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Author Topic: How many cards would be too many?  (Read 3826 times)

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NoMoreFun

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How many cards would be too many?
« on: January 18, 2014, 02:49:13 am »
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Let's say they continued releasing Dominion expansions indefinitely. Is there a point where there'd be too many cards in existence?

Personally, I don't think things that are issues for other board games expanding are an issue for dominion, with its limit of 10 cards in a kingdom. You could design a really complicated kingdom with 10 intersecting additional rules, but if you look at the way existing expansions are done that's not really an issue unless you set out not to have fun. The design contests show that there's no shortage of decent and original card ideas, and even then, the consequence of a poorly designed card is mitigated by all the other cards you can play with.
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Awaclus

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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2014, 04:42:59 am »
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There isn't a point at which new cards will stop improving the game, but there is a point at which new cards will start improving the game so little that they just aren't worth it anymore.

EDIT: With this, I mean that it takes a lot of time to learn how to play with new cards, but when you see those new cards in 1/50 of the games you play, it is a huge waste of time.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2014, 04:45:50 am by Awaclus »
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SirPeebles

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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2014, 07:52:14 am »
+1

Assuming that we play full random, then yes.  There is a point when all interesting, balanced, and sufficiently simple cards have been done.  Any new cards after that just dilute the sample set, increasing the likelihood that a given game will have a card which is boring, broken, or prohibitively complex.
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LastFootnote

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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2014, 10:11:30 am »
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Of course, many cards are uninteresting given the previous existence of other cards. The number of "interesting" cards increases severalfold if you consider each tiny variation on a single interesting idea to still be interesting. But that's not the way it works in practice.
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Ozle

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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2014, 10:42:30 am »
+1

I think there is room for 6 more cards.
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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2014, 10:57:09 am »
+4

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SirPeebles

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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2014, 10:58:34 am »
+1

Of course, many cards are uninteresting given the previous existence of other cards. The number of "interesting" cards increases severalfold if you consider each tiny variation on a single interesting idea to still be interesting. But that's not the way it works in practice.

Yeah.  It's also important to have many variations on the same theme for certain critical themes in order to maintain proper density for random games.  That is why, for instance, Donald made so many damned villages.  While the villages are great and all, they often play so similarly to Village that you may feel that they steal space away from more novel cards.  But of course, as Donald published more and more cards, he needed to continue making new villages or else the odds of a kingdom containing a village would drop off as you add new expansions.
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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2014, 11:07:37 am »
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I often find the different features of each village to be quite critical to the game. Except for Walled Village.
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GendoIkari

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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2014, 11:09:40 am »
+2

Donald has mentioned this before, but more new cards also requires more increased complexity. There would need to be more new mechanics; new rules that take time to understand beyond what's just written on the cards.

Also, more cards could be introduced if there wasn't the concern for making sure you don't make other cards obsolete. Donald has said before that certain cards couldn't exist just because they limit other things (I think he said he once had Throne Room at $3, and Throne Room with a bonus at $4. TR ended up needing to be $4, which required scrapping TRwaB completely, because it was terrible at $5). But, if you weren't concerned about both TR and TRwaB existing at $4, then you can have both. MTG does this, both Shock and Lightning Bolt exist.
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LastFootnote

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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #9 on: January 18, 2014, 11:12:02 am »
+1

The "easiest" way to create new, simple cards is to introduce new mechanics to the game. That way you can have a bunch of interesting new cards without necessarily putting all the rules on the cards themselves. The rules for the new mechanics can go in the rulebook. Guilds has Coin tokens and overpay. There are only 4 cards in that set that don't owe at least a good portion of their novelty to one of those two mechanics. Granted, Herald is a good card without overpay and Doctor might have squeezed by. But all the Coin token cards are only viable because of their new mechanic.

Of course, coming up with a new mechanic is itself difficult (at least for me), and not all new mechanics turn out to be workable.

EDIT: Ninja'd by GendoIkari
« Last Edit: January 18, 2014, 11:13:07 am by LastFootnote »
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NoMoreFun

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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2014, 11:20:13 am »
+2

Villages are good for fairly benign little ideas that don't really justify being their own card (Farming Village comes to mind).

But, if you weren't concerned about both TR and TRwaB existing at $4, then you can have both. MTG does this, both Shock and Lightning Bolt exist.

Thief and Thief with a Bonus both exist at $4 :P

Donald has mentioned this before, but more new cards also requires more increased complexity. There would need to be more new mechanics; new rules that take time to understand beyond what's just written on the cards.

This isn't necessarily true; a lot of fan cards have been quite simple. And even if a new mechanic on the level of, say, coin tokens was introduced, the 10 card limit keeps it in check.

Assuming that we play full random, then yes.  There is a point when all interesting, balanced, and sufficiently simple cards have been done.  Any new cards after that just dilute the sample set, increasing the likelihood that a given game will have a card which is boring, broken, or prohibitively complex.

I'm reminded of this loosely related video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAcjV60RnRw&noredirect=1

I think there are still A LOT of good original, interesting, balanced and sufficiently simple cards out there, even though a few official cards fail on one or more of those criteria.

There isn't a point at which new cards will stop improving the game, but there is a point at which new cards will start improving the game so little that they just aren't worth it anymore.

EDIT: With this, I mean that it takes a lot of time to learn how to play with new cards, but when you see those new cards in 1/50 of the games you play, it is a huge waste of time.

Personally I think the game gets a little worse when you become aware of how relatively powerful certain cards and their strategies are. I much prefer the earlier days when I'd look at the price and effect and try to guess the power (as long as I don't end up being horribly misled like with Thief).


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NoMoreFun

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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #11 on: January 18, 2014, 11:23:10 am »
+1

The "easiest" way to create new, simple cards is to introduce new mechanics to the game. That way you can have a bunch of interesting new cards without necessarily putting all the rules on the cards themselves. The rules for the new mechanics can go in the rulebook. Guilds has Coin tokens and overpay. There are only 4 cards in that set that don't owe at least a good portion of their novelty to one of those two mechanics. Granted, Herald is a good card without overpay and Doctor might have squeezed by. But all the Coin token cards are only viable because of their new mechanic.

Of course, coming up with a new mechanic is itself difficult (at least for me), and not all new mechanics turn out to be workable.

Overpay is adequately explained by the text on the card IMO.

A bit surprised hearing that from you LF. You seem to be able to come up with lots of new card ideas.
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LastFootnote

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Re: How many cards would be too many?
« Reply #12 on: January 18, 2014, 12:09:02 pm »
+3

A bit surprised hearing that from you LF. You seem to be able to come up with lots of new card ideas.

I am flattered that you think so. Perhaps I make it look easy when I post a bunch of card images together, but coming up with all those ideas was hard. Let's take my set, Enterprise, as an example. That set has been in development for over 2 years now. Before I decided to include the Trade token cards, it was mostly just cards that more or less used existing mechanics. I had the "advantage" that Donald had decided one-shots were a bad theme for a set. It was a mechanic I could explore without worrying that we'd overlap too much. Even so, that set has a fair number of off-theme cards and three empty slots. I am struggling to come up with ideas to fill those last three slots.

For me, a large part of coming up with good ideas is quickly identifying which ideas are bad and not wasting too much time on them. It's having a good average that makes someone look like they have a lot of good ideas. If I'd posted all the cards I have, plus 100 more duds, I doubt you'd be thinking I had lots of good card ideas. Of course, even the ones that I think look good at first don't always work out. My list of outtakes is much longer than my list of cards currently in the set.
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