Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1] 2 3  All

Author Topic: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept  (Read 24262 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

bmtrocks

  • Swindler
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Respect: 0
    • View Profile
The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« on: November 27, 2011, 01:32:53 am »
0

A lot of people toy with the idea of turning Curses into Kingdom cards.  As most people I'm a fan of this idea. So I decided to take a spin on it by making a mini-expansion concept based around Kingdom Curse cards with the Seven Deadly Sins theme.  If you can't tell, the expansion will only consistent of 7 cards that compliment each other in some way or another.  Some new rules to follow when these cards are in play:

1. When a Kingdom Curse card is in play, infinite Curse cards in the Supply.  (As in, regular curses.)  Aka just combine all the Curse cards from Base and Intrigue into a pile.  If you run out for some reason, make some indication that you've obtained a Curse somehow or another (like making markers next to your deck).
2. Unless it's a Curse card, other cards cannot gain Kingdom Curse cards, unless stated otherwise.
3. You can get negative VP, which is sometimes necessary to determine who is the winner.

The centric card of this concept is this one:



Basically with Pride, you're rewarded for having a deck with Curses in it.  With this card, players are constantly having to decide whether giving a player a Curse hurts or benefits the player.  Using Pride is all about deck management, in concept, in balancing out the amount of Curses you have with the amount of VP you're getting.  This card would probably go as quickly as Gardens does at the beginning of the game.

Despite all this, getting 1 VP for every Curse is still not a lot, so I made a card to balance this factor out:



Meet Envy, a solid easy way to gain Victory cards.  On the surface it seems broken and sounds like it could be a cheap card in non-Curse-based games.  However the base idea is still there.  You pretty much don't want to use Envy unless you're using Pride too.  Much like Pride, Envy is a card that is something you'd have to be careful with and would require really solid deck management to really work.

Aside from these two, there's several more concepts I have.  One I've whipped up in photoshop already:



To balance out the fact that your deck is full of Curses, you're going to need some cards that give you a good amount of money and give it to you fast.  Digging in the trash or in opponent's discard piles is a perfect way to emulate the feeling of petty greed in the game.  Players who are striving to draw Treasure will want to use this card, or possibly a card like Treasure Map which'll give players an easy amount of Gold.  Since my ideas for Curse cards are relatively in low prices (aside from Envy), getting Silvers is fine too.  Gaining two Silvers from the Trash could save you.

Of course one new thing is that this is an Attack card, an attack that initiates when you purchase it.  This is to keep it balanced so it doesn't get abused.

Some other concepts I'm working on, for the other sins:

Lust
Treasure-Curse
Cost 2
0* Coin
-1 VP
Trash any Curse card from your hand.  The total amount of cost of the trash cards is how many coins this is worth.

Gluttony
Action-Curse
Cost 4
-3 VP
Set aside this card and any card in your hand. Return them to your deck at the end of the game
(Place them on Gluttony mat, it's basically Curse version of Island)

Still need to come up with something for Wrath and Sloth.
_____________________

I hope my idea here got across.  I know the cards are flawed and need tuning, and the concept needs work, I just think it'd be an interesting new way to play Dominion without adding a drastically brand new type of card into the fray.  All of these card concepts, even the ones I made in photoshop, are straight up brand new w/o any playtesting.

I'd like to toy with the idea of having Victory-Curse, Curse-Duration, and Curse-Reaction cards with time.  Not sure if I could fit it into this concept but all three sound interesting.  Maybe Pride should be Victory-Curse.

I also need help with the wording on some of these cards.  I tried making it Dominion-like as possible but some sound off to me.  Though you have to remember that these aren't necessarily cards, just concepts of cards to be.
Logged

def

  • Conspirator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 239
  • Respect: +166
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #1 on: November 27, 2011, 05:20:03 am »
0

Hi!

I like the general concept, it's a nice theme. I don't think I'd like games with these cards, though. Infinte curses? 5 or 6 curses are already enough to make pretty much any engine useless. Look at councilroom data to see how cursers make games go longer. And that is with three-pile endings where curses run out, which is not possible here.

- I don't get Lust. What total amount if you only trash one card? The total amount of costs of every card in the trash? Only this and +x buys = x+1 Colonies in some setups, no way.

How many Prides are available, 8 or 10?

So let's say one player goes for normal victory cards and the other one goes for Prides. If one player gets 8 Prides, he already has 8*(16-2)=112 points, more than 8 Colonies and 5 Provinces. So you can't ignore Prides (You can ignore Gardens and Dukes sometimes), and both players have to buy it. But then, why not buy even more Curse cards? It's devilish; screw your deck to win or don't screw it and you are screwed.
Logged

Octo

  • Conspirator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 206
  • Respect: +38
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #2 on: November 27, 2011, 06:00:54 am »
0

I really like the concept, and nice job with the 'shopping. It seems like it would be a very different game with these floating about. Loads of flavour to all these cards.

I think the main thing I would comment on is the infinite VP pile. If it does run out and you have to use substitutions, well how are you going account for the fact that those curses should not only create negative points, but should also clog up you deck? It seems that having an infinite pile is a mechanical problem that can't be escaped.

The most obvious problem in terms of actual games is with Pride games - with an infinite curse pile how would the game end? Whack in a load of +buys and just sit there taking free curses the whole game.

Envy - interesting idea. Just be careful to price the curses accordingly, otherwise you end up in a forge scenario with nothing that adds up to the price you want (bear in mind that not all curses will be out in any one game).
Logged

bmtrocks

  • Swindler
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Respect: 0
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #3 on: November 27, 2011, 12:37:53 pm »
0

Thanks for the input guys.  :P

@ Pride I realize this card is actually pretty broken, but I'll fix it eventually somehow or another.  It'll probably end up being a Victory-Curse that counts for 2VP for every basic Curse card in your deck.  I wanted the main focus to be about Pride but if you do the math, Pride actually becomes a stronger alternative to getting powerful Victory cards.

Here's some more card concepts:



The Village of this set, basically.



Changed this up quite a bit in concept.  Basically the idea is to turn your Curses into Treasure, to solve the problem of overflowing your hand with Curses.



Same as the previous description pretty much.  I like it and don't really want to change it drastically.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2011, 12:59:00 pm by bmtrocks »
Logged

def

  • Conspirator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 239
  • Respect: +166
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #4 on: November 27, 2011, 01:55:41 pm »
0

Hehe. Normally one might say "non-terminal curser, totally broken at this price", but not with the concept that curses can help you.

I don't think it would fit to Sloth, but what about a card-drawer like
"+1 card
 Discard any number of cards.
 +1 card per card discarded,
 +1 card per every Curse card discarded."
to overcome the problem of drawing only curses and bad cards?
+1 card to make it differ from Cellar; the cards are discarded so you can't go Crossroads-like crazy with multiple copies in one turn.

Maybe it fits to wrath (the more curses, the angrier you are), and wrath could become sloth (your inactivity is virulent and goes to your opponent in the form of curses)?

And I forgot, great artwork.
Logged

Elyv

  • Moneylender
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 163
  • Respect: +15
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #5 on: November 27, 2011, 01:58:31 pm »
+1

I don't think bonuses for curses is enough to make up for the 5 vp difference between gluttony and island.
Logged

def

  • Conspirator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 239
  • Respect: +166
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #6 on: November 27, 2011, 06:28:51 pm »
0

Three Prides in their current form are more than enough.
Logged

rspeer

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 469
  • Respect: +877
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #7 on: November 27, 2011, 06:32:10 pm »
0

I have a few major doubts about these cards. You should think about these at a high level, because I think it'll take more than minor tweaks to cards to fix them.

  • It seems like it'll cause endless rules confusion to use "Curse" as a type containing multiple cards, one of which is Curse. Other cards can say "a Curse" because the card and the type are identical, and you're changing that. Why not make a new type called "Sin", and then some of your cards can refer to "a Sin or a Curse", instead of the awkward clarification you have now, which is "a Curse that is not a Kingdom card"?
  • I'll echo the fact that you can't actually have infinite cards in Dominion, because at some point you have to shuffle them. When you read Donald X's design notes on Dominion, he talks about how much of the game is designed around the limitation that there are only 200-400 cards per set and most of them aren't in the game.
  • The only ways to benefit from curses are Pride (absurdly strong, flips the game around into massively positive VP) and Lust (absurdly weak). Without these cards, the game is Dominion plus added failure modes.
  • If I understand correctly, Wrath gives out plain curses. In the absence of Pride, it's an absolutely broken must-buy that will cause the game to freeze out.
  • Consider a state where each player has 40 curses (some of them are Sins, but Pride and Lust aren't in the game), 5 copper, and 1 silver. I find this state very realistic given these cards and rules. How does the game end?
  • Greed is a targeted "screw you" action. Dominion doesn't have those for very good reasons. Feel free to argue that they add to the gameplay of your expansion, but you're arguing against Donald X, and he'll win.
  • What the devil is a "Curse - Attack"? You might as well have said "Curse - Apricot" for all the effect that type will have on the game, because the card is never played. Realize that "Attack" has a specific meaning in the Dominion rules.
  • A lot of these cards make very little sense if they're the only Sin in the game. Compare to Alchemy, where every card (except Transmute) has legitimate uses, even when it's the only Potion-costing card.
Logged

bmtrocks

  • Swindler
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Respect: 0
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #8 on: November 27, 2011, 07:29:30 pm »
0

@ rspeer

I'll try to clarify what I mean on some of these.

Curses:
Yes the Curse confusion is there, but I think the rule that only Curses can give out Kingdom Curses is perfectly fine.  It doesn't have to be printed on each of the cards for players to figure this out, just like how Duration cards are said to be played above your normal play area and then shifted down on the next turn for the Clean-up phase.  However you are right that making them a different type might balance things out, but I like sticking to a pre-existing card type with them.

Cards like Fortune Teller still apply, since you aren't gaining a Curse, but any card like Witch or Jester that allows players to gain a Curse can only gain a basic Curse card.  Cards that allow you to gain Kingdom cards are exempt from this, like Ambassador can very well give someone a Kingdom Curse.

As for infinite Curses I'll probably fix that.  I just want to get across that when these are in play, there are a lot of Curses available.  I'd have to figure out a solid amount with playtesting with time, but for now think of "infinite" as merely being a pile of all the Curses you own.

As for how the game ends in that scenario I thought I'd make it clear.  Whoever has the highest VP wins.  Negative VP exists in a game with Curse cards in the Kingdom.

Greed:
Actually one of my main inspiration is a card in the recent Hinterlands set called Noble Brigand!  You can't say a card like that in Dominion doesn't exist.  But you are right, it probably should just be a basic Curse card like Pride.  Maybe when you buy it, you play it immediately allowing it to be countered by Moat or another card.  I want to be able to have a really strong Treasure-grabbing card that attacks an opponent directly, emulating the feeling of being greedy.  Having it to be Action-Attack-Curse would be rather broken, so I think limiting it's effect as being a one time thing is really a must.

About them working in other games:
Well yeah, that's kind of the idea.  You either play with the Seven Sin cards, or you don't.  The thing about these Curses is that you're meant to play older cards in different ways.  One that comes to mind is Jester in which you have to be careful because using him may benefit other players in a Curse centric game, while it could benefit you greatly by giving yourself a free Curse (basic or Kingdom),
Logged

PseudoPserious

  • Pawn
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1
  • Respect: 0
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #9 on: November 27, 2011, 07:51:57 pm »
0

On the infinite pile issue...

Would there be a problem with instead setting up the pile as normal and having the rule "When a Kingdom Curse* is in play, trashing a Curse instead returns it to the supply" in place?

PP

*I like the idea of using "Sins" in place of "Kingdom Curses" -- it seems like that would solve a lot of ambiguity issues.
Logged

rspeer

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 469
  • Respect: +877
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #10 on: November 27, 2011, 07:54:55 pm »
0

@ rspeer

I'll try to clarify what I mean on some of these.

Curses:
Yes the Curse confusion is there, but I think the rule that only Curses can give out Kingdom Curses is perfectly fine.  It doesn't have to be printed on each of the cards for players to figure this out, just like how Duration cards are said to be played above your normal play area and then shifted down on the next turn for the Clean-up phase.  However you are right that making them a different type might balance things out, but I like sticking to a pre-existing card type with them.

Cards like Fortune Teller still apply, since you aren't gaining a Curse, but any card like Witch or Jester that allows players to gain a Curse can only gain a basic Curse card.  Cards that allow you to gain Kingdom cards are exempt from this, like Ambassador can very well give someone a Kingdom Curse.

If it's intentional that you can't take a Pride when someone else plays Witch, then it should definitely be called something besides "Curse".

You don't want to use a pre-existing word when you're trying to make it mean something different, and when you still want the original word too.

Quote
As for infinite Curses I'll probably fix that.  I just want to get across that when these are in play, there are a lot of Curses available.  I'd have to figure out a solid amount with playtesting with time, but for now think of "infinite" as merely being a pile of all the Curses you own.

As for how the game ends in that scenario I thought I'd make it clear.  Whoever has the highest VP wins.  Negative VP exists in a game with Curse cards in the Kingdom.

No, that's how you count the score when the game ends. I was asking how the game ends when players can't rub two coppers together often enough to empty three piles, especially if Curse isn't supposed to become an empty pile.

Quote
Greed:
Actually one of my main inspiration is a card in the recent Hinterlands set called Noble Brigand!  You can't say a card like that in Dominion doesn't exist.  But you are right, it probably should just be a basic Curse card like Pride.  Maybe when you buy it, you play it immediately allowing it to be countered by Moat or another card.  I want to be able to have a really strong Treasure-grabbing card that attacks an opponent directly, emulating the feeling of being greedy.  Having it to be Action-Attack-Curse would be rather broken, so I think limiting it's effect as being a one time thing is really a must.

You should look at Noble Brigand again. It attacks everyone, instead of taking a card of your choice from a player of your choice. Noble Brigand is not a political card.

Quote
About them working in other games:
Well yeah, that's kind of the idea.  You either play with the Seven Sin cards, or you don't.  The thing about these Curses is that you're meant to play older cards in different ways.  One that comes to mind is Jester in which you have to be careful because using him may benefit other players in a Curse centric game, while it could benefit you greatly by giving yourself a free Curse (basic or Kingdom),

You just said above that only Curses can give you Kingdom Curses, so your description of Jester is inconsistent.

And... if all 7 Sin cards are always in the kingdom, that means there's only 3 other cards? If you're throwing out both the nearly boundless variation of Kingdoms and the usual ways of getting VP, why did you make this an expansion to Dominion instead of some other game?

Sorry that I feel the need to be so critical. Playtesting is key, of course, but there are fundamental problems here that you don't even need to playtest to see. Spare your playtesters a bit of pain.
Logged

bmtrocks

  • Swindler
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Respect: 0
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #11 on: November 27, 2011, 09:31:12 pm »
0

Tell me, what exactly is the problem with the pre-established rule that only Curse cards can give out Kingdom Curses?  You're going to have to explain this to me cause this avoids any actual problems with the Dominion cards with one simple rule.  There's no reason to make a new card type if you can avoid all problems by adding a rule for the cards in question.

As for your question, sorry for the confusion, but the solution to that is simply deck management.  That's what this concept is mainly about.  There's cards like Gluttony that allow you to set aside cards from your hand, and then there's cards like Chapel which let you trash cards that are cluttering up your deck.  Limiting the amount of Curses to 30-40 would be fine too, it's just something that needs to really be figured out in playtesting.

On Noble Brigand: That doesn't mean that it isn't an attack that activates when you buy.  Technically it isn't a real attack as you aren't actually playing it when you purchase it, and like you said Noble Brigand targets all players, but I don't see how it's so different in concept.  Greed doesn't have to be an attack card, I admit, but I don't think it's effect is very out there or too political for Dominion.  Not to mention that it would be broken if it attacked everyone.

On Jester: I worded that wrong.  What I meant is that you could benefit from gaining a basic Curse, which you can do perfectly fine with Jester.

Also you wouldn't need all seven to play a Curse game.  I think it's highly probable that one can stick with four or five and have a solid five or six Kingdom cards from other sets, which bring more than enough variety.
Logged

Tydude

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 54
  • Respect: +5
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #12 on: November 27, 2011, 10:31:37 pm »
0

Here's a better question, why not simply make a new card type? It's not that you have any rules problem that would require a new card type, but remember that you always want to avoid player problems, like confusion. And these cards are really, really confusing. Plus, you can avoid the awkward wording of, "The Curse card gained cannot have a cost of 0", and "Everyone gains a Curse that isn't a Kingdom card". It's needlessly complex and should definitely be changed.

On Greed, as Donald X. says, you can do whatever you want with your fan expansions. But you're never going to see a targeted attack in Dominion, and I personally won't ever play with fan made targeted attacks. Also it should not be an attack for the same reason Ill-Gotten-Gains isn't an attack. And, actually, it's more broken as a targeted attack than if it simply attacked everyone. As a targeted attack, you're screwing one player over and everybody else is fine, while as a normal attack you hurt everyone equally. It's more power to the person who plays it, but now everyone has the same chance at it. Also, you can't guarantee there will be treasure cards in the trash, and if there are they're most likely going to be Copper so usually that's completely pointless. Also, you can't see other people's discard piles normally so you would need to add some sort of text in there like Counting House, but with opponents.
Logged

bmtrocks

  • Swindler
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Respect: 0
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #13 on: November 27, 2011, 11:54:09 pm »
0

Making them a "Sin" type would probably actually benefit the cards to be honest, but I dunno.  Making a new type of card solely for seven cards might be pushing it, when a part of my idea is that this expansion could be extended to complimentary cards that are also Curses and cards that supplement them.  There's also the fact that the cards don't really have a special aspect or way to play them to defines them as being different from other Kingdom cards, they're just regular Kingdom cards that benefit from having Curses in your deck in some form or another.  I also think it'd be odd to have negative Victory points without them being Curses, which are pretty much a special type of Victory card already.
Logged

rspeer

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 469
  • Respect: +877
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #14 on: November 28, 2011, 02:49:49 am »
0

bmtrocks, you should read the Fan Card Creation Guide.
Logged

Diving Pikachu

  • Navigator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 70
  • ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)
  • Respect: +6
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #15 on: November 28, 2011, 03:14:34 am »
+1

This card would probably go as quickly as Gardens does at the beginning of the game.

Um... How many Gardens games have you actually played? Gardens rushes are tricky to pull off, even with a perfectly enabling board. And if you can't rush them, you most likely will be getting them in the mid- to late-game, but even then, they'd only be worth buying in slow games with little-to-no trashing.

Anyways, this expansion that you're building is so fundamentally different from actual dominion play that modeling the strategies that these cards would engender is like guessing the trajectory of a rocket made out of pykrete covered in spirals of cheese, attached to a helium-filled blow-up doll.

My advice at this point is to actually play with these cards to see if they add anything to the game. And to remember that even potion-costing cards can potentially stand their own in usefulness and relevance in a board where they're the only Alchemy card there.
Logged

Octo

  • Conspirator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 206
  • Respect: +38
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #16 on: November 28, 2011, 04:41:50 am »
0

The ability of each card to stand alone amongst the other cards in Dominion is an important factor. What happens when you have the level of interdependence that these cards do is that some cards become essential (eg Pride) to make any of them worthwhile and secondly clear, prescribed strategies arise and not in a good way - the cards begin to rely on each other, rather than interact with each other. Take Envy - it relies on there being other curse cards around to match the prices up, otherwise it's completely useless as you can't get any at all (10 is minimum if only Envy is on the board, and no VPs cost 10). If the price doesn't have to be exact then, well 2xEnvy = Province which is a net gain of 0VP. Yay. Even the fact that Alchemy cards rely on Potion kind of bugs me a little bit, but as it goes in the basic supply and essentially just money it not so bad. As an exercise, I think it would be good to imagine each card as the only one of your new cards on the table, the rest are any other random cards as normal, and then see how it would fare.

Also, the curse pile - not everyone has base and intrigue. 30 curses might be the most you can go. Personally, I find that - as well as mandating 4/5 sin cards minimum in a game - too much of a departure from the basic rules for my tastes and would just stick with the regular numbers. Working within the constricted rules set is what makes this kind of thing interesting.

Regarding a new card type for only seven cards - there's only eight duration cards. So it's not that bad.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2011, 04:52:23 am by Octo »
Logged

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #17 on: November 28, 2011, 08:28:11 am »
0

Intereesting concept. To join the choir:

I also would say that, to get the expension interesting, each card for it's own should have some kind of value, also if it's the only one on the board. Of course not on every board, and there should also be synergies between them, but you might want to buy Horn of Plenty without having Fairgrounds or Menangerie on the board.

Second, the infinite pile: I totally don't see why these cards should in principle not work with 10 Curses in 2player. Unless you really want to enforce games where your deck is filled with curses, which I don't think will be fun more than 2 games. Say Pride: Don't know if it's balanced, but this card alone adds a lot variation to the game. Even if you just eat your average 5 Curses, a Pride is a cheaper Duchy, which is totally fine for a game with curser. Maybe the Pride is a reason to avoid cursers at all, but that has to be playtested I think.  Eating 10 Curses is no fun usually, even if the nets you vps in the end.
Even in a game with lots of +Buy but without cursers, there might be a way to go Curse/Pride, espescially if you have some chance of finishing on piles. So probably, in some games without Cursers and without other Sins, the limited Cursepile will help this card.

Envy on it's own of course always can gain Duchies, but I don't think it's worth it. So if there is some other mechanism to let it gain Provinces (which might be too powerfull on the other hand), or maybe double Duchies, again, might add something to the game. I actually like gaining 2 Duchies with it, I think.

Greed's attack somehow seems to strong. For only $3, choose what cards to gain... Opponent bought his first Gold last turn (and hasn't reshuffled), -> buy Greed.


Also, there are (I think also in the guide) some problems listed with balancing strong actions by negative VPs, mainly the problem of buying them early, using them to get a strong deck and trashing them before the end.  This should be considered carefully, probably one can also add some delay by (also just thinking loudly at the moment) gaining (usual) Curses when trashing Sins. To keep the amount of negative VP constant, or gaining half as many Curses as negative VPs are on the Sin, or whatever...
Logged

Octo

  • Conspirator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 206
  • Respect: +38
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #18 on: November 28, 2011, 08:38:55 am »
0

Envy can't gain duchies on its own (if I understand the current rules right). You have to gain no fewer than two cards, neither of which can be a $0 value curse. So that means 2xEnvy, which is value 10. Even if you could gain a duchy for one Envy, that's a net gain of 0VP again. So yeah, not worth it, better to just buy a duchy in the first place and save yourself the bother of trying to trash all the junk.

Also, I think you misread Pride - at 5 curses it's not a cheaper duchy, it's a far cheaper colony. It's worth 2VP for every curse, and you  must include the Pride itself, because it's a curse too. so -2 + 6*2 = 10. For $4. Still, your point stands - it doesn't need an unlimited curse pile to make it interesting, it manages that fine with a regular pile.

Just to add to your comment about trashing, DStu - yeah, trashing the bad bits is a problem. I think it's also exacerbated by the fact that these cards have good value too. You're, say, remaking two Envies into two duchies in one go, giving you a 12VP swing. Eesh. One of the things about curses is there's bugger all to convert them into. HOWEVER, these would be absolutely fiendish with swindler on the board!!
Logged

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #19 on: November 28, 2011, 08:48:52 am »
0

Envy can't gain duchies on its own (if I understand the current rules right).
Yeah, I didn't read it correctly, but I modified it anyway... Say you would gain 2 Duchies+1Envy, that might be interesting.
Pride also some mistake, but again, I think it might work if it's about a Duchy for $4, given the setting some less or some more...
Logged

Jimmmmm

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1762
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jimmmmm
  • Respect: +2017
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #20 on: November 28, 2011, 08:53:47 am »
0

I think the whole "these only work if there are multiples from this set" only really matters in an Iso-like situation where you're mixing a bunch of different sets. I think it's perfectly legitimate to come up with an expansion that is designed to be mixed with only one other at a time, especially since that is how Donald tends to playtest. These cards will clearly never be on Iso, and if they are played in the way that they are designed to be played, I see no problem.

OTOH, obviously these cards still need a lot of work. Envy is confusing, Wrath is super-uber-mega-ultra way too powerful whether or not you can get an advantage from the Curse type, Gluttony seems to be just a terrible, terrible Island, and most of the others I can't really comment on because I don't have a feel for how the Curse interactions would play.

Anyway, keep working at it! :)
Logged

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #21 on: November 28, 2011, 08:58:22 am »
0

I think the whole "these only work if there are multiples from this set" only really matters in an Iso-like situation where you're mixing a bunch of different sets. I think it's perfectly legitimate to come up with an expansion that is designed to be mixed with only one other at a time, especially since that is how Donald tends to playtest. These cards will clearly never be on Iso, and if they are played in the way that they are designed to be played, I see no problem.

I think "only work when you have multiples" is a problem. Especially if some cards depend on one other key card. So you should at least consider and try to give them a meaning on their own. If then one is left which is a little bit weak without some support, so be it, but you greatly limit the variations if you assume to have 3-4 cards of a 7-card set in each kingdom you play with this expension.

And if you really want to have 7 in each kingdom, there's not much variaton left. End it's also the question if the other 3 cards can really influence the kingdom enough, when you have 7 synergizing cards, which promote a completely different playstyle.
Logged

popsofctown

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5477
  • Respect: +2860
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #22 on: November 28, 2011, 12:05:14 pm »
0

I think OP misunderstands the principles of good game design so thoroughly that this just isn't even salvageable, and it'd take too long to explain why.
Logged

Jimmmmm

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1762
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jimmmmm
  • Respect: +2017
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #23 on: November 28, 2011, 06:52:19 pm »
0

I think the whole "these only work if there are multiples from this set" only really matters in an Iso-like situation where you're mixing a bunch of different sets. I think it's perfectly legitimate to come up with an expansion that is designed to be mixed with only one other at a time, especially since that is how Donald tends to playtest. These cards will clearly never be on Iso, and if they are played in the way that they are designed to be played, I see no problem.

I think "only work when you have multiples" is a problem. Especially if some cards depend on one other key card. So you should at least consider and try to give them a meaning on their own. If then one is left which is a little bit weak without some support, so be it, but you greatly limit the variations if you assume to have 3-4 cards of a 7-card set in each kingdom you play with this expension.

And if you really want to have 7 in each kingdom, there's not much variaton left. End it's also the question if the other 3 cards can really influence the kingdom enough, when you have 7 synergizing cards, which promote a completely different playstyle.

Well clearly one card relying on the presence of another Kingdom card is a problem, and clearly needing all seven there is a problem, and, you know, maybe requiring 3-4 per game limits replayability somewhat, but if you have cards such as these, you're not going to be using them every game. I don't think it's that much worse than the suggested option of having at least 3 Alchemy cards if any. It would probably be different if these were official cards, but being a "variant" I think it's okay to wander a little bit away from the whole "any 10 cards work" thing, if that's what the designer wants to do.

I think OP misunderstands the principles of good game design so thoroughly that this just isn't even salvageable, and it'd take too long to explain why.

That's helpful.
Logged

Jack Rudd

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1323
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jack Rudd
  • Respect: +1379
    • View Profile
Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept
« Reply #24 on: November 28, 2011, 06:55:44 pm »
0

Envy would be good for gaining Vineyard, yesno?
Logged
Centuries later, archaeologists discover the remains of your ancient civilization.

Evidence of thriving towns, Pottery, roads, and a centralized government amaze the startled scientists.

Finally, they come upon a stone tablet, which contains but one mysterious phrase!

'ISOTROPIC WILL RETURN!'
Pages: [1] 2 3  All
 

Page created in 0.11 seconds with 21 queries.