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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: March 10, 2024, 05:10:41 am »On a similar note, why don’t Charlatan and Footpad have some sort of visual reminder that they change the rules? A bolded “law:” for example. Their below the line texts are easy to overlook (especially IRL) and quite unprecedented/unexpected considering 99% of kingdom piles don’t modify rules. Did you consider other ways to implement those rules changes?No-one in playtesting ever said "hey we should add a word to these cards." I mean it's that simple; lots of things never come up, that's one of them. Possibly the cards should have been a unique color, to draw your attention at the start of the game; it didn't come up, and they sure aren't.
The precedents are Baker and Young Witch! Two cards in the same box as Footpad. In the old days on isotropic, it was easy to miss Baker; one player would say "Baker Alarm!" And later Doug added that as an automatic thing. I can imagine online wanting a little box at the start of the game that reminds you of Baker / Footpad. And I mean maybe that will happen; not due to me going over there now and seeing "hey" but I sure don't need to rule it out.
From my perspective, everything modifies the rules. Woodcutter modifies the rules. It's easier to remember because you have to buy it to start getting the effect. But I broke this with a whole mechanic eventually, Landmarks, and no-one ever says, "we can't remember Tomb." So it seemed fair game. I think with Footpad the issue is that the bottom isn't sufficiently related to the top (it's related, but it's very mild). This in turn was due to, the bottom rule was different (an unforgettable "you have 6 cards hands this game"), and that didn't work out (it's not at its best on a Militia, would you believe).
I would argue that there is a difference here. The extra effect on Baker only occurs once during setup so it doesn't need to be remembered throughout the game. And the presence of something extra on the table, like a Landmark or the Bane pile, is a reminder that there is something that affects the game. However cards like Charlatan and Footpad are just one of the 10 piles in the kingdom so there is nothing extra on the table, but they affect the game at times when I'm not handling those cards which makes it easy to forget that those effects exist.
That said, even though I like the idea of a bold prefix for these effects, I don't think it would make enough of a difference for me. I'm considering just printing the continuing effects on separate cards to put at the middle of the table as visual reminders.