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[rspeer]

You know, I forgot about the untrashable part. I overstated things slightly. If the recipient gets to choose which Curse card to gain, they might not gain a Familiar-Curse because they can't trash it.

So if there are trashers, there might be an actual decision to make there. But then, still: you don't want to have Familiar-Curses, and you don't want to play attacks that might give you a Familiar-Curse or three instead of giving your opponents Curses, so basically the card never enters play.

[Jack Rudd]

A question: what happens when a card that "cannot be trashed" interacts with a mandatory trasher?

[DStu]

A question: what happens when a card that "cannot be trashed" interacts with a mandatory trasher?

As the universe tends to avoid paradoxa, I think there will just be some quantum interference thing that will pervent this from happening...

[rspeer]

bmtrocks: Plague has no purpose on its own.

Please take into account people's reasonable advice that you shouldn't design cards that only work in set combos, especially when you admit that one of them is brokenly powerful. Your goal isn't to tell people what combos to make out of the cards, it's to design the cards so that interesting, balanced combos with lots of other cards emerge.

If you're designing cards that you recognize are broken, and whose interactions with the game of Dominion you have not thought through, you probably should not rush ahead and make the card art. That just gets you more invested in not fixing them.

[bmtrocks]

I've thought about it for an unreasonably long time, and concluded that the situation you have described never happens. I thought for a moment it was when anyone in the game reveals a Watchtower, Horse Traders, or Secret Chamber, or when an uninvolved third player reveals a Moat... but none of those cards get played.

If you change "play" to "reveal", then in 2P games it amplifies the power of a reaction card without you even having to buy/gain it, and in 3+ games it has some weird ass political effect that you clearly didn't intend. What did you actually mean?

Yeah this is what I meant, it's an actual legit typo and I apologize for that.  Both Familiar and Priest went through some wording variations so I think I let that slipped by at some point for some reason, even though I could've swore I put reveal for the majority of the time spent tuning the card.

This sounds like you're trying to make a card that turns an attack back on the attacker (although I'm really not clear on what it does). You have read the guides so you know well why Dominion has no such cards: it's either too weak to be worth gaining, or it's strong enough that it makes it undesirable to buy any Attacks in the kingdom, or it's "balanced" perfectly in the middle where you don't want to gain that card or attack cards.

If I understand your current rules, it's a curse because you can gain it from someone playing Witch. Then here's how the equilibrium works:

• Any rational player would gain a curse named Familiar (not to be confused with the Alchemy card named Familiar...?) in preference to a curse named Curse.
• So cards like Witch now give out 0VP curses with some sort of benefit, instead of -1VP curses. The benefit might even (in some hard to define way) cause the card to clutter your deck instead of your opponent's.
• Therefore, Witch does not have its intended effect anymore. So nobody ever buys Witch, or Sea Hag, or the other Familiar, or...

But enough of that. You've read the Secret Histories so you already know this.

I'm kind of confused what you're arguing against here, I don't think you get the rule revision.

Basically the rule revision is this, when Curse cards are in the Kingdom: Everytime a card says "gain a Curse" the person who has the card gets to choose what Curse is gained (unless stated otherwise).  So if I play Witch, Sea Hag, Familiar or any other Curse givers, I choose what Curse my opponent's gains, cause there are more Curse cards in play rather than one, there are choices essentially.  Someone who gains Plague, chooses their Curse because it's their's (which makes it's description rather redundant, I should fix that).

I apologize for the Familiar confusion, I think I'll re-title the card to "Witch's Familiar."  But to explain the purpose of the card, if people didn't get it: The "Curse" is that it's cluttering your deck and you can't do anything about it.  In games with Chapel and other trashing cards you can easily get rid of your Curses quite easily making -1VP Curses quite weak, but in a game like that a Witch's Familiar basically doesn't allow anyone to trash it.  It's a weak attack, but then again, so is a Curse in a lot of games, so I think it's appropriate to give variety to this, which was my intention with the card.

When do the two effects of Sloth (the one that's a Lab on the start of the turn) happen? If they're both on the start of the turn, then (as you know) the line you put between them is incorrect. It's also unclear what order they stack in when you have two of them, and what order they stack with Duration cards. It probably triggers the "player chooses the order of simultaneous events" rule, which is hella confusing here.

Sorry for the confusion there, I'll remove the line.  It doesn't have two effects, just one.  And also I meant beginning of your turn as "beginning of the Action phase" which I'll fix in the wording.  Basically no matter what, you have to play it at the beginning of your Action phase.  The card is meant to take up your regular Action for it's effect, and just happens to give you another Action to play.  If you have more than one Sloths in your hand you play them in sequence.

Also, it refers to the order of the discard pile, which (as you know) is not a possible mechanic of Dominion. To use it, you'd have to deliberately order your discards. Every turn. Possibly multiple times per turn. Just in case a Sloth comes up in your next hand.

And... you seem to have made it cost $0. As a trashing Lab, it's got to be worth at least $7. As a trashing Lab that multiplies itself... it's probably so strong that it's uncostable. And it's somehow a Curse...?

Eh I call BS on the discard pile thing.  No matter what, you DO choose what cards go where.  I think it's a perfectly fine strategy to combat Sloth.  Sure it's a mechanic that isn't required or anything, but it's not like Dominion goes against this anyway (and it would be ridiculous if it did).

As for the trashing Lab comment my idea for Sloth was that it was an end-game Curse.  By the end of the game when your entire deck is filled by useful cards, and all the Curses are either trashed or distributed amongst player's decks, I think it's fully appropriate to have this card as a late game Curse.  Of course one could use Sloth to their advantage too, but really that just depends at what point you're at in the game.  A Sloth could potentially kill off a Colony or Province quite easily, which could tip the game scale into another player's favor.  In two player games especially the problem with Curses is that they can run out too fast, and cards like Sea Hag become pretty useless.  A card like this could bring Curse attack cards more relevant late game.

Greed is an improvement over Lust. But you have it at the same cost as a Silver, and I think it can't beat Silver in any reasonable situation.

It only gets you more than $2 in really, really terrible hands. You basically can't buy provinces with it because it has anti-synergy with other money. If you get a card-drawing engine going, you might be able to turn it into a lame version of Bank, with all the drawbacks of Bank and less money.

We can make something of this card. Here's a drastic suggestion that might swing it the other way: put a buy and a coin on the card itself.

I completely disagree with this.  You are right that it isn't really meant to be a Silver (I should lower the price back down to 2), but another variation of Bank is kind of what I was looking for.  It's a smaller version of Bank, for a lower price, and involves gaining Treasure from Victory/Curse cards in your hand.  Of course a lot Dominion decks end up with lots of Treasure making Bank useful, but it's also probable that in games where trashing cards isn't an option, that decks become filled with Curses and Victory cards you simply cannot avoid.  A good strategy to use this card is use lots of cards with drawing power, and fill up your deck with Greed, Victory, and Curse cards.  Another good way to utilize this strategy is to use it in Gardens deck, and use both Greed and Bank.

Another variation of Greed to make it balanced better is to give it 1 for each non-Treasure card in your hand, making it an inverse version of Bank.

bmtrocks: Plague has no purpose on its own.

Please take into account people's reasonable advice that you shouldn't design cards that only work in set combos, especially when you admit that one of them is brokenly powerful. Your goal isn't to tell people what combos to make out of the cards, it's to design the cards so that interesting, balanced combos with lots of other cards emerge.

If you're designing cards that you recognize are broken, and whose interactions with the game of Dominion you have not thought through, you probably should not rush ahead and make the card art. That just gets you more invested in not fixing them.

I'm not sure what exactly you're talking about here, what card are you talking about?  I'm just saying that using Wrath (not the card I posted, since I scraped that), which isn't really as broken as you're suggesting outside of using Pride.  I just suggested that it would combo well with it cause you can gain two Curses, which benefits a Pride deck, without the -1VP.  Being able to buy it at your consent makes it ridiculously broken in this respect so there has to be a limit.

I'm also confused by your comment that Plague has no purpose of it's own.  Of course it has a purpose: You're gaining two Curse cards when you gain it.  The second Curse is of your choice, so it's not like you can play a Witch and give the opponent a Plague and a -1VP Curse.  You gain a Plague, then you gain another Curse that you choose.  I actually should fix the wording on the card cause one can gain as many Plagues as he wants if he just gains them over and over again, so I'll change that.
_______

I apologize for the confusion, I hope I clear some things up here, I'm going to work on the wording of all of these cards right now so they're a bit more clear.

[bmtrocks]

And here are my wording revisions on these cards, and adjusting their effects also.





To review, Pride is still valid in this concept:



Everything else isn't.

[Jack Rudd]

On the discard pile:

In a face-to-face game of Dominion, I usually perform my clean-up phase by picking up all the cards I've got to discard and plunking them in the discard pile without caring about the order. This is because the order of the cards in the discard pile doesn't matter for any published card so far.

If you put Sloth in the game, I will carefully order my discard pile at the end of each turn so a Copper or something equally useful ends up on top of it. This will make the game slower and less fun.

[rspeer]

Pride is still broken in very obvious ways that have already been stated.


Witch's Familiar: really? That was the correct interpretation except for the fact that the attacker chooses to give the Witch's Familiar? So you play a Witch, you attempt to give multiple opponents Witch's Familiars, one player plays a Horse Traders and every single WF bounces back to your discard pile.

Consider this in light of the fact that players are trying to win, not trying to trigger cool effects of your cards. The card will almost never enter play.

Eh I call BS on the discard pile thing.  No matter what, you DO choose what cards go where.  I think it's a perfectly fine strategy to combat Sloth.  Sure it's a mechanic that isn't required or anything, but it's not like Dominion goes against this anyway (and it would be ridiculous if it did).

Okay, see what I mean that you're taking everyone's experience about card design and shitting on it because you think you're better at it? You momentarily expressed some willingness to reconsider your cards in light of valid criticisms, but it's ringing false.

[bmtrocks]

On the discard pile:

In a face-to-face game of Dominion, I usually perform my clean-up phase by picking up all the cards I've got to discard and plunking them in the discard pile without caring about the order. This is because the order of the cards in the discard pile doesn't matter for any published card so far.

If you put Sloth in the game, I will carefully order my discard pile at the end of each turn so a Copper or something equally useful ends up on top of it. This will make the game slower and less fun.

Eh not really there's nothing particularly slow about putting a Copper on top.  It's not like Sloth says trash the top 2/3 cards of your Discard pile you're basically putting one card on the top of a stack of cards in whatever order.  It's a different way to discard but won't slow down the game like you're implying.  I don't see what so different from that and putting the cards in your hand on the bottom of the cards you played before you place them in the discard pile.

Pride is still broken in very obvious ways that have already been stated.

Alright you're gonna have to tell me why it's broken, cause you simply haven't mustered up adequate reasoning against it so far.

Witch's Familiar: really? That was the correct interpretation except for the fact that the attacker chooses to give the Witch's Familiar? So you play a Witch, you attempt to give multiple opponents Witch's Familiars, one player plays a Horse Traders and every single WF bounces back to your discard pile.

Consider this in light of the fact that players are trying to win, not trying to trigger cool effects of your cards. The card will almost never enter play.

No that's not what I'm saying at all.  The Witch's Familiar that was supposed to go to the player who sets aside Horse Traders goes into the attacker's discard pile.  Everyone else gets a Witch's Familiar, unless they reveal a Reaction card.  I still need to fix the wording on it, but that is the intent.

The usability of such a Curse has the single purpose of cluttering a person's deck without any way of getting rid of it.  You can easily trash Curses, but this card stays in your deck for the entire game unless something like Island is used.

Okay, see what I mean that you're taking everyone's experience about card design and shitting on it because you think you're better at it? You momentarily expressed some willingness to reconsider your cards in light of valid criticisms, but it's ringing false.

I'm not shitting on experience with card design, it's just that there isn't any specific rules about discarding in Dominion.  It's perfectly valid to rearrange the cards before you discard them in Dominion.  It has nothing to do with going against the actual game design.

[AJD]

Pride is still broken in very obvious ways that have already been stated.

Alright you're gonna have to tell me why it's broken, cause you simply haven't mustered up adequate reasoning against it so far.

Because Curses are easy to get, and Pride is relatively easy to get, and Pride gives you a very large number of victory points for having Curses. It only takes three turns to make each Pride give you as many points as a Province. Consider how long it would take to make each Gardens or Silk Road worth as much as a Province. That's how long it should take to make a $4 Victory card worth six points.

Okay, see what I mean that you're taking everyone's experience about card design and shitting on it because you think you're better at it? You momentarily expressed some willingness to reconsider your cards in light of valid criticisms, but it's ringing false.

I'm not shitting on experience with card design, it's just that there isn't any specific rules about discarding in Dominion.  It's perfectly valid to rearrange the cards before you discard them in Dominion.  It has nothing to do with going against the actual game design.

To be clear, the complaint is not that Sloth is inconsistent with the rules and structure of Dominion. The complaint is that it would not be fun to play a game using that card. I'm not convinced I agree; but be aware of what you're responding to.

[bmtrocks]

Because Curses are easy to get, and Pride is relatively easy to get, and Pride gives you a very large number of victory points for having Curses. It only takes three turns to make each Pride give you as many points as a Province. Consider how long it would take to make each Gardens or Silk Road worth as much as a Province. That's how long it should take to make a $4 Victory card worth six points.

Oh this, this is fair enough.  Once you do the math you can get quite an easy amount of VP with multiple Prides in your deck.  Would a Curse variation of Silk Road or Vineyard work?  That's one of my other ideas on handling Pride.

[Octo]

The discard pile thing: it's not just the top card of your discard pile you need to order. You need to order all of them in case your have multiple Sloths. The way I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) I need to order them in ascending order of value (to me) i.e. weakest on top going up to most valuable at the bottom. That would be boring to play with, and I can imagine Sloth getting vetoed regularly for that reason.

[rinkworks]

Man, I was going to reply with some constructive criticism, but I have to agree with rspeer:  you are just not willing to listen to other people's feedback.  This isn't the first time, or even the second or third time, the practical ramifications of discard pile ordering has been discussed here (it's even been discussed in documentation you've claimed to have read), but if "I call BS" is your response, then I'm certainly not going to insist on a productive conversation.

Surprised nobody's mentioned this, but the latest version of Sloth has another similarly well-understood problem with the line "If this is in your hand, play it immediately...."  I'd explain why, but this is also covered in documentation you claim to have read, so I can only suppose you've "called BS" on that too.

[Octo]

Ah, yes, a few of my random card ideas have been shot down in my head because of that one.