out, of course, as the Wanderers are. But the name can come back if I can think of something good for it. This works fine, you delay your big buys with it, or if you go for Victories it's like a Treasure Wine Merchant.

Innovator - Action, $5 cost.
Choose one: discard any number of cards, + $1 per card discarded; or draw up to 6 cards in hand.
You may take Exhausted. If you do, get the other choice.

The name's something of a placeholder, he isn't an industrial building. As yet untested, but it has that instinctive feel that it will work. Unlike the last Innovator, this one is quite easy to track.

464

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Revolution

« on: April 03, 2018, 04:32:45 pm »

So here are the changed Weathers, and shortly the OP will be updated with them.

Bonuses capitalised, Frost is now Dry and wording corrected, Fog is Foggy and any card can be diverted, Dew is Showery, and there are 2 added blanks called Mild.

I have other ideas for changes, here are the first two:

Advancing Village - Action Reaction, $3 cost.
+3 Cards
Discard a card.
-
When this enters your hand, you may discard it to take an Action token.

It's already been considered, but here it is again, fixed up. The new idea feels more like an Action, can react with terminal draw somewhat safely, the top and bottom combine quite nicely, and it doesn't seem imbalanced. But perhaps it's too useful too often.

And if there's Weather, surely a card called Barometer has to do something with it:

Barometer - Action Duration Forecast, $4 cost.
+1 Action
Name a type. Reveal the top 5 cards of your deck. Put the cards with the named type back in any order and discard the rest.
You may leave this in play and discard it at the start of your next turn, to be unaffected by Weather.

I'm not exactly confident here; you'd first think a barometer would let you see the Weather in advance, but with already being able to see next turn's, will it help much to see the turn after next's? So I thought a Lighthouse might work, choose to opt out of next Weather, but you have this weird optional Duration-ish thing that finishes before your turn, really just for tracking. Sure, a start of next turn bonus would help tidy it up, but I don't want to detract from the sort effect, I think that's nice. And there's this Forecast type just to indicate that the game definitely includes the Weather.
So, can this go somewhere, or should the name Barometer go?

465

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Crystal

« on: April 03, 2018, 03:29:24 pm »

This confused me at first, it doesn't actually say where the set of Treasures is to be. If you do mean your play area, I think when you have cards in play face down, they no longer count as 'in play'. There are certain rules questions that arise then, like what happens to the face down set at Clean-up? It's still your turn.

You could turn the set over in the Supply or of course the trash safely, but neither would be as interesting here. You could try turning the set in play sideways or something?

466

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Revolution

« on: March 27, 2018, 04:58:46 pm »

Good catches here.

As worded, Frost has pretty bad antisynergy with junkers, given that all cards are gained onto your deck.

True. So 'this turn, cards you gain are put onto your deck.'
Each card is written like an Action is, directed to the individual player. Otherwise it's a case of putting 'each player gets' on each card, which is a bit clumsy looking imo. So 'this turn' here follows Bridge.

(First of all, this has been bugging me for a while, it should be +1 Bonus, not +1 bonus. Capitalize the word.)

You're right... That makes the distinction between Action cards and actions less clear. I'll get to changing this as I update them. Seeing this is the case, what about 'action token' Vs 'Action token'?

I like your take on LaLight's weather cards. What I would suggest though is having about half of them be "Clear Skies" or so that has no effect. Constant changing effects every turn will make the game far too unpredictable and probably too much to handle, whereas the occasional scattered effect would be nice. Also, maybe have it so you can see ahead so nothing comes upon you too fast. And probably try to keep the effects simple and not game-changing, like the Vanilla Boni ones could just have one bonus apiece, a free Lost City/Grand Market might be too much to give.

I thought this seemed familiar as I came to it. Well, I can at least say these aren't direct rip-offs of LaLight's cards, I'd forgotten about them. Sorry nonetheless.
The Clear Skies idea: this was my thinking when I did both Cloudy and Windy, to dilute the bigger changes a bit. But going with what Gazbag said earlier about both together being uninteresting, one (Windy) could leave for a blank. I could also/instead add 2 more blanks to bring them up to a 12 card pile cycling through 10 turns, for rounder numbers.
You can see the Weather coming for the next turn; the top one is discarded, then it's 'active' for the round of turns, and the next one becomes visible as well. You get a turn to think about it. Current rules are the pile's face up, so that probably means players can look through the whole thing. Perhaps it should be face down and the top turned over when one is discarded.
Sunny may be too much, I suppose, but Dew (Market) seems okay. It's getting the balance between effects not breaking the fun of games and their making a definite impact every time.

467

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Revolution

« on: March 27, 2018, 06:53:53 am »

Yeah, Fog can easily be Foggy, and dew isn't really weather itself, is it? Come to think of it, nor is frost. These can easily be changed.

Certainly both Stormy and Fog(gy) as they are can make things swingy. It's good to have a distinctly bad Weather, one to watch out for and keep in mind. In Revolution, Stormy is just that, and there are enough ways to adapt to it. But sure, in a random game with no Revolutions it may not be the best. Chappy7's suggestion of the -card token is a great one (and indeed a lot of Adventures things work - you could probably make a Weather set to go with the expansion, and you could have exotic weather too), and I'd probably change Stormy to that to make the Weather something players can freely choose to add. Then again, not every kingdom calls for adaptation.

So, Fog. The only reason I made it divert a card at first is because Diverted was worded to let it happen. But now I see that it also means Diverted will definitely be returned after the next shuffle, which suits the flow of the Weather better. So it could just not have a cost range or type limit at all. There should then just be the interest of working around the delayed buys for a time.

Are these sound answers?

468

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Revolution

« on: March 26, 2018, 12:16:35 pm »

The more I think about them and play with them, the less I like the Wanderers. They do seem to take away from the game of Dominion, using actions for power from outside the deck. And well as said above, they're weird. So take away the actions they use and make them work automatically, the simplest way being right at the start of the turn, change what they do so that they're simple but effective, then change the theme, and I arrive at this idea: Weather, global effects that change each turn.

Rules
They are a pile of 10 landscape cards which you shuffle before each game, and keep face up. Before each of his turns, the player going first discards the top Weather (just as you discard Boons), and each player gets the effect of the Weather immediately at the start of their next turn (they do not get it for extra turns through Outpost or its variants), before any other 'at the start of your turn' effects. The Weather for next turn is revealed at the same time, so players know what's coming. When the pile is empty, it is reshuffled into a new pile. The last card of the pile is set aside, then discarded when the new deck is made.
Including them in a game would follow the same rules as Shelters, Platinum and Colony; if the first card randomly selected is a Revolution, or the majority of them are Revolutions, include them. (Though of course they're fan cards, and you can use them anyhow.)

So here they are:

Sunny - +1 card, +1 action

An extra action for a bigger Action phase. +1 card as well as it didn't seem enough of an impact.

Stormy - take Exhausted

The opposite, -1 action. But if you're already Exhausted from last turn you get nothing.

Cloudy - +2 cards, put 2 cards from your hand onto your deck

Card movement will always have an effect on your turn. This gets you to plan a bit.

Windy - discard 2 cards, +2 cards

A Cellar fixed at 2 cards. Could be good, could be bad.

Rainy - if you have 4 or more cards in your hand, take one and put it anywhere in your deck

1 less card in your hand by Secret-Passaging something.

Dew - +1 buy, + $1

Buying vanilla.

Snowy - this turn, cards (everywhere) cost $1 more

And the opposite, sort of.

Frost - this turn, cards are gained onto your deck

Mostly good, but bad for Victories.

Fog - +1 card, take Diverted, put a non-Victory card from your hand costing from $3 - $6 onto Diverted (or reveal you can't)

A fairly significant card is removed from your deck for a shuffle, and cards you buy are delayed with it. Could be too swingy, but it's there because it works as a one-off effect.

Changing - set this and the next two Weathers aside, then discard them. For this turn, each player gets both Weathers in the order they were set aside in

This one basically makes two Weathers appear at once, to make things a bit more different each game. You don't know what's coming, though. There are 10 cards, but with this the pile will run through 8 turns.

My main reason for having landscapes like this is to make the set's play theme about adaptation; action tokens and Exhausted don't just mean engines, they mean flexibility in your Action phase, and adding reasons to adapt your turn makes hopefully interesting use of that flexibility.

Does this work?

469

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: You may turn your journey token over...

« on: March 25, 2018, 02:58:33 am »

I recently made a fan card which uses the journey token, and I was thinking what kind of design space there is using the journey token. This is mostly an experiment to think what a card would be like that said "You may turn your journey token over." What do you think?

Veteran
$5 - Action
You may turn over your journey token (it starts face-up). If it's face up, +3 cards. Otherwise, +$1, +1 Buy, and discard any number of cards for +$1 each.

Isn't this just 'choose one' with more words? So if you wanted to feature the journey token I guess you'd add some other kind of condition that turns the journey token over, rather than the player's choice.

470

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Revolution

« on: March 14, 2018, 07:00:01 pm »

More great feedback!

Barometer: This seems pretty weak to me, a terminal stop card that gives no immediate bonus has to be really powerful to be worth getting and I'm not sure this gets there. I think this really wants +1 action or +$1 or something.

Truth be told, this is untested. At first it had +1 action then I thought let's try it non-terminal first. Your first impression may make me change my mind here.

Diversion: If I changed how Ice tokens worked to trigger off shuffles I'd probably use a state like this instead of tokens, so that's great. I'm not sure this should be a Chancellor itself though, I get that the idea is that it lets you get past diversions faster but I think it's pretty easy to do that anyway and it kind of just trivialises the attack, maybe?

I'm with you here. If I can think of another nice way to fast buys that doesn't trivialise this that's what I'll do. Because Diverted makes cards be 'gained onto' it, doing Tracker or Armory wouldn't work as by specifying another gain location you can choose to avoid Diverted...

Local Art: Wanderers come from miles around to see the local art! A lot of the Wanderers seem like they wouldn't be as helpful during the buy phase as they are for your opponents so I'm not sure about that, maybe the Wanderers don't affect other players when played with this? That could be neat. There are few problems I have with certain Wanderers too, maybe I'll get to that later.

You actually commented on the Wanderers. I worried they'd be dismissed as too confusing or random. The main changes that occur are with the handsize ones after you play other Treasures first - Warband and Collector can be played to purely Attack, and Roadshow could be insane. Though to play them just for yourself may be worth exploring.

Purist: A treasure-action being a purist is strange to me, but I guess he wants a pure deck of either all actions or all treasures or maybe it's a bronze dude or something? +4 actions is a lot of actions, whoo boy! It's probably balanced at $4 - Port basically gives +3 actions and +1 card, but it does add a ton of +actions to the game so it lets you build really big. The treasure part seems much weaker, it's basically a bad Peddler. I guess it means you can open this with Silver and it'll be good on the first shuffle before transitioning into a big Necropolis, I think the top of this is good enough on it's own though.

+4 actions is what Exhausted cards like, balanced with no draw. The Treasure part helps reflect the Actions or Treasures sub-theme of the set. Maybe I'm too afraid of the Treasure part drawing a card and could make the setback easier than skipping the whole Action phase.

Taskmaster: Exhausted means this basically does nothing if there's no village right? And it's basically a throne room with +1 card when it works? I don't know, I think it needs a way to always do something. Am I understanding it right?

If you have Exhausted with 0 actions left, it will carry over to next turn and take away the starting action. So it doesn't strictly need a Village, it would make spiky play. A Village will of course help though.
My wording on the update post is probably confusing. It's a cantrip on play, then it waits until a good target is played. It then gets turned to indicate that it gets 'used', and you take Exhausted to Throne the target.
It started as 'while this is in play, when you play an Action you may Exhaust to play it twice', but felt it should be only work once per card.

Nothing else does this turning thing, but I didn't know how else to implement one use per card.

I'd just do it like Necromancer does

This is a funny thing. Face down cards in your play area do not count as 'in play'; you can't trash cards set aside by Haven with Bonfire. So I think this would come to unnecessary complications if not now then easily in the future.

Err what was up with the wanderers? Oh yeah the courier seems like a bad thing to have in the game, I don't think a single spy effect is enough to make this not miserable for someone often enough. I think it needs either a much bigger search space or to be from hand or be something else. I don't think any current wanderers gain cards, that could be an okay replacement? Fits the messenger like theme too so could keep the same name. I also feel like Warband should be 5 or more cards, randomly taking people down to a 2 card hand occasionally doesn't seem like much fun to me, I can't really see the benefit of it. That's just a small tweak though.

Everything here is sensible, Courier I'm thinking should pass from hand, and draw a card first so there's some self bonus and to avoid the 'next such player' thing on Masquerade. Warband probably shouldn't try to go down to 2 cards. Collector can gain cards, as its reason to be played.

[quoting me on Advancing Village]
Yeah, but all of these will (usually) be identical to the card being in your hand at the start of your turn, except perhaps for Margrave and Minion, so my wording actually does do the same in those cases.

Ah yes, this is true. Another difference comes to mind as I read this: played immediately in these situations, the starting action token next turn could let you play an Action after a carried-over Exhausted is returned.

471

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Revolution

« on: March 14, 2018, 01:33:27 pm »

I find that you read Advancing Village at first and it puzzles you, but when you get it, it's fairly intuitive. Your version doesn't have that initial puzzle so much Asper. As well as what you include for triggers, my thoughts were that 'outside of your Action phase' also means outside of your turn, so Minion, Council Room, Lost City, Margrave, and within this set the Wanderers.

But I do get why you're suggesting your change now; your pushing has helped so thank you! Ultimately, if this is better played outside of the Action phase, why is it an Action? That Ghost Town is a good comparison, you draw it any time and it can do similar.
I still think this reaction fits well in the set, so I'm thinking the card could be improved by moving the taking an action token to just the reaction and having a different top. Maybe:

Advancing Village - Action Reaction, $3 cost.
+3 cards
Discard a card.
-
When this enters your hand outside of your Action phase, you may discard it to draw a card and take an action token.

The set could do with some more draw too. But anyway, between this and Asper's suggestion, which is the nicer card?

472

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Revolution

« on: March 13, 2018, 08:54:12 am »

Big update
I went off doing this, then came back to it with a fresh look. A look at how the cards combine together as a set, as well as individual improvements. I saw fit to make a lot of changes. The OP has had another overhaul with them and improvements to presentation.

If you're interested, a list of the changes:

Exhaustion - changed to Exhausted to fit the tense of the other States. You 'immediately' return it to make its priority to your next action clearer.

Advancing Village - down to $3 cost. This distinguishes it more as a Village you can open with.

Advancing Village seems weird. Often the only way to play it as a Village will be when drawing it during cleanup, which is usually equal to it being in your hand at the start of your turn. After that it's a cantrip basically. I think you could have had a similar functionality much more easily, like:
"+1 Card
Take an Action token. If you have no Action cards other than Advancing Village in play, you may play an Action card from your hand."

This is certainly easier to get your head around at first. I kept it the same as it can do what this does and more, in particular with interactions in this set.

Blueprints - changed the $ you get to a flat $2, and I've tried to make it more exciting by letting you play it straight away when you buy it by taking Exhausted. Yes you're playing an Action in the Buy phase, but I don't think there's anything broken in that with this card. If nothing else it justifies the +buy on it.

Colliery - removed New Element. Split piles are not what this set is about, and Colliery isn't so bad as a pile of its own. It also repeats the instructions when you take Exhausted; it looks clumsy, but the interaction with Champion and other things that count 'playing' actions is foolproof.

Components - has +1 action so it's easier to return them if they fail to connect in good time.
   Prototype - So that the text can be bigger, I give the type 'Machine' to all of its upgrades. I can also make another Machine if it needs to be there.
   Spinning Mule - is now a Treasure itself.
   Steam Engine - gets action tokens on discarding cards, up to 3, and has a wording change that ensures Exhausted takes priority if you spend a token with 0 actions left.

Glassworks is an outtake, as neither types nor differently named cards are a theme the set wants to focus on.

Hawker is an outtake, it just doesn't work as an Action card.

Innovator is an outtake for now, it's too hard to get your head around.

Night Shift - up to $6 cost, because you're happy to pay $6 for it and it feels strong enough.

Parade - no longer costs debt as nothing else in the set does, and changed the bottom to get around gaining it; you trash it if you don't meet the criteria.

Pigeon is an outtake for similar reasons to New Element, to lessen the Supply interaction going on in the set. It's still there, but it's subtle.

Potteries - is no longer get a choice or Exhaust for both. You trash a card, then Exhaust to make it a big Remodel. If the new card is cheap enough, it goes to hand.

Revolters - as suggested, it no longer gives out Coppers after Curses, and it only hits with 0 actions left, not 1 as well.

Steelworks - costs $4, and is no longer an Attack; instead, you can trash it at your Night phase to take an action token for every card you gained in the turn. You can do this whether you play it as an Action or a Night card.

Textile Mill - it made the mistake of draw and sort together, a combo that takes forever to play. Its now a Smithy you can double play by taking Exhausted. Because this is short text and because it fits, it also has the overpay for action tokens that Colliery used to have.

Tutor - corrected a typo.

Wastelands - instead of triggering 5 VP with few cards in the deck, it triggers with few non-Victories in the deck.

Onto some Wanderers changes:
Circus Troupe draws first, then puts cards back. Much easier.

Royal Visit is an outtake; it was the only Duration effect in the set and didn't belong.
In its place, a new one:

Botanist - discard up to 3 cards, then draw that many. Each other player discards then draws the same number of cards.

A Cellar where the user chooses how many cards everyone changes.

And the other new ones:

Barometer - Action Duration - $4 cost.
Now and at the start of your next turn: name a type (Action, Attack, etc). Reveal the top 5 cards of your deck. Put the cards with the named type back in any order and discard the rest.

A now and next turn sifter that lines up cards of the same type for your next draw. What you choose when will depend on your current situation, something that changes often in this set.

Diversion - Action Attack, $5 cost.
+ $3
You may put your deck into your discard pile.
When you gain this or play it, each other player takes Diverted.

Diverted - State
Non-Victory cards you buy are gained onto this. After you shuffle your deck, if there are any cards on this, discard them and return this.

As one Attack, Steelworks, left, another needs to take its place. This one uses a State and delays the opponents' buys from entering their deck until a shuffle later.
Looking at the forum now, I admit this is rather similar to principles other fan cards follow, especially Gazbag's freezing mechanic.

Local Art - Treasure, $5 cost.
$2
When you play this, if you have any unused actions, you may play the top Wanderer.
-
Setup: include the Wanderers.

A Treasure that can play Wanderers, provided you saved an action from your Action phase. This makes it different each play, and can make each Wanderer be better or worse. It's certainly risky and needs a fair bit of testing.

Purist - Action Treasure, $4 cost.
If it's your Action phase, +4 actions.
If it's your Buy phase, this is worth $1, and if you haven't played any non-Treasures this turn, +1 card.

It makes big either the Action phase or a pure Buy phase.

Taskmaster - Action, $4 cost.
+1 card
+1 action
When you play an Action from your hand, you may first turn an unturned Taskmaster you have in play sideways and take Exhausted. If you do both, play the Action twice.

Basically a Royal Carriage that looks 'forward' to Actions played later rather than 'back' to one just played, delaying the action it uses for then. Nothing else does this turning thing, but I didn't know how else to implement one use per card.

473

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Antiquity (WIP! Please help!)

« on: December 24, 2017, 06:37:51 pm »

Here's a scan through:

Petroglyph - reaction should just be 'When you discard this card during an Action phase, you can may reveal it and set it aside.'
Probably fine alongside Faithful Hound, this feels good and belonging in the set.

Discovery - I anticipate card space to be difficult here, especially as you'll probably want to add 'until not on top' to shuffling it into a pile. Making it an Action (+1 action + $2) would help a bit, but that isn't thematic. So maybe:

(+1 action +) $2
While this is in play, when you next buy a card, shuffle this into that card's pile until the top card is not Discovery.
-
When you reveal this from a non-Discovery Supply pile, gain it and a Gold.

Technically you'd want to put it in a random place in the pile, but that's something only a computer (or another person who isn't playing) could do. Sure it doesn't actually break the game if you shuffle it into the Castles or a split pile, but some people will take issue with a premature Plunder or a King's Castle on top, so this could only ever be a fan card.

Artifact - maybe, 'While this is in play, directly after you when you next buy a Treasure, you may discard this to play that Treasure and get +1 Buy.
Or to save confusion with Venture and potential tracking issues, you could set the Artifact aside (change 'discard this' to 'set this aside' and add 'Discard this at Clean-up' at the end). I can't really see a way to get one card to play one Treasure without implying Throning when you use several Artifacts, though.

Avatar of Greed - only now do I see you can just buy Victories with this and store them on the mat out of the way, very strong on a 4 cost Gold. You could specify non-Victory cards easily enough though.

Digsite doesn't need to be a Victory. I guess this can run into neverending game trouble with Lurker too.

Encroach has a definite feel of too strong about it. Discard a Gold and it's a bit like getting +1 buy + $5 non-terminally, yet you can redraw the Gold later (empty deck, another Encroach would do it). I'm imagining a choose one clause between draw and the discard may make a balanced card.

Archaeologist - maybe, 'Reveal Look at the top 6 cards of your deck. Put 3 of them into your hand, Choose one: then either discard the remaining cards or put them onto your deck back in any order.'

Profiteer - just its top part, 'Trash a non-Victory card from the Supply. Cards with the same name as that one it cost $1 less this turn, but not less than $0.

Shipwreck - just, 'Look through your discard pile and put a Treasure from it onto at the bottom of your deck.'

Stronghold - just mentioning that you could reveal it with the Reaction any number of times to trash more than once. It could stay, but maybe it's a bit too potent a trasher like this. If it is, it looks like the Reaction will more or less do the same thing just playing the Stronghold a la Caravan Guard.

474

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Roots and Renewal

« on: December 15, 2017, 10:49:38 am »

Feels fine power wise, maybe Caretaker is a bit weak.
I didn't raise this before, but there is the issue of errata, and what exactly the Lock on another pile means. Does it count the pile as a Lock Supply pile, or does it maintain its name, types and costs but you can't gain anything under the Lock? In either case, what happens with the exchanging cards? They assume the card they're swapping with is available, and if it isn't it's debatable if the exchange happens at all. Bat into Vampire is the most obvious puzzler.
Ambassador is another one, especially 3+ players where you need to remove a card under the Lock.
Hopefully you get the idea.

475

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Pioneers

« on: December 03, 2017, 03:42:19 pm »

An overview of my initial impressions:

Prospectors: the thing with expensive debt cards is they can always be opened with, so they are designed to not be good early. This is contrary to the rule; it's only good early. You collect Golds from naming Copper and also have a way to deal with the Ruins. It feels strong like this.
And a Village that junks your own deck is questionable, it 'helps' play your Ruins but it doesn't really want a flood of Gold.

Railroad Village looks rather expensive.

Pack Horse is only useful when you have Wanderers, otherwise it's useless. It's also useless if you draw your Wanderer(s) in hand. Rather weak.

Stockade I think I raised in your first thread. Without any source of +buys this can break games.

Demolition looks very strong compared to Bishop.

Homestead surely has way too much potential to cost $4. It can make your hand consistently hit $5 early and lots more later. Not dissimilar to Bank but counting Victories instead.

Does Native Guide need to reveal your 6 cards? It seems to make it needlessly slower. Nice otherwise.

Posse can lock your opponents out of having a hand at all, and all you have to do each turn is play it last.

Prairie Schooner is very strong draw, better than Wharf. The latter may have +buys, but maybe this could be $6.

Card Game gets silly with 4+ players, you'll never buy it.

Drought may be nice to play, or it may never be right to buy it. Either way, does the Curse to hand need to be there when you have the two Coppers?

Duel is both slow and a way to get VP without pushing the game to its end.

Circle the Wagons could be nice. Might $2 be too expensive?

Incorporate has a smell of neverending turn about it...but I don't think it's actually possible?

Bank Robbery is an offender like Duel is, an everlasting source of VP.

And Waterfall you've tried to make really slow, perhaps so slow so as to never be viable. In a heavy slog game, you may never get to hit $8 anyway.


The assets could be interesting as a new mechanic. I guess they'd want heavy playtesting to be as interesting and compelling as possible. That's the only real way to tell if they're good. Map and Favour especially want the other assets to be worth getting, as does the mechanic of shuffling Supply cards in.