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1

Weekly Design Contest / Weekly Design Contest #132: All Hallow's Eve

« on: October 19, 2021, 11:46:54 pm »

WDC #132: All Hallow's Eve

In honor of upcoming Halloween, this week's contest asks for Night cards... but not just any Night cards, they have to be "in costume".

This weeks contest is to design a Night card that has at least one other (non Duration) type. I'm excluding Night-Duration, as there are already several official cards. Your design can still be Night-Duration, as long as it has at least one other type.

Official Cards that would qualify:

Werewolf
Vampire
Raider
Ghost*

* Ghost, of course, is a non supply card; if you do something similar, please include a supporting supply card

Judgement:

My general criteria continues to be: Is this a card I wish I had designed? So I will look towards it being interesting and fun, foremost, and at least somewhat thematic. While balance is also important, if it's a card that has some imbalance but potential to be fixed, it won't lose many points. I also do tend to lean towards "simpler is better", knowing that it is sometimes in conflict with "interesting and fun".

Bonus points / tiebreaker will be awarded to cards that have an appropriate, Halloween-y theme.


Submission Deadline:

Entries and revisions must be submitted by 12:01 Forum Time (16:01 UTC) on Wednesday, October 27th. Some time around then, I'll make the outline post showing all the latest versions of the entries I've seen, so you can confirm I haven't missed any.

(And that should give me a few days before actual Halloween to get judgements finished!)

2

Weekly Design Contest / Weekly Design Contest #116: Make me *less* special

« on: May 24, 2021, 05:40:06 pm »

WDC #116: Make me *less* special

With each new release of a Dominion expansion come new mechanics. And often, the weekly design contests reflect that: "Create a card that gives Villagers"; "Create a new Way."

But there are some mechanics that have gotten less fanfare, in fact there is only 1 official card (or card shaped thing) that uses it:

Examples, though in no way comprehensive (also, please let me know if I'm mistaken and missing some other card that uses the same mechanic)

Masquerade - only official card to involve passing
Werewolf - only official Action-Night card
Prince - only official Action card that costs $8 (not including Peddler that is $8*)
Grand Market - only official card that restricts buying it based on cards in play
Mountain Pass - only official card that involves bidding

This weeks contest is to "de-uniquefy" a unique Dominion mechanics. Please mention the particular mechanic and the official card that uses it in your post.

A couple of notes:

• I had originally come up with this idea before Menagerie came out and there were even more options (e.g. Peddler was the only card that changed cost), but I hope that there are still many good options out there

• taken to an extreme any official card can be seen as a unique combination of mechanics, so it may be difficult to disqualify any entry. However, the spirit if the contest is to try and pick as general a mechanic (or combo) as possible, and entries will be judged accordingly. e.g. if your entry is "+1 Action. Now at the start of your next turn, +$2", because Merchant Ship is the only card that  provides $2 this turn and next, thus will not get a high grade.

• similarly, posting an entry that shares a non supply card (e.g. a card that can gain you a Mercenary) likely won't come off as an especially unique mechanic (even though, in the example, Urchin is the only official card that can do that)

• given how the idea of how unique a mechanic is can be subjective, if you're unsure, feel free to ask, and I will opine before contest end on the uniqueness of your chosen mechanic

Judgement:

In addition to the aforementioned, my general criteria continues to be: Is this a card I wish I had designed? So I will look towards it being interesting and fun, foremost, and at least somewhat thematic. While balance is also important, if it's a card that has some imbalance but potential to be fixed, it won't lose many points. I also do tend to lean towards "simpler is better", knowing that it is sometimes in conflict with "interesting and fun".


Submission Deadline:

Entries and revisions must be submitted by 12:01 Forum Time (16:01 UTC) on Tuesday, June 1st. Some time around then, I'll make the outline post showing all the latest versions of the entries I've seen, so you can confirm I haven't missed any.

3

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Contest Week 10: Season 1 Finale Extravaganza!

« on: May 12, 2021, 12:04:07 pm »

Hi all,

I started out by trying to decide whether to come up with a new mechanic or borrow one from the Atlas, but the problem was:

• if I came up with a new one, I'd need some good sample cards, and I don't have the time right now
• if I borrowed one, I'd want to pick something that excited me, which would make me want to compete!

But then I realized this is week #10 and I remembered a post that emtzalex a while back, and there was the solution to my dilemma:


WELCOME TO THE SEASON 1 FINALE EXTRAVAGANZA!!

We've had 9 contests so far, so my proposal is to follow emtzalex's suggestion for every 10th week. (we'll at least do it this week!)


Rules:

Rules for the week are simple: Design a card or card shaped thing (or a set thereof) that uses 2 or more of the fan card mechanics from the "season" i.e. weeks 1-9. Links to each of these past contests can be found at the Hall of Fame post.


Judgement:

My general criteria continues to be: Is this a card I wish I had designed? So I will look towards it being interesting and fun, foremost, and at least somewhat thematic. While balance is also important, if it's a card that has some imbalance but potential to be fixed, it won't lose many points. I also do tend to lean towards "simpler is better", knowing that is sometimes in conflict with "interesting and fun".

The only thing I can see as disqualifying is not using at least 2 of the above mechanics. Both (or all) mechanics don't have to be on the same card if you design a multiple card design, but I will evaluate the design on how well the combined mechanics fit together, mechanically and/or thematically. So don't, for example, design a traveler line just so you can mash up all 9 mechanics into your design - it should "make sense" why you chose the mechanics you did.


Submission Deadline:

Entries and revisions must be submitted by 12:01 Forum Time (16:01 UTC) on Wednesday, May 18. Some time around then, I'll make the outline post showing all the latest versions of the entries I've seen, so you can confirm I haven't missed any.

 

4

Variants and Fan Cards / New Weekly Contest: Fan Card Mechanics

« on: December 19, 2020, 02:30:03 pm »

Hi all,

What would people think of a new weekly contest specifically dedicated to fan card mechanics? (credit to spineflue for starting this "atlas")

Inspired by weekly design content #90*, Steal Ideas!, but in this case every entry would have to use the fan card mechanic chosen by that week's judge.

* and the fact that I was mildly disappointed to see no one expand on my Worshippers mechanic...


If we like this idea, I think the best thing would be to wait until the current "Set Design Contest has worked its way through every expansion, then have this contest take its place.

Thoughts?

5

Dominion General Discussion / Ambiguity / consistency of "Otherwise"

« on: March 11, 2020, 03:56:29 pm »

Moving this discussion from the Bonus Previews thread, regarding Gamble's wording of "Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a Treasure or Action, you may play it. Otherwise, discard it."

On Discord, Donald X. has said

If you don't play the card you discard it, whether or not it's an Action/Treasure.

The wording is the way it is because of various cards that can move when they're discarded.  There's less potential confusion if you can't both move it with its reaction and play it.

Fix for next printing: If you didn't play it, discard it.

This suggested wording would definitely be better, because as I pointed out from some other cards, it isn't just about ambiguity but also consistency.

In this construct of "If X, do Y. Otherwise, do Z", "Otherwise" is really shorthand for "otherwise if not W, do Z", where the ambiguity is what is W: is it X, or 'you did Y" or (X or you did Y).

For Gamble, the ruling is W = (X or you did Y)*

* I don't think you can just say W = "you did Y", because doing Y *only* applies if X is true, but even if that were the case, the inconsistency still exists.

However, in the case of these other cards, W = X:

• Tormenter, each other player only receives a Hex, if you had other actions in play. If you did not, but were unable to gain an Imp, the other players still do not receive a Hex
• Jester, if the other player discards a Province, and there are no curses left for them yo gain, you do not then choose whether you or they gain a Province.
• etc.

The two differences I see are that a) Gamble is play instead of discard and b) for Gamble it's "may play". Clearly a) shouldn't make a difference in the logic, but I don't really see why b) would either.

Please tell me if I'm missing something.

6

Dominion General Discussion / Speculation on Ways

« on: March 10, 2020, 02:47:17 pm »

So, we've seen 5 Ways so far: Ox, Mole, Turtle, Chameleon, and Rat, with 15 more on the way.

Over in the interview thread, Donald X seemed OK with our speculating based on the leaked names:

Would you be willing to share what the remaining Way animals are? It'd be fun to speculate what they might do, based on the names alone.

This info is already on the Wiki; it's linked to in one of the previews threads.

Sure, I saw that. But it felt like an unofficial leak*; I preferred not to speculate publicly in the forums until it was something more official.

* though I will admit, it's what inspired this question

I'm happy to leave it as, you know there was that leak, you can go look at it and speculate.

 So here's a thread for just that. My suggestion is limit yourself to just one or two Ways per post, so as to not overwhelm the speculations.

Here's mine:

It'd be cool of Way of the Butterfly somehow had to do with the Butterfly effect, i.e. do something small now, that could eventually lead to something much larger later. But honestly, I'm not sure in practice what that would work. I mean, with tokens, you could do something like Sinister Plot, but as we know, no tokens this expansion.

7

Variants and Fan Cards / Design style

« on: February 08, 2020, 02:08:51 pm »

Hi all,

This is my 200th post - woohoo! Arbitrary, for sure, but I've decided that I want to make every 100th post something "special". So for #200, I want to survey opinions on design style.

We have some amazing design creation guides that have helped me immensely in thinking through some ideas (and trashing others). Whereas there are definitely some obvious do's and don't in regards to mechanics, design style is more a matter of opinion. I'm curious what others think is good / bad style when designing cards.

Here's a few topics I've considered (sometimes based on comments from other posts), with my personal opinions in ().

Theme
In other words, how much does the card match the name of the card? Dominion is a game where theme does sometimes seem to play second fiddle to mechanics, but it always pleases me when a card's text makes sense in the context of the name / theme.

(My personal preference is to err on the side of theme - I'll start with some idea, then figure out a name, then tweak the idea so it matches better with the name. (or sometimes, I'll even start with a name and go from there). In other words, I'm willing to sacrifice some on the mechanics if it helps the flavor.)

Setting
Related to theme, do you care about the setting of your cards? Official cards have expanded the setting - most cards fit well in a medieval setting, and then we had Empires and a Roman setting. I never imagined we'd have mythical creatures and spirits, then Nocturne came out. Similarly, for those who add artwork, how important is it for you that the artwork match the setting (and not use modern settings)?

(I try to fit my cards in a setting that would fit the official settings, but for the right card I'll likely make an exception - I have one as of yet unpublished card, which didn't exist in the real world until the late 1700s)

Simplicity vs Complexity
How much do you care about the complexity of the card? The amount of text?

(I prefer simple to complex, BUT find that most of my ideas end up being complex; the one time I did get runner up in the WDC was, of course, my simplest card text, though that's just because I introduced a new kind of token, i.e outsourced the text to the rules)

Mechanics from multiple expansions
I have seen some comments on custom cards that frown upon using mechanics from two different expansions (e.g. a debt cost card that gives Villagers). Is this something you consider in your design or is it a free for all?

(I am perfectly fine mixing up mechanics. If I were designing for on an official set, I would care, but since I'm not (yet!  ), I prefer being able to explore things that can't necessarily be done in an official set)

Setup instructions
What do you think of extra set up instructions? For example, I recently had a card that had a below the line clause of: "Setup: Add 2 extra Attack Kingdom card piles to the Supply" and  received a couple comments against it.

(I ended up removing it, but am still unsure. I likened it to the Alchemy suggestion of 3-5 potion cards, so I moved it to my "virtual" FAQ).

Useless cards in some (many?) setups
Similar to setup instructions, what about cards that may not have an effect in some games? Using my worshipper tokens as an example again, I've designed an event and a landmark that would only be useful in a game with worshipper tokens.

(my general thought, again, is with the right FAQ, e.g "only use in games with worshipper tokens", this is interesting; but I can see it not being a good design for an official set)

Game altering cards
How much do you care about designs that can completely alter the strategies of a match? For example, I remember one card I had where the comments where that it would enable fast pile depletion.

(While I wouldn't want to play with such a card all the time, I do think it's great to have a card that completely flips the usual strategies. In the example above, if someone goes for the fast pile depletion card, you may have to alter your intended strategy very fast, and I think recognizing and executing that can be challenging and interesting)


Thoughts on the above topics? Any others related to design style that you've considered?

8

Variants and Fan Cards / scolapasta's cards

« on: June 08, 2019, 01:52:53 pm »

Hi all,

I recently discovered the Weekly Design contest and I love it! As I posted there, I've always wanted to come up with custom cards, but have struggled on where to start. Having the weekly design content to focus my ideas on a specific concept is fantastic! And to get feedback on top of that?? Wonderful!

Being new to this, I don't expect to win very often, but I would love to continue getting feedback and tweaking the cards until they work well. So this thread is for that. I'll post both cards from the contests and others I come up with and anyone interested in helping improve my ideas is welcome to comment.

This top post will contain the current version of all the cards.


Worshippers, a new type of token that you can "spend" during your Clean up phase:

At the start of your Clean-up phase, you may remove tokens from this to trash a card from your hand or one you have in play for each token removed.

Benefits of Worshippers (compared to just trashing a card):

• you can play a Copper (or other card) on the same turn that you trash it
• you can hold on to the trashing if you don't have anything current to trash
• the corollary to that is you can stock up on Worshippers as a defense to gaining Junk
• a trasher like Apse Chapel can effectively trash itself, when you're done with it

Cards that give Worshippers:

Apse Chapel, a Chapel variant
Cloister, an Action-Night that trashes in the day, and gathers Worshippers at night
Archbishop, a "Grand" Bishop
Congregation / Blessing, TfB for Worshippers
Occult Dealer, a card gives out one of type of each "spendable" token



Card-shaped things that care about Worshippers:

Tithe, an Event that trades a Worshipper for a $1
Mausoleum, a landmark that gives VPs for Worshippers
Convent, a Project that gives out a Worshipper when you gain or trash a Victory card
Chalice, an Artifact with a Bishop-like effect

]

FAQ:

• At the start of your Clean-up phase means before you discard any cards.
• Only use Title and Mausoleum in Kingdoms that games that give Worshippers.


Overpay for Tokens

Developing Village, overpay for Villagers
Endowment, overpay for Coffers
Graveyard, overpay for Worshippers




Challenge Cards:

Mystical Chest:, an Fate-Doom card
Cabal:, an TR variant that also works on Night cards
Stockpile:, a cheap "reloadable" Gold
Collector:, an Improve variant, with Magic Lamp as an Heirloom
Coven:, an event that allows you to turn Action into a Curser




Changelog:
v0.1 Worshippers, Apse Chapel, Archbishop, Parish - initial*
v0.1 Undercroft - initial*
v0.2 Worshippers - changed wording to "At the start of your Clean-up phase" to be more clear
v0.2 Archbishop - added additional Worshipper
v0.2 Parish - made more interesting by counting Worshippers
v0.2 Cloister (formerly Undercroft) - made into Action-Night, so it trashes cards now
v0.3 Graveyard (formerly Parish) - back to the initial version (with an additional Worshipper), but with new name
v0.3 Cloister - Night now always gets exactly +1 Worshipper
v0.2 Mystical Chest - initial (**)
v0.1 Blessing - initial
v0.3 Archbishop - 1 less VP, 1 less Worshipper, but now takes the Chalice
v0.1 Congregation - initial
v0.2 Blessing - now a reserve card that's not in the supply
v0.1 Title - initial
v0.1 Mausoleum - initial
v0.1 Convent - initial
v0.1 Chalice - initial
v0.3 Mystical Chest - fixed background color
v0.1 Occult Dealer - initial
v0.2 Congregation - loses +1 Card; gains blessing to hand
v0.3 Blessing - now an action - reserve card
v0.2 Occult Dealer - changed cost to $5
v0.2 Convent - changed cost to $3 and also gains Worshipper when trashing Victory cards
v0.1 Developing Village - initial
v0.1 Endowment - initial
v0.4 Graveyard - now overpay for Worshippers
v0.2 Developing Village - added +1 Action if you trade, +1 Card if you don't and the trade has to be differently named
v0.3 Worshippers - wording change; now, if you spend a Worshipper, you must trash a card
v0.3 Convent - dropped cost to $2
v0.4 Archbishop - changed Chalice taking to be conditional; removed no Coppers clause
v0.2 Chalice - now once per turn
v0.2 Cabal - initial (***)
v0.2b Stockpile - initial (***)
v0.3 Collector - initial (***)
v0.2d Coven - initial (***)
v0.4 Collector - added + 1 card
v0.3 Coven - lowered cost to $5 and removed non-Attack

(*) v0.1 of Worshippers, Archbishop, Parish, and Undercroft were only posted in the Weekly Design Contest thread
(**) v0.1 of Mystical Chest was never posted - see secret history for reasons why
(***) previous versions of these cards posted in Weekly Challenge thread