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1

Weekly Design Contest / Weekly Design Contest #209: Next Time, Last Time

« on: January 15, 2024, 12:02:37 am »

I really liked how one of my previous contests turned out, transporting one mechanic (that doesn't require any extra components) to another. Thus, I have come up with this week's challenge:

Design a "next time" Duration card that would "fit" in an expansion besides Plunder.

The easiest way for a card to fit into another expansion is for it to use a mechanic/component specific to that expansion. It may be possible to make a card fit thematically with a set without using such a mechanic, and they certainly aren't required. But the card should feel like it fits in that set.

You may use multiple cards and/or landscapes, including non-Supply cards. There's no limit to the number (but keep in mind that simplicity is a judging criteria). But, at least one of the cards in your submission needs to be an original "next time" Duration card you designed. Also, please be sure to identify which expansion you are using.

Also, since the card needs to  "fit" in one of the official expansions, it cannot have any set-specific features from a different set (aside from being a "next time" Duration card). That means no Reserve cards that gain Horses, no Allies that give Villagers, etc. It also means no fan mechanics which would require additional rules etc.


My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms);
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck;
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand; and
• topicality -- the card (or cards) fit the instruction in an interesting way--here, this means both the use of the "next time" mechanic and fitting in the set.

The deadline for submissions will be 21:40 UTC / 4:40 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Tuesday, January 23, 2024.
Please let me know if you have any questions.

2

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 78: He Who Remains

« on: November 22, 2023, 02:25:32 pm »

For Week 78, I'm using a mechanic that I came up with a while ago, but have gone back and forth about, not sure if it is worthy of being its own thing: Remain cards. Remain cards are similar to Duration cards (they even share the same orange color), but they operate differently enough (I think) to justify being their own mechanic.

Here are the rules for Remain cards:

• Remain cards are orange and may stay in play beyond the turn they are played.
• As part of their ability, Remain cards will put Remain tokens on themselves. They do this using a +Remain direction, with +X Remain putting X Remain tokens on a card. So, for example, if a card says "+2 Remain" it will put 2 Remain tokens on itself.
• Players do not discard Remain cards in Clean-up if they have any Remain tokens left on them. Instead, players remove one Remain token from each Remain card each Clean-up.
• Remain cards are not discarded the turn their final Remain token is removed; instead they will be discarded the following turn (unless additional Remain tokens are added).
• There may be other ways to add or remove Remain tokens from a Remain card.
• Unlike with Duration cards, everything a Remain card does on-play happens the turn it is played.
• Thus, if a card such as Throne Room plays a Remain card multiple times, that card does not stay in play until the player discards the Remain card, as there is no need to track the fact that the Remain card was played multiple times.
• Remain cards may have an effect on future turns using a below-the-line ability, but playing a Remain card multiple times will not multiply that ability (although doing so will put more Remain tokens on the card, which could strengthen the ability or extend the time it's working).
• I have made a few examples of Remain cards for the follow-up post.

The task is simple:

Design a Remain card.

The Remain type is not by itself playable, so your Remain card will need at least one other type (presumably a playable type such as Action / Treasure / Night / Dawn / etc.). Your Remain card can have any other type as well (I don't think Remain - Duration would work, but I'm not banning it in case someone comes up with something creative I'm not anticipating). You are also free to include any other official or fan mechanics in the design and to use any additional cards/landscapes you want to support your card's design--and if you use a split pile or non-Supply card, you are allowed (but not required) to use multiple Remain cards.


My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms);
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck;
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand;
• topicality -- the card uses the mechanic in an interesting way;

The deadline for submissions will be 19:30 UTC / 2:30 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Thursday, November 29, 2023. Please let me know if you have any questions.

3

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 65: What a Character

« on: May 03, 2023, 12:50:22 pm »

For Week 65, I'm introducing a new type of landscape, Characters. In a game, each Character used is particular to one player.

Here are the rules for Characters:

• In games using Characters, each player starts with 20 Character Points (CP).
• Before the first turn, each player is dealt 3 Characters (face down), choosing one and returning the other 2 (still face down) to the box. Players do not reveal their Character until each player has chosen.
• During the game, Characters are either Tired or Ready; you can only use your Character's abilities when they are ready.
• Characters start Tired. This can be indicated by the landscape being face down (although anyone can check to see what it does if it is) or with some sort of token.
• A player's Character becomes Ready when they shuffle their deck.
• During a player's Action phase, they may use one of their Character's abilities by spending an Action and the required number of CP.
• Some abilities cause a Character to Tire; they cannot then use more abilities until they become Ready again.
• If the ability does not cause a character to Tire, and the player has more Actions, they may use another ability that turn.
• In the set these are in, there may be a way to gain additional CP, but they won't always be available in games using Characters (see the follow-up post for more on this).
• I have made a couple of examples for the follow-up post.

The task is simple:

Design a Character.

In doing so, feel free to include any additional cards/landscapes (official or fan made) you want to support your Character's design, and feel free to use any official or fan mechanics in the design.

I have made this TEMPLATE for you to use.

My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the Character useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms);
• playability -- the Character is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck;
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand;
• topicality -- the Character uses the mechanic in an interesting way;

The deadline for submissions will be 17:00 UTC / 1:00 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Wednesday, May 10, 2023. Please let me know if you have any questions.

4

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 62: Be a Lady Tonight

« on: April 03, 2023, 03:05:24 pm »

For Week 62, I'm using a non-Supply card, Luck:

Luck • $0* • Action +1 Action Look at up to 4 cards from the top of your deck. Discard any number of them. Put one into your hand, and the rest back on top in any order. Return this to its pile. (This is not in the Supply.)

Luck is a kind of riff on Wish. Instead of gaining a card to your hand, it puts one of the top 4 cards from your deck into your hand. The idea is that it effectively functioning as a kind of "lucky draw" in which you get the best/most need card that is generally coming your way. It also gives you the opportunity to discard unwanted cards and/or to order the cards on the top of your deck so you can get "lucky" again with cards that interact with it (e.g. Wishing Well). And it can look at fewer than 4 cards so you don't unluckily trigger an unwanted shuffle. Since it's a one-shot cantrip, playing it has no net effect on your hand size or number of Actions/Buys/Coins.

I originally designed Luck as a mechanic for this contest, but then ended up using (a different version of) it in my submission for WDC 134. However, I still think it makes an interesting mechanic. Therefore, the task for this contest is:

Design a card or landscape that uses Luck and at least one other mechanic from a previous fan card contest.

There are 55 previously used mechanics out there, so it should not be hard to find one to use along with Luck. For your design, feel free to use any number of supporting cards/landscapes, any number of official mechanics, and any number of additional fan mechanics (including ones that have never been a part of a previous contest).

My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms);
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck;
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand;
• topicality -- the card (or cards or landscape) uses Luck in an interesting way;

The deadline for submissions will be 20:00 UTC / 3:00 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Monday, April 10, 2023 16:45 UTC / 12:45 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Tuesday, April 11, 2023. Please let me know if you have any questions.

5

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 60: Season 6 Finale

« on: March 07, 2023, 01:51:22 am »

It's Week 60, and we've already had some interesting mechanics in Season 6, so we're doing the finale. Here is the objective:

Create a card/landscape that uses at least 2 different mechanics from Season 6.

For your design, feel free to use any number of supporting cards/landscapes (and it is fine if one or both of the Season 6 mechanics are on those), and feel free to use any number of official and/or other fan mechanics.

As a reminder, here are the Season 6 mechanics:

Week 52:	It only gets Charter	Charters (Duration - Events)
Week 53:	Climb Every Mount	Mounts
Week 54:	At the Border	Border mat
Week 55:	Jewelry	Jewelry
Week 56:	With Great Power	Power mechanic
Week 57:	Temp Worker	Non-Supply Remodelers
Week 58:	Be Resourceful	Resource Cards
Week 59:	Play now, Buy later	+Buy Tokens

My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms);
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck;
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand;
• topicality -- the card (or cards or landscape) uses and combines the mechanics in interesting ways;

The deadline for submissions will be 7:00 UTC / 2:00 a.m. Eastern/Forum time on Tuesday, March 14, 2023. Please let me know if you have any questions.

6

Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Gridiron

« on: February 12, 2023, 04:25:47 pm »

In honor of the big game coming up in a couple of hours, here is a special fan exception. The main theme is the Roster mechanic (which was explained in Week 45 of the fan card mechanic contest). Most (but not all) of the Kingdom cards use the mechanic. The other thematic element is that each of the cards are the singular noun of the name of each team in the National Football League (NFL). Three of those names were already taken:

Cardinal	Giant	Raider

But I turned the other 29 team names into cards. It was a lot of cards, and I had to stretch for some, but I'm pretty happy with a lot of them. I also tried to use a number of fan mechanics. Here are the cards:

Chief • $4 • Action - Duration - Command - Roster Now and at the start of your next turn, play a card costing up to $1 per Chief any player has in play (including this), from your Roster, leaving it there.

Eagle • $5 • Action - Command - Roster +2 Cards Discard a card. Play a card costing up to $1 per Roster card you have in play (counting this), from your Roster, leaving it there.

Bill • $3 • Action - Command - Roster Freeze this up to 6 times. Play a card costing up to $1 per Ice token on this, from your Roster, leaving it there. When you remove an Ice token from here, take {1}.	Dolphin • $4 • Action - Activation - Roster +2 Cards When you trigger this, play a card costing up to $1 per Dolphin you have in play, from your Roster mat, leaving it there.
Jet • $5 • Treasure - Duration - Roster - Command Choose one: +$2; or add a token here per Jet you have in play, and at the start of your next turn, remove them and play a card costing up to $1 per token removed, from your Roster, leaving it there.	Patriot • $5 • Action - Command - Roster +1 Card +1 Action Discard a card. Play a card costing up to $1 more than it from your Roster, leaving it there.

Bengal • $4 • Action - Command - Roster +2 Cards Discard the top card of your deck. You may trash it to play a card costing less than it, from your Roster, leaving it there.	Brown • $3 • Action - Command - Roster Choose one to play from your Roster, leaving it there: a card costing up to $2; or a card you haven't played this turn, costing exactly $1 more than one you have played this turn.
Raven • $4 • Action - Attack +2 Cards You may play a Raven from your hand. If this is the third time you've played a Raven this turn, each other player gains a Curse.	Steeler • $4 • Action - Level - Command - Roster Play a card costing up to $1 per level, from your Roster, leaving it there. Setup: Each player puts a Level token here.

Colt • $6 • Action +2 Cards +1 Action During your turn, this costs $1 less per card you've trashed this turn.	Jaguar • $4 • Dawn - Night - Command - Roster If it's your Night phase, trash a card other than this that you would discard from play this turn. Otherwise, play a card costing up to $1 per Jaguar you have in play, from your Roster, leaving it there.
Texan • $4 • Action - Attack - Command - Roster Discard any number of cards. Each other player with at least 3 cards more than you in hand discards a card. Play a card costing up to $1 per card you discarded, from your Roster, leaving it there.	Titan • $6 • Action - Command - Roster +5 Cards Reveal your hand. Discard any copies of a card beyond the first. Play a card costing up to $1 per card discarded, from your Roster, leaving it there.

Bronco • $3 • Action +2 Cards +1 Action If you have more cards in your hand than you have Action cards in play, discard 2 cards.

Charger • $4 • Action - Command - Roster +2 Cards Discard any number of cards, at least one per Charger you have in play. Play a card costing up to $1 per card discarded, from your Roster, leaving it there.

Commander • $6 • Action - Command - Roster Play two differently named cards, each costing up to $1 per Action card you have in play (counting this), in either order, from your Roster, leaving them there.

Cowboy • $4 • Action - Command - Roster +$1 Reveal your hand. Play a card costing up to $1 per Action card revealed, from your Roster mat, leaving it there.

Bear • $5 • Action - Kin - Command - Roster +4 Cards Do this 4 times: You may play a non-Bear Kin card from your hand, and if you don't, discard a card. Play a card costing up to $1 per Kin you have in play, from your Roster, leaving it there.	Lion • $7 • Action - Attack - Command - Roster Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards an Action (or reveals they can't). You may reveal an Action from your hand to play a card costing less than it, from your Roster, leaving it there.
Packer • $4 • Action - Command - Roster +$2 Play up to 2 Treasures from your hand. Then, pay up to $6 to play a card costing the amount you paid, from your Roster, leaving it there.	Viking • $5 • Action - Attack - Command - Roster +$3 Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards a card. Play a card costing less than the first card discarded, from your Roster, leaving it there.

Buccaneer • $5 • Action - Duration - Command - Roster +3 Cards Put a token on your Roster. Move any number of those tokens here. At the start of your next turn, remove them all to play a card costing up to $1 per token removed, from your Roster, leaving it there.	Falcon • $5 • Action - Reaction - Command - Roster Reveal a card from your hand. Play a card costing up to $2 per type (Action, Attack, etc.) the revealed card has, from your Roster, leaving it there. When any player gains a card with 2 or more types, you may play this from your hand.
Panther • $5 • Action - Command - Roster +2 Cards Trash a card from your hand. Choose one: +1 Power per $1 it costs; or spend up to 6 Power to play a card costing up to $1 each, from your Roster, leaving it there.	Saint • $3 • Action - Command - Roster Trash a card from your hand. Play a card costing as much as it or less, from your Roster, leaving it there.

49er • $4 • Action - Command - Roster +1 Card Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a Gold, gain a Gold to your hand. Otherwise, play a card costing less than it, from your Roster, leaving it there.	Ram • $4 • Action - Mount - Command - Roster +$2 Mount: When you play a Ram, you may play a card costing up to $1 per Ram you have in play, from your Roster, leaving it there. Dismount when you gain a Treasure.
Seahawk • $4 • Action - Duration - Command - Roster +1 Card +1 Action At the start of your next turn, reveal your hand, then play a card costing up to $1 per Duration card revealed, from your Roster, leaving it there.

Let me know what you think.

7

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 56: With Great Power

« on: January 31, 2023, 02:00:26 pm »

For Week 56, I'm introducing a new mechanic, Power. The mechanic is (I hope) both simple and broad, as is the task:

Design a card or landscape that uses the Power mechanic.

Power is a mechanic that strengthens (or weakens) Kingdom cards (or non-Supply cards or landscapes). Power is a changing, individualized property that is specific to a card (or set of cards) and a player. It is somewhat similar to my Level mechanic, but without the ability to increase it by buying the card. Rather, Power is increased or decreased by the operation of card/cards/landscape, and it also has an impact on how they function.

The easiest way to illustrate this is with an adaptation of an official card (now retired, from Seaside 1E), Pirate Ship, to use the mechanic:

Pirate Ship • $4 • Action - Attack Choose one: +$1 per Power; or each other player reveals the top 2 cards of their deck, trashes one of those Treasures that you choose, and discards the rest, and then if anyone trashed a Treasure +1 Power.

Rules FAQ:

• Power can be increased ("+X Power"), decreased ("-X Power"), counted (e.g. "+1 Card per Power"), compared (e.g. "If you have at least 3 Power..." or "... costing up to $1 per Power"), or spent ("spend X Power" which, by rule, can only be done if you have X Power to spend).
• Power is specific to a card or set of cards. So, if two unrelated Power cards appear in the same Kingdom, gaining Power for one does not gain Power for the other. However, the Power for multiple cards/landscapes can be linked by design.
• Power is also specific to each player.
• Each player's Power for each design starts at zero, unless the card specifies otherwise.
• I am open to the possibility of negative power; if you have a way for power to be lost, please clarify if it can go below zero.

For your design, feel free to use any number of supporting cards/landscapes. If you do, I will presume that all of the cards share Power unless you specify otherwise.

Because this mechanic is so broad, I was tempted to require using another fan mechanic. To keep the design options open, I won't, but I will strongly encourage you to use at least one other fan mechanic. Also, as usual, I have additional, ramble-y thoughts on the mechanic, which I will put in a second post.

My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms);
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck;
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand;
• topicality -- the card (or cards or landscape) uses the mechanic in an interesting way;

The deadline for submissions will be 19:00 UTC / 2:00 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Tuesday, February 7, 2023. Please let me know if you have any questions.

8

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 49: Some Enchanted Evening

« on: November 20, 2022, 11:00:38 pm »

For Week 49, I have chosen Something_Smart's Enchantments. Enchantment cards are playable cards which, in addition to any on-play effect, have a below-the-line ability that lets you "enchant" another card you gained. Your task is to

Design an Enchantment card.

Here is Something_Smart's explanation for how these work:

When you gain a card, you may optionally enchant it with an Enchantment card in your hand or one that you have in play. You may only enchant each gained card once. Some Enchantments might have restrictions what cards they can enchant.

When you enchant a card, immediately set aside the Enchantment card along with the card being enchanted. Both cards will remain there for the rest of the game, and the Enchantment will provide some permanent effect based on the card enchanted. Neither the Enchantment nor the card enchanted is considered in play. Return them to your deck at the end of the game.

Enchantment/card combos do not stack; you may set an Enchantment aside with a card if you already have a copy of that Enchantment set aside with a copy of that card, but it will have no effect.

Here are some examples Something_Smart made:

Feel free to use any other official or fan card mechanics, and any number of supporting cards/landscapes. You just need to design (at least) one Enchantment card.

I made a template if you to use in mocking them up.

My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms);
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck;
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand;
• topicality -- the card (or cards) uses the mechanic in an interesting way;

The deadline for submissions will be 05:00 UTC / 12:00 a.m. Eastern/Forum time on Monday, November 28, 2022. Please let me know if you have any questions.

9

Weekly Design Contest / Weekly Design Contest #167: Monster Mash

« on: October 25, 2022, 01:00:52 am »

Have you ever noticed that, while cards can have multiple types in any combination (including, since Intrigue, otherwise independent types), every landscape is just one type. But with Halloween coming this week--a time when barriers are breached and things aren't always what they seem--your task will be to break that rule and mash two kinds of landscapes. Specifically, this week's challenge is to:

Design a landscape that uses at least 2 official landscape types.

Originally I was going to limit this contest to two WELPs, but I'd prefer to leave the design space more open. If your combo has implications on the rules, please clarify. For example, if you design an Event - Artifact that can only be bought by the player that has it, you need to make that clear.

In addition to the multi-type landscape, feel free to use any number of supporting landscapes and/or cards (including non-Supply cards), and any official or fan mechanics (if you use a fan mechanic, please explain how it works or post a link). While fan mechanics are acceptable, the main landscape you submit needs to use at least two official mechanics (Acts and Edicts don't count). Also, if one of your submission's types is reliant on a kingdom card (i.e. an Artifact or State), make sure to include the card that gives players access to it (if necessary).

Finally, while not grounds for disqualification, I will be awarding points for landscapes with a flavor that fits the Halloween theme. Anything that involves or references monsters, spirits, magic, the occult, or anything supernatural will have a paw up on the competition.


My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the landscape useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms);
• playability -- the landscape is fun to play and works/helps with more than one type of deck;
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a landscape with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with a couple lines of text that is hard to understand; and
• topicality -- the landscape combines the types in an interesting way.

The deadline for submissions will be 05:00 UTC / 1:00 a.m. Eastern/Forum time on Tuesday, November 1, 2022.
Please let me know if you have any questions.

10

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 45: Any Given Sunday

« on: October 04, 2022, 04:00:28 pm »

So, with the recent return of the NFL¹ Season, I have been thinking about the game and tinkering with an NFL-inspired expansion. My idea is for there to be one card for each team, sharing a name (using singular instead of plural), except the 3 teams whose names are already official cards (Raider, Cardinal, Giant).

I wanted a custom mechanic, and came up with the idea of Roster cards, which use a Roster mat and a start-of-game draft. There had previously been a conversation about a mechanic that drafted cards, although I cannot now find it. In the spirit of this contest, I'd like to see what you can come up with. Therefore, for Week 45, you need to:

Make a card/landscape that uses the Roster mechanic.

A player's Roster consists of 6 Action cards, with one card costing each price between $1 and $6. Each player has a different set of cards, which they draft at the beginning of the game (the draft will be detailed in a subsequent post). The cards go onto a mat (this is a very initial mock-up):

The cards stay on the mat, and are played using cards with the Roster type (which will also, generally, have the Command type). The cards will, generally, have some limitation on which of the Roster cards can be played, based on their price. For example:

Commander • $6 • Action - Command - Roster Play two differently named cards, each costing up to $1 per Action card you have in play (counting this), in either order, from your Roster, leaving them there.

Commander plays 2 different cards from your Roster mat. If you play it by itself, it will only play the $1 card, then fail to play a second card. If you have 6 cards in play, you can play any 2 cards from your roster mat.

In order to have playable $1 cards, (other than use Necropolis and Poor House), the mechanic has a set of Animal cards, which are just the non-self referential Ways (all but Butterfly, Chameleon, Frog, Horse, Mouse, Rat, and Turtle). Purely by way of illustration, one of them will look like this:



A few additional notes. I gave it the Roster type, like the Looter type, to indicate that the mat should be used. If you feel strongly the cards shouldn't have the type (or if you want to use a landscape, which wouldn't), that is fine. I know this seems like a lot, but the tl;dr is that players will each get a different set of Action cards costing $2-$6 and a Way costing $1 that they can play using a Command card (or something similar).

My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms)
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand
• topicality -- the card (or landscape) uses the mechanic in an interesting way

The deadline for submissions will be 10:00 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. Please let me know if you have any questions.




¹ National Football League, a American (gridiron) football league with 32 teams, all in the United States of America.

11

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 42: Activation Cards

« on: August 16, 2022, 03:25:58 am »

Note: There haven't been many responses on the question of whether we would do Set Expansion Contests for the new 2nd Editions or go back to the Fan Card Mechanics contests. I was team 2E, but since that doesn't seem to be happening I don't want to hold up the FCMC any longer. If there's a big outcry to go back to the Set Expansion contest, I'm fine to pause this one, but absent that, let's go.


For Week 42, I have chosen LastFootnote's Activation cards. Activation cards are playable cards which, in addition to any on-play effect, have a second effect which can be activated later. Once an Activation card is put into play, it will stay in play until the player "activates" it. This is done by spending an Action during your Action phase (as if to play an Action card from your hand). An Activation card can only be activated once per time in play, even if the card itself is played multiple times (i.e. with a throne variant).

EDIT: LastFootnote has provided a more up-to-date explanation of the mechanic (I've moved the original description to the bottom of the post for reference):

When you play an Activation card, follow the instructions above the dividing line. The card then stays in play until Clean-up on the turn you trigger it. You might trigger it the same turn you play it, one or more turns later, or not at all. You can trigger an Activation card by spending an Action in your Action phase whenever you're not actively resolving another effect. In other words, in your Action phase you can either use an Action "point" to play an Action card from your hand or to trigger an untriggered Activation card you have in play. An Activation card may only be triggered once per time it's put into play, regardless of how many times you played it (with e.g. Throne Room). This means that a Throne Room or similar card that plays an Activation card multiple times never stays out with the Activation card; there's nothing for it to track.

Activation cards don't have to be Actions. They can be any card type, as long as it has the potential to get into play (so it can be activated). For your convenience I made templates in the fan card generator for Action - Activation, as well as Treasure - Activation, and Night - Activation (but feel free to combine it with other types).

The assignment is simple. Design at least one Activation card. Feel free to use any official or fan mechanics (including split piles, Traveller lines, etc.) and any kind and number of supporting cards or landscapes (although if you go overboard with either it will likely count against you in the simplicity category). The design should also be limited to a single randomizer worth of card(s)/landscape(s).

My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms)
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand
• topicality -- the card (or cards) uses the mechanic in an interesting way

The deadline for submissions will be _{14:00 UTC / 10:00 a.m. Eastern/Forum time} 22:00 UTC / 6:00 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Tuesday, August 23, 2022. Please let me know if you have any questions.




Here is LastFootnote's original description:

So I had an idea the other day for a new type of card: Activation. I even wrote a quick blurb:

These cards say “Activation” on the bottom line, i.e. "Action – Activation.” In addition to any effects these cards have when played or while in play, an Activation card has another effect that you can use by spending an Action. During your Action phase, instead of spending an Action to play an Action card from your hand, you may spend an Action to get the activation effect of an Activation card you already have in play.

Activation cards in play that have not yet been activated are not discarded during your Clean-up phase. They stay in play until activated and are discarded from play during the Clean-up phase of that turn.

Activation cards can only be activated once per time they are played. Once activated, they cannot be activated again until they have been removed from play and played again. Even if another card plays a single Activation card more than once, the activation effect can only be used once before the Activation card leaves play. Hence, if an Activation card is played twice by Throne Room, the Throne Room will be discarded from play normally during the Clean-up phase of that turn, whether or not the card it played has been activated.

In order to keep track of which Activation cards have been activated and which ones haven’t, when you play an Activation card from your hand, turn it 90° to the right. When you activate an Activation card, turn it right-side up. During your Clean-up phase, remember to only discard cards from play which are right-side up.

And here are some examples LastFootnote designed:

12

Weekly Design Contest / Weekly Design Contest #159: Some Nights

« on: July 28, 2022, 01:33:21 am »

So, even before Commodore Chuckles had us designing Shelters for other expansions, with the restarting of the Set Expansion Contest, I'd been thinking about set-specific mechanics (i.e. those that are only in one or two expansions). Many of them (Debt, Reserve) require additional components (like tokens, mats, etc.) that would make it hard to casually include a single example of them in a set. One notable exception to this are Night cards, which, while exclusive to Nocturn, don't require anything but a different color card and an explanation of how they work in the rules.

Thus, I have come up with this week's challenge:

Design a Night card that would "fit" in an expansion besides Nocturn.

The easiest way for a card to fit into another expansion is for it to use a mechanic/component specific to that expansion (see follow-up post for an incomplete list). It may be possible to make a card fit thematically with a set without using such a mechanic, and they certainly aren't required. But the card should feel like it fits in that set.

You may use multiple cards and/or landscapes, including non-Supply cards. There's no limit to the number (but keep in mind that simplicity is a judging criteria). But, at least one of the cards in your submission needs to be an original Night card you designed. Also, please be sure to identify which expansion you are using.

Also, since the card needs to  "fit" in one of the official expansions, it cannot have any set-specific features from a different set (aside from being a Night card). That means no Reserve cards that gain Horses, no Allies that give Villagers, etc. It also means no fan mechanics which would require additional rules etc.


My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms);
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck;
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand; and
• topicality -- the card (or cards) uses the mechanic in an interesting way--here, this means both that the card works (and makes sense) as a Night card and it fits the set.

The deadline for submissions will be 06:00 UTC / 2:00 a.m. Eastern/Forum time on Thursday, August 4, 2022.
Please let me know if you have any questions.



EDIT: Because whether a card's flavor and/or mechanic "fits" in an expansion is subjective, I'm not going to disqualify anything for not being sufficiently like the set. The only grounds for disqualification is using a different set's mechanics/card.

13

Weekly Design Contest / Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again

« on: May 16, 2022, 11:56:39 am »

So, since Allies came out we have had contests to design Liaisons and Allies, and if you all submitted a full set of 4-card piles, the next expansion would likely come up before I could fully judge of all them. Thus, I have decided to go with the other mechanic/motif from Allies, recursion.

Unlike the very specific mechanic that is Liaison/Ally, the notion of recursion is much fuzzier. So, here is my definition:

Recursion is a card's ability to move itself after it's been played so that you get that copy of the card back in your hand to replay it more quickly than you otherwise would have.

Official manifestations of recursion include Optional Topdecking* (Merchant Camp, Tent), Conditional Topdecking (Student), Conditionally Optional Topdecking (Alchemist), and Duration-into-Hand (Conjurer), and (although a bit less obviously so), Duration-into-Discard (Highwayman).

I would not consider cards that are gained to hand (e.g. Ghost Town) or gained onto deck (Nomad Camp) to be recursive, as the get-them-sooner is associated with gaining them, rather than playing them. That being said, I am not going to disqualify any card that has the capacity to move itself or to replay itself. But cards that play copies of themself (Cultist) don't count.

The contest is simple: design a card that uses recursion. While the recursion itself will have to be on a card (rather than a landscape--although a Way could work since it will be played through a card), feel free to use supporting cards and/or landscapes, and any other official or fan mechanic (if you use a fan mechanic, please either explain how it works or link to a post that does), keeping in mind that simplicity is important.

My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms)
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand
• topicality -- the card(s)/landscape(s) use(s) recursion in an interesting way

The deadline for submissions will be 16:00 UTC / 12:00 p.m. Forum (Eastern) time on Monday, May 23, 2022 23:00 UTC / 7:00 p.m. Forum (Eastern) time on Monday, May 23, 2022. Please let me know if you have any questions.

EDIT: Cards that replay themselves will also not be disqualified, but you should read this follow-up post explaining how I wouldn't consider many such cards to really fit the theme of recursion.



* While the term "topdeck" is frequently used on this forum and in Shuffle iT's user interface, it is not a term that's used in the syntax of official cards, so it should not be used in card designs (IMO).

14

Puzzles and Challenges / Quickly get more than 100 VP without Victory cards or tokens

« on: April 25, 2022, 05:03:24 pm »

Here's the challenge:

End the game on Turn 6, with more than 100 Victory points, while having no Victory cards and no Victory tokens.

What cards/landscapes need to be in a Kingdom to pull this off, and what strategy should you use?

Additional Rules:

• In terms of luck in drawing/shuffling, my solution needs only to (a) open $3/$4 (or $4/$3); and (b) hit $5 on turn 3.
• If both of those things happen, a player can end the game and get more than 100 VP with no Victory cards or Victory tokens on turn 6.
• Put another way, once a player has turns hitting $3, $4, and $5, three turns later they can pull off the combo and end the game with 100 plus VP (unless another player executes the combo first).
• The kingdom should follow the official rules/guidelines of no more than 2 WELPs (no more than 1 Way) plus if there is a Liaison in the Kingdom, an Ally (in addition to the 2 other landscapes).
• While the solution gets you 100VP+ without Victory cards/tokens, not buying Victory cards is not necessarily the optimal strategy; if you were playing this game for real, you might buy Victory cards.

I'm not sure if my solution is the best/only way to do this, and will be curious what others come up with.

15

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 29: Gone Pair-Shaped

« on: February 18, 2022, 01:05:05 pm »

This week we are doing Pair Cards. Pair Cards are a fairly simple concept: they are two Kingdom Cards in two Kingdom Card piles with one randomizer, meaning that they always appear in a Kingdom together. That's it. Here is a (not great) example:

     

The two Pair card piles count as two Kingdom Card piles for all purposes: towards the 10 Kingdom card pile total at the start of the game, and towards the 3 (or 4) pile game ending.

This week's task is simple. Design a set of Pair cards. You should make 2 Kingdom cards that each go in their own Kingdom card pile. No split piles or Knights/Castles mixed piles. But feel free to use supporting cards (non-Supply piles, Heirlooms, etc.) or landscapes (Artifacts, States, Conditions, etc.) and to incorporate any fan mechanic.

Since the main purpose of the contest is getting two cards that work well together, free to submit a card that you have submitted for a previous contest (or one that you considered submitting), along with a new card that pairs well with it. However, you need to submit 2 fan cards.

Since the cards will always be together, I will be judging them as a pair, using my regular criteria:

• balance -- the cards are useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of kingdoms)
• playability -- the cards are fun to play and work in more than one type of deck
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand
• topicality -- the cards use the mechanic in an interesting way
• theme -- the cards fit the overall theme of Dominion (this is the least important)

I will have a follow-up post with some additional design/judging notes.


The deadline for submissions is Friday, February 25, 2022 at 1:05 p.m. Eastern (Forum) time / 18:05 UCT.

16

Weekly Design Contest / Weekly Design Contest #140: Choose Three

« on: January 10, 2022, 06:51:11 pm »

Weekly Design Contest #140 is:

Design a card/landscape that has the player "choose three" from a list things it can do.

A common mechanic among official cards allows the player to "choose" from a list of different things that can be done. Most of these tell you to "choose one" from a list of options (see Steward, Catacombs). Two cards, Pawn and Trusty Steed ask you to "choose two" things, while two more cards, Courtier and Scrap allow you to choose a variable number, depending on a card each interacts with.

For this challenge, you need to design a card (or landscape) which allows a player to "choose three" from a list of things that can be done:

• The design should use the "choose" mechanic from the cards previously listed.
• Just because an entry contains the phrase "choose three" will not make it qualify.
• For example, a card that said "Choose 3 cards from your hand and put them onto your deck" would not qualify.
• However, shortcuts in language are fine. If you said "Choose 3 of the following to gain:" followed by a list of cards, that would be okay; you don't have to say "gain a" each time.
• I don't care if you use "3" or "three" (as long as it is exactly three, and not a variable number).
• The three choices must come from a single list. A card that lets a player "choose one" from 3 different lists will not qualify. (Under this rule, Count would be different from a "choose two" card).
• Players should choose exactly three items from the list (not up to 3, or a multiple of three).
• However, while all of the official "choose" cards with more than one option require choosing all different items, you don't have to follow that restriction. If you want the player to be able to choose an option more than once, that is fine.

Those are the only requirements, but another very important aspect is that the choice should be meaningful. This is somewhat subjective, so I am not going to disqualify any entries, but if players would pick the same 3 things in the vast majority of cases, you probably won't win. Other than that, my main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms)
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand
• topicality -- the card(s)/landscape(s) use(s) the mechanic in an interesting way

Your submission can be a Kingdom card, a non-supply card, or a landscape. If it is a non-Supply card or a landscape like an Artifact or State, make sure to include the card or landscape that gives players access to it. Feel free to use any official or fan mechanics (but if you use the latter, please explain how they work, or provide a link). This includes split piles or other ways to have multiple cards, but if you have too many you will lose points in the simplicity category.

The deadline for submissions will be 23:59 UTC / 6:59 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Monday, January 17, 2021. Please let me know if you have any questions.

17

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 24: Heritage Cards

« on: November 26, 2021, 03:37:55 pm »

For Week 24, I have chosen DunnoItAll's Heritage cards (from the Dominion: Subterfuge expansion). Heritage cards work like Heirlooms, but when a card with a Heritage is used, it replaces an Estate instead of a Copper.

Here are some examples:





The assignment is simple. Design a Kingdom card pile and a Heritage to go with it. Feel free to use any official or fan mechanics (including split piles, Traveller lines, etc.) and any kind and number of supporting cards or landscapes (although if you go overboard with either it will likely count against you in the simplicity category). Also, the Heritage cards themselves need not be Victory - Reaction cards like the two examples. Feel free to use Alt-VP or other dual types (including using fan mechanic types like Dawn or Kin cards). They don't technically even have to be Victory cards, but I think making them non-Victory cards should only be done with a lot of careful thought about the impact it would have.

My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms)
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand
• topicality -- the card (or cards) uses the mechanic in an interesting way

The deadline for submissions will be 21:00 UTC / 4:00 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Friday, December 3, 2021.

18

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 20: Season 2 Finale (One plus One)

« on: September 09, 2021, 09:47:16 pm »

(Note: after feedback from Timinou and segura I have rearranged this to hopefully be more clear; nothing has substantively changed.)

For the Season 2 Finale, you need to submit two designs, each with at least one mechanic. One design needs to be based around a Kingdom card pile and the other a landscape.

For the Kingdom card pile design, the only requirement is that it must incorporate at least one of the mechanics from Season 2 (Weeks 11-19) that is not used in the landscape design. Feel free to submit a regular, 10 (or 8/12) card plie, or to use any official (or unofficial) mechanics that jigger with pile size and makeup: split piles, extra cards (like Port or Rats), or even mixed piles (like Castles or Knights--but be warned, with these there is a serious risk of losing points in the simplicity category).

Your landscape design also needs to incorporate a Season 2 Mechanic not used in your Kingdom pile design. If your landscape is an Act or an Edict, you have already met this requirement. But you could also make an Event that Queues or a Project that is affected by the Seasons mat.

As a reminder, here are the Fan Mechanics featured in Season 2:

Season 2

Week 11: Acting Sideways

Week 12: High on your own Supplier

Week 13: Et Factum Est Ita

Week 14: 'Tis the Season

Week 15: Level Up

Week 16: We Only Take Card, No Cash

Week 17: Idle Hands

Week 18: From A to B

Week 19: Join the Queue

Feel free to support either of your designs (or both) with additional cards (non-Supply piles, Heirlooms, etc.) or landscapes (Artifact, States, etc.); your submission will still qualify if the Mechanic is used in the supporting card/landscape. For example, you could submit an Action card which gains an Artifact that Queues cards or an Event which gains a non-Supply card with the Season type. I'm not putting any limit on the number of these, but simplicity is one of the factors on which I am judging, and if I have to learn what a dozen cards/landscapes do to understand how your card works, it will hurt you in that department.

Also, while you can use these to support your design, they can't be the core of the design itself. In the first example given above, the Artifact-gaining-Action-card could count just as your Kingdom card design, but the Artifact could not count as your landscape. I would count it (and judge it) as part of the design of your Kingdom card.


Judging
I will judge each of the designs based on my usual criteria, which include Balance, Playability, Simplicity, as well as use of the mechanic and staying within Dominion's theme. I have previously summarized these as asking whether I would be excited to see the card as part of a Kingdom. Since I am asking for 2 designs, I will also be judging on how those designs work together. I would like to see some kind of synergy between the two designs, but more importantly, I would like to see them work together in a fun, balanced way.

Since this all will make scoring a lot more complex, I am actually going to score the submissions based on a specific criteria, and award points for each. I will not post the scores, but will be happy to message them to you privately as requested. I will give up to 40 points each for the individual designs, and 20 points for the interaction between the two designs (laid out in more detail below). The winner will be the highest overall score.


Deadline
Because I am asking for two designs, I am going to expand the notion of a "week" for the contest, to include the next work week, along with the weekend before and after it. Therefore, the deadline for submissions will be the end of next weekend, Sunday, September 19, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (a.k.a. forum time). (That is Monday, September 20 at 03:45 UTC.)

I hope this is not too complicated, and that you all enjoy designing these. Let me know if you have any questions.


TL;DR
Design a Kingdom card pile and an landscape, each using at least one Season 2 mechanic not used by the other. The deadline is Sunday, September 19, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (a.k.a. forum time).



Backstory
This contest is based on an idea I had, which is this: while there is interesting self-synergy in some official cards (Minion comes immediately to mind) or other designs (split piles, Heirlooms, etc.), the most interesting interactions in Dominion are between different cards/piles/landscapes/etc.

Around Week 15, I started thinking about a Season 2 Finale, and I got a bit worried. We already had two mechanics (Acts and Edicts) which, by definition, had to be landscapes, and two more (Suppliers and Level cards) which, by their nature, had to be implement via cards (Supplier because they only work when in play, and Level because you need to put something on their pile). This meant that the only mechanic that (at the time) could pair with each other was Seasons. By contrast, in Season 1, every mechanic except one (Wonders), could interact in a single design with every other mechanic. That's 28 different potential pairs (plus a few of them--Worshippers, Conditions, Ice tokens, and maybe even Kin--could have worked with a Wonder). This problem has been mitigated significantly in Weeks 16 through 19, with mechanics that are much more flexible. Idle Hands or Route tokens can be dished out just as easily by Acts and Edicts as by Kingdom cards, and (as I will express when I get the chance to post all the cards I designed over the past week), I think Queuing may have the most design potential of all, and can easily combine with any other.

Nevertheless, an idea I had earlier in the season has stuck with me, and I am going to go with it. As I said above, the most interesting interactions in Dominion are not within a design (Minion's disappearing money helping its dtx; Patricians allowing for lots of Actions to be in play when you buy a Forum, then drawing it once its in your deck; Secret Cave staying in play 2 turns to help your chances of triggering Magic Lamp), they are between designs (Rats + Ritual; Tactician + Baths; Skulk + Cathedral; Treasure Map + Way of the Turtle).



Detailed Scoring Criteria

Individual designs (40 points each)
Relevance (10 points) -- Did you make good, interesting use the mechanic (or mechanics)?
Balance (10 points) -- Is design useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms)? Put another way, in what percentage of Kingdoms would both using it and not using it be part of a viable strategy?
Playability (10 points) -- Is the design fun to play and does it work in more than one type of deck in a variety of different Kingdoms?
Simplicity (5 points) -- Is the design easy to understand, and is it easy to play the card (and remember how it is played (this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to resolve)?
Theme and creativity (5 points) -- Does the design's name/concept fit into the general theme of Dominion historically and have some connection to what the design actually does (including what the mechanic does)? (You may want to give an explanation here if you think there might be some ambiguity.) The last couple of points are available for particularly clever or creative titles, references, etc.

Interaction between the designs
Synergies (5 points) -- Does the presence of one design enhances the play of the other (and how broadly does that work)?
General compatibility (15 points) -- Do the two designs, when considered as a unit meet the tests (especially Balance and Playability) from above? If they combine to substantially limit a common strategy or the use of a broad class of cards (e.g. Attacks, Durations), they will score very low. On the other hand, if the ways in which they work together are useful (but not too powerful) across a range of common strategies, all 15 points might be on the table.

19

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up

« on: July 11, 2021, 07:45:43 pm »

For Week 15, I wanted to adapt Violet CLM's Project cards.

Project cards are works in progress. The archetypal Project card starts out weak but can be made strong by repeatedly investing in it. When you buy a Project card, you have a choice: either you gain the card as usual, or you add one of your Project tokens to that card's supply pile. (This still counts as buying a card for the purposes of e.g. Merchant Guild or Contraband.) The number of Project tokens each player has on a given supply pile is referred to as that player's level of that pile; each supply pile therefore starts out at level 0. There is no hard limit on how many Project tokens a player can have, in total or on any given supply pile, though specific cards may stop accruing benefits after specific levels.

As you can see, this was posted in 2016, before Renaissance was released (in 2018) and Project landscapes were introduced. To avoid confusion, I am going to suggest these be renamed as Level cards, and the tokens be called Level tokens. Other than the name change, I don't want to change any of the rules. I would restate those rules and add the following clarifications:

• Some cards have the Level type.
• Cards with the Level type can have any other type or combination of types.
• When you buy a Level card, you have a choice: either you gain the card as usual, or you add one of your Level tokens to that card's supply pile.
• If you choose to add the token, this still counts as buying a card (e.g. for the purposes of  Merchant Guild or Contraband); it does not count as gaining the card (like gaining a card and exchanging it would).
• The number of Level tokens each player has on a given supply pile is referred to as that player's level of that pile (and the cards in that pile).
• Therefore, each supply pile starts out at level 0.
• There is no hard limit on how many Level tokens a player can have, in total or on any given supply pile, though specific cards may stop accruing benefits after specific levels.
• Moreover, Level tokens are not component-limited; players may use a substitute if they run out.
• The archetypal Level card starts out weak but can be made strong by repeatedly investing in it by adding Level tokens.
• But, in theory, Level tokens could have a mixed effect (both strengthening some aspects of the cards and weakening others) or even just weakening it.
• While all Level cards can have Level tokens added to it using the buying mechanic, other Level cards might add (or even subtract) Level tokens through other means.

Violet CLM designed a number of Project card as samples:

Redecorate is a Remodel that starts out almost useless (although the "you may" wording means it can at least kill coppers) but can be built up to an Expand or beyond.
Entourage spends a while burdening you with junk (its on-buy effect is triggered when you put a Project token on it) before letting you gain it two at a time, or better.
Boom Town gradually becomes a village or better, but also helps you with anything you may be specializing in.
Initiate is cheap but mostly useless until level 4, when it becomes a bargain Market with potential to grow even further. May be worth gaining before leveling.
Arsonist allows you to mess with whatever cards your opponents have been leveling.
Sellsword is less effective than Militia but gains drawing abilities if other players compete with you for it.
College is a drawer that wants you to buy expensive cards before you start playing it.
Caravansary needs at least one token on it before you start, but then carries money indefinitely into the future until you finally want it.
Sunken City, like Encampment, disappears after you use it, but the moment you place a token somewhere you've got any number of sunken cities back in your deck again.
Ore is as straightforward a project card as it gets, a criminally overexpensive Copper that can be made better than Gold.
Smeltery turns coins into coin tokens, but only if you invest in it first.
Tithe gives you a lot of money in short order, but slows down the moment you get too greedy with it.
Memorial is a pricier Gold that turns into a cheaper Province.
Ramparts is a self-contained bidding war.

edit: fixed Ramparts link

Here are three of those cards, edited to use the updated language.

      


For the contest, design a Kingdom card pile that uses the Level mechanic. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot to give details about the actual contest. Once again, my main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see in a Kingdom? Important factors for me are:

balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms)
playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck
simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand
topicality -- the card (or cards) uses the mechanic in an interesting way

The deadline for submissions will be 23:59 UTC / 7:59 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Sunday, July 18, 2021.

20

Variants and Fan Cards / A different line for Pride Month

« on: June 28, 2021, 01:36:58 am »

Happy Pride Month!!!

June is Pride Month in the United States (and elsewhere). To celebrate, I made this rainbow-colored, Traveller-like line. Because some of the card types that correspond to some of the colors (red Shelters, green Victory cards, purple Curses) are not playable, they can't all be traditional travellers, so they instead advance on-trashing. I tried making them dual-type, but it lost a lot of the rainbow effect I was going for. In order to ensure that trashing is available, the first card (a shelter), comes with a card-trashing heirloom.

I mostly did this for fun. I tried to design cards that fit (at least somewhat) thematically with the official game and also had some connection to Pride. The primary design objective was not gameplay, and I am aware of some of the issues the cards create.

Here are the cards:

THE CLOSET SHELTER When you trash this, gain a Macaroni. Heirloom: Calamus

MACARONI ACTION - DURATION - TRAVELLER +1 Card +1 Action At the start of your next turn, +1 Buy and +$1. When you discard this from play, you may exchange it for a Labrys. (This is not in the Supply.)

LABRYS TREASURE - TRAVELLER $1 You may trash a Treasure you have in play for +1 Coffers. When you discard this from play, you may exchange it for a Lesvos Isle. (This is not in the Supply.)

LESVOS ISLE VICTORY 2VP When you discard this from play, you may exchange it for a Feast of St. Sebastian. (This is not in the Supply.)

FEAST OF ST. SEBASTIAN ACTION - REACTION - TRAVELLER +2 Coffers +2 Villagers When any player trashes a card, you may first play this from your hand. When you discard this from play, you may exchange it for a Persecution. (This is not in the Supply.)

PERSECUTION CURSE -2 VP When you trash this, gain a New Love. (This is not in the Supply.)

NEW LOVE DAWN Choose one: +3VP; or +$4; or gain a card to your hand costing up to $5; or +6 Cards, discard 3 cards. (This is not in the Supply.)

And here is the Heirloom that comes with the line:

CALAMUS TREASURE - HEIRLOOM $1 Choose one: +1 Buy; or trash a card from your hand.

I get that it does not fit with the current rules to design a single Shelter. This is obviously a bit of a lark, so it would be brought into a game for fun if the players wanted. I would suggest that players could simply decide in advance to replace one of the Estates if they decided to use this line.

As for the line itself, I am well aware that in most games it probably would not be possible to complete. It is one card longer than the official lines, and usually will be harder to get through (as three of the cards need to be trashed, rather than just played). Because of that, player may well choose not to keep advancing the line (this is especially true going from the 4th card to the 5th, as they risk -2VP if stuck with the second-to-last card). The trade-off, of course, the the very powerful final card. It is also a bit unusual in that players can get, at most, a single copy of the line. If one of the Travellers is trashed (e.g. by Swindler), the line would simply be lost to the player, which risks some swinginess, especially where it is likely that players will be able to get ahold of New Love and play it multiple times.

21

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 12: High on your own Supplier

« on: June 04, 2021, 01:55:20 pm »

For Week 12, I am introducing a new card type that I have experiment with a bit, Suppliers. Suppliers are cards that, once gained and played, offer the player one or more additional options during their Buy phase. Generally, Suppliers will come in a 10 card Kingdom piles in the Supply like any other Kingdom card.

How they work:

• Suppliers are played during your Buy phase. Unlike Treasures, they may be played at any point during your Buy phase, even after you buy something.
• Every Supplier card has at least one purchase option available. A purchase option is indicate by a price (in coins, debt, etc.), followed by a colon, followed by the effect the purchase generates.
• While the effect of a purchase will often be to gain a card, that is not a required.
• Buying a purchase from a Supplier you have played works exactly the same as buying a card, Event, or Project. The player spends the price and 1 Buy and then resolves the effect on the card's text.
• The price of a purchase can use pricing mechanics like costs less (e.g. Peddler) or overpay (e.g. Doctor).
• Once a player plays a Supplier, they may buy the purchase(s) as many times as that player has the Buys and resources to afford to do (subject to text on the card limiting such buying).
• In other words, playing a Supplier card is like adding a new Event (or multiple Events, if it has more than one purchase option) to the game, but one that is only available to the player who played the card, and only that turn.
• Buying the purchases isn't part of resolving the card (as, for example, paying your coins to Storyteller to draw cards is). But you can put restrictions on when/how the player can make the purchase, similar to Events that say "once per turn" or "once per game" (although the latter is not recommended for Suppliers).
• Suppliers may have some additional effect when they are played, which can including giving vanilla bonuses.
• Supplier cards can have other types (e.g. Treasure, Action, Reaction, Duration, Victory) as well.

As with Events, the possibilities are fairly extensive. However, an important design factor is that Supplier cards have some strong built-in disadvantages. The most obvious analogy is an Event, but Suppliers are weaker than Events in three important ways.

• First, unlike Events, which are automatically available to players, in order to get a Supplier one has to gain a copy of it, spending a Buy and its cost.
• Second, because a Supplier is a card in your hand that displaces some other card, you will generally be buying the purchase from a point of disadvantage (although this can be mitigated via vanilla bonuses).
• Third, while an Event is available every Buy phase, even once you have gained a Supplier card, it can only be used on turns during which you draw it. This means you not only have to gain the Supplier and forego a card in your hand, but you need to collide getting that card with the amount of the purchase. Contrast this with, for example, Ride; spending $2 and a Buy for a Horse is not necessarily the best value prospect, but when you end up with $2--especially when there are no $2 Kingdom cards--it is preferable to gain a Horse than nothing.

Therefore, the price point of any Event will almost always be much too high to be the price of a purchase for a Supplier with the same effect. This doesn't mean that Suppliers are inherently bad cards, but the value proposition of what you get for what you spend should reflect these factors.

Here are a few examples:

               
(I have designed several more, but I don't want to crowd out too many ideas; and yes, I stole the official art for Summoner)

The call of the contest is pretty straightforward. Design at least one card that has the Supplier type. The card(s) may have other types as well, and you can design non-Supplier cards (or card-shaped objects, including Artifacts or States) to support the design. You can use other mechanics, either official or fan-created. If you would like to generate a card image, the Custom Color is R:1.0 G:1.0 B:0.76, or you can use this template in Shard of Honor's New Fork of the Violet CLM's Card Image Generator.

The main judging criteria is, as always, would I be excited to see in a Kingdom? Important factors for me are:

• balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms)
• playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck
• simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand;
• topicality -- I am keeping things very open-ended in terms of what is allowed, but the focus of your design should be the Supplier card(s); also, the main purpose of the Supplier type is the purchase; if your card's primary use is the on-play bonus, it has missed the point.

The deadline for submissions will be 18:00 UTC / 2:00 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Friday, June 11, 2021. I hope you enjoy designing these. Please let me know if you have any questions.

22

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Contest -- Index, Hall of Fame, and link to Current Contest

« on: April 23, 2021, 10:20:24 am »

Current Contest
 
Week 83: Contractors

Index of previous Fan Card Mechanics contests

Links to the first post of each contest in the Fan Card Mechanics contest thread, as well as the judging/winner.

Season 1

Week 1: Worshippers
Judging | Winner

Week 2: Conditions
Judging and Winner

Week 3: Dawn Cards
Judging and Winner

Week 4: Trade tokens
Judging and Winner

Week 5: This Life Makes Me Wonder
Judging and Winner

Week 6: Spend, spend, spend!
Judging | Winner

Week 7: Next of Kin
Judging and Winner

Week 8: Under the Seeeeea
Judging and Winner

Week 9: too COOL for school
Judging and Winner

Week 10: Season 1 Finale Extravaganza!
Judging | Winner


Season 2

Week 11: Acting Sideways
Judging and Winner

Week 12: High on your own Supplier
Judging | Winner

Week 13: Et Factum Est Ita
Winner | Judging

Week 14: 'Tis the Season
Judging and Winner

Week 15: Level Up
Judging | Winner

Week 16: We Only Take Card, No Cash
Judging and Winner

Week 17: Idle Hands
Judging and Winner

Week 18: From A to B
Judging and Winner

Week 19: Join the Queue
Judging and Winner

Week 20: Season 2 Finale (One plus One)
Judging | Winner


Season 3

Week 21: Curse you!
Judging and Winner

Week 22: Travellers cheques
Judging and Winner

Week 23: Laying Down The Law
Judging and Winner

Week 24: Heritage Cards
Judging | Winner

Week 25: Enter the Dragon (Duration Attacks)
Judging and Winner

Week 26: Taskmaster
Judging and Winner

Week 27: Tokens and Outcomes
Judging and Winner

Week 28: Gone Fishing
Judging and Winner

Week 29: Gone Pair-Shaped
Judging | Winner

Week 30: Scrapbook
Judging and Winner

Week 31: Putting The Cart Before...
Judging and Winner

Week 32: Season 3 Finale
Judging and Winner


Season 4

Week 33: Trial By Fire
Judging and Winner

Week 34: Equipment
Judging and Winner

Week 35: Getting Sneaky
Judging and Winner

Week 36: A Different State To Start In
Judging and Winner

Week 37: The Best Things come in Threes
Judging and Winner

Week 38: In Sickness and in Health
Judging and Winner

Week 39: Snowy Mac-snow
Judging and Winner

Week 40: Blessings upon you
Judging and Winner

Week 41: Season 4 Finale
Judging and Winner


Season 5

Week 42: Activation Cards
Judging | Winner

Week 43: Piety
Judging and Winner

Week 44: I Can See The Future!
Judging and Winner

Week 45: Any Given Sunday
Judging and Winner

Week 46: Singletons
Judging and Winner

Week 47: No Good Mutineering Scallywags!
Judging and Winner

Week 48: Terrible Terror
Judging and Winner

Week 49: Some Enchanted Evening
Judging | Winner

Week 50: A Natural Gift
Judging and Winner

Week 51: Season 5 Finale Challenge
Judging and Winner


Season 6

Week 52: It only gets Charter
Judging and Winner

Week 53: Climb Every Mount
Judging and Winner

Week 54: At the Border
Judging and Winner

Week 55: Jewelry
Judging and Winner

Week 56: With Great Power
Judging | Winner

Week 57: Temp Worker (Non-Supply Remodeler)
Judging and Winner

Week 58: Be Resourceful
Judging and Winner

Week 59: Play now, Buy later
Judging and Winner

Week 60: Season 6 Finale
Judging | Winner


Season 7

Week 61: Copycat Cephalopods
Judging and Winner

Week 62: Be a Lady Tonight
Judging | Winner

Week 63: Sweet Dreams
Judging and Winner

Week 64: Delayed Gratification
Judging and Winner

Week 65: What a Character
Judging | Winner

Week 66: Berserker's Fury
Judging and Winner

Week 67: This land is your land, this land is my land
Judging and Winner

Week 68: Geyser mat
Judging and Winner

Week 69: Foreign Market
Judging and Winner

Week 70: Turn Counter
Judging and Winner

Week 71: Brother and Sister
Judging and Winner

Week 72: Season 7 Finale
Judging and Winner


Season 8

Week 73: Overplay
Judging and Winner

Week 74: Tiny Isle
Judging and Winner

Week 75: Obstacles
Judging and Winner

Week 76: What was yours is now mine
Judging and Winner

Week 77: Trope (Horizontal)
Judging and Winner

Week 78: He Who Remains
Judging | Winner

Week 79: We are our memories
Judging and Winner

Week 80: It's normally a Supply pile but in this game...
Judging and Winner

Week 81: Season 8 Finale
Judging | Winner


Season 9

Week 82: Pupil
Judging and Winner

Hall of Fame

Links to Hall of Fame posts (showing winners and runners-up/finalists from each week's contest) in this thread.

Season 1

Week 1--Worshippers

Week 2--Conditions

Week 3--Dawn Cards

Week 4--Trade tokens

Week 5--This Life Makes Me Wonder

Week 6--Spend, spend, spend!

Week 7--Next of Kin

Week 8--Under the Seeeeea

Week 9--too COOL for school

Week 10--Season 1 Finale Extravaganza!


Season 2

Week 11--Acting Sideways

Week 12--High on your own Supplier

Week 13--Et Factum Est Ita

Week 14--'Tis the Season

Week 15--Level Up

Week 16--We Only Take Card, No Cash

Week 17--Idle Hands

Week 18--From A to B

Week 19--Join the Queue

Week 20--Season 2 Finale (One plus One)


Season 3

Week 21--Curse you!

Week 22--Travellers cheques

Week 23--Laying Down The Law

Week 24--Heritage Cards

Week 25--Enter the Dragon (Duration Attacks)

Week 26--Taskmaster

Week 27--Tokens and Outcomes

Week 28--Gone Fishing

Week 29--Gone Pair-Shaped

Week 30--Scrapbook

Week 31--Putting The Cart Before...

Week 32--Season 3 Finale


Season 4

Week 33--Trial By Fire

Week 34--Equipment

Week 35--Getting Sneaky

Week 36--A Different State To Start In

Week 37--The Best Things come in Threes

Week 38--In Sickness and in Health

Week 39--Snowy Mac-snow

Week 40--Blessings upon you

Week 41--Season 4 Finale


Season 5

Week 42--Activation Cards

Week 43--Piety

Week 44--I Can See The Future!

Week 45--Any Given Sunday

Week 46--Singletons

Week 47--No Good Mutineering Scallywags!

Week 48--Terrible Terror

Week 49--Some Enchanted Evening

Week 50--A Natural Gift

Week 51--Season 5 Finale Challenge


Season 6

Week 52--It only gets Charter

Week 53--Climb Every Mount

Week 54--At the Border

Week 55--Jewelry

Week 56--With Great Power

Week 57--Temp Worker (Non-Supply Remodeler)

Week 58--Be Resourceful

Week 59--Play now, Buy later

Week 60--Season 6 Finale


Season 7

Week 61--Copycat Cephalopods

Week 62--Be a Lady Tonight

Week 63--Sweet Dreams

Week 64--Delayed Gratification

Week 65--What a Character

Week 66--Berserker's Fury

Week 67--This land is your land, this land is my land

Week 68--Geyser mat

Week 69--Foreign Market

Week 70--Turn Counter

Week 71--Brother and Sister

Week 72--Season 7 Finale


Season 8

Week 73--Overplay

Week 74--Tiny Isle

Week 75--Obstacles

Week 76--What was yours is now mine

Week 77--Trope (Horizontal)

Week 78--He Who Remains

Week 79--We are our memories

Week 80--It's normally a Supply pile but in this game...

Week 81--Season 8 Finale


Season 9

Week 82--Pupil

23

Variants and Fan Cards / Janus cards: a new fan mechanic

« on: April 12, 2021, 02:02:33 am »

A while back I was looking through the Dominion Card Image Generator discussion and came across this post responding to some asking when to use Violet CLM's double-sided template.

Basically that template is a solution in search of a problem. It's an expression of confidence that someday someone will have the perfect idea that can best (or only) be expressed by a double-sided card.

That sounds like as good a challenge as any, but I couldn't think of anything when I first saw it. I thought about it for a while, and what I ultimately came up with is a new card type called Janus cards.

Janus cards are divided in half, with an image in the middle and two titles, text boxes, costs and types, each on one side of the image. This is hard to describe in words, so I'll show an example:

Fame | Fortune -- $4
Fame
Treasure - Janus
+1 Coffers
Fortune
Treasure - Janus
$3

Fame|Fortune is a Treasure-Janus card. All Janus cards have at least one other type. As they are currently designed, the other type (or at least one of the other types) must be a playable card type (e.g. Action, Treasure, Night, etc.). Both sides do not necessarily need to have the same type. So far all Janus cards are Kingdom cards, although there's no reason they couldn't be non-Supply cards as well. They are gained like any other card, and their cost is listed on both sides (it is always the same).

By now you are asking, okay, but how do these work? I'm glad you asked. When a player plays a Janus card, they choose which way they want to play it. The side facing that player (i.e. appearing face up from that player's perspective) is the side that that player has played, and the effect is resolved normally by that player as if they had just played that card. However, the other side is resolved as if it had been played by each other player.

An example, Fame|Fortune is a Treasure card, so it would (normally) be played during a player's Buy phase. If Fortune is played, it is worth $3 for the player playing it, while each other player gets +1 Coffers. On the other hand, if Fame is played, the player playing it gets +1 Coffers, and the other players get $3, but cannot use it (with the caveat below). Thus, the strategic choice is whether to get the better effect ($3) but give something to your opponent, or take the weaker effect and give nothing to your opponents.

Just as they are at the end of any players turn, any Actions, Buys, or $ gained on another players turn are lost to a player when that turn ends. That means to the extent the opposite side of the card gives these to a player whose turn it is not, they will almost never have any effect. An official example of this is Caravan Guard, which gives +1 Action and can sometimes be played on other player's turns using its Reaction. That card contains a parenthetical stating that the +1 Action has no effect if its not your turn. Because of the tightness of the text boxes for these cards, they do not reminder players of this like Caravan Guard does.

(Also, it might, in theory, not be the case that getting these things has no effect. If at some point there is a Janus card that has a variant of Throne Room or Imp/Conclave and another player used that to play a Storyteller not on their turn, the $ they had previously received from other Janus cards might matter; that being said, I have not thought through the other implications of such a card [including stacking Janus cards], so those may not be able to reasonably exist).

On the other hand, +Cards while always be useful, as will getting tokens (Coffers, Villagers, VP tokens) or gaining/trashing cards. With that background, here are the first few cards I have come up with.

Some Action cards:

Fire | Water -- $4 Fire -- Action - Janus +1 Action You may trash a card from your hand for +1 Card per $1 it costs. Water -- Action - Janus +1 Action You may trash any number of Curses from your hand.	Supplier | Distributor -- $5 Supplier -- Action - Janus +1 Action You may gain a card from the Supply pile with the Distribution token on it to your hand. Distributor -- Action - Janus If you have more cards in your hand than any other player, you may move the Distribution token to any non-Victory Supply pile.	Spring Village | Cherry Blossom -- $4 Spring Village -- Action - Janus +1 Card +2 Actions Cherry Blossom -- Action - Janus +1 Action +$3

Dark Bargain | Dark Trade -- $4 Dark Bargain -- Action - Janus You may gain a Curse for +2VP; if there are no Curses in the Supply, you may trash an Action card from the Supply for +1VP. Dark Trade -- Action - Janus You may trash a card from your hand to gain a card costing up to $2 more to your hand.	Hearth | Home -- $4 Hearth -- Action - Janus +1 Card +2 Actions Home -- Action - Janus +4 Actions

I also designed a Night Janus card, as well as one that is half-Night, half-Action:

Dark | Stormy -- $2 Dark -- Night - Janus You may trash any number of cards from your hand. Stormy -- Night - Janus You may trash up to three non-Duration cards you have in play.	Daydream | Nightmare -- $5 Daydream -- Action - Janus +1 Action For each card you have in play, you may discard a card from your hand. Then, draw until you have 6 cards in hand. Nightmare -- Night - Janus Trash a card from your hand or up to two you have in play.

One area that I think has a lot of really interesting potential is with Duration cards. I haven't been able to actual come up with that much yet, though. Here is what I have thought of.

Sloop | Junk -- $4
Sloop -- Action - Duration - Janus
At the start of your next turn: +2 Card, +1 Buy
Junk -- Action - Duration - Janus
+1 Action
+$2
At the start of your next turn: +$1.

These are just my initial ideas, I have not spent a lot of time thinking about stuff like balance, design, or flavor.

I do think the Janus mechanic is only interesting (and using it and the unusual card design is only justified) for cards where players are reasonably likely to play either side of the card. It is not interesting to have one side be negative, making the card into an attack:



or even when one effect is clearly better, and would always be the player using the card's choice:



As the above cards (hopefully) illustrate, either of those things can be easily done with existing cards/mechanics, and are not worth using the Janus format.

As for the name, Janus was the ancient Roman god of (among other things) transitions, duality, beginnings and endings, etc. He was often portrayed as having two faces (facing out in opposite directions from a single head), and my awareness of him definitely does not just come from that one episode of Buffy. I actually don't love this as the name for these cards, but I really don't like "Dual" or "Double" cards, and haven't come up with anything else.

What do you think? Do you like these? Hate them? Does this make sense? What questions do you have? What do I need to explain, decide, or clarify? Do you like the name Janus? Do you have other suggestions?

24

Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Summertime (a fan expansion)

« on: February 14, 2021, 01:45:08 am »

You may not know this, but the lyrics to "The Christmas Song" (better known as "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire") were originally written down as a way to try to stay cool on a blistering hot July day by invoking memories of winter. In that spirit, I wanted to create some cards that remind me of the heat of summer. I don't know where you all live, but where I am it is bitterly cold.

Thus, Summertime. It's a small expansion, with 14 Kingdom Cards (two of which are part of a split pile). There is a new type of card-shaped object and mechanic, Conditions. Conditions are two-sided and don't have an innate effect on the game, but are referenced by specific cards that behave differently depending on which side is up. Unlike States or Artifacts, they are not taken by a specific player, but apply equally to all players and stay in the middle of the table. There are three, two-sided Conditions.

Easy Living/Hard Times:

Warm/Cool:

Rainy/Dry:

Here are the 14 Kingdom Cards. (I will discuss them in more detail in subsequent posts.)

There are also two non-Supply cards.

The main theme of the expansion is Conditions. Of the 16 cards, 11 make some reference to Conditions. The ones that need one or more specific Condition to work have the new type "Conditional" to make sure those Conditions are used.


Here are the old versions of cards that have been updated: