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trivialknot

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Card ideas for gift
« on: October 28, 2015, 05:16:14 pm »
+8

Hi, I'm a (former) lurker.  My boyfriend joked that what he wanted for Christmas is a new Dominion expansion.  So as a fun arts and crafts project, I'm creating fan cards.  I was trying to make things that were more amusing than functional, but maybe a few of them are more functional than amusing.  There's sort of a theme of unwanted gifts, which is totally a coincidence and not self-referential at all.  Tell me what you think!


Update: newest versions are here.


Ghost Town
$3 Action
+1 card
+2 actions
Reveal your hand and discard all action cards.  For each action discarded, look at the top two cards of your deck, discard one and put the other into your hand.

This is the village that gets rid of the cards that you'd want to pair with village.

Supreme Court
$3 Action-duration
You may put a card in your hand on top of your deck.
At the beginning of your next turn, you may choose an action card in your hand and play it twice.

This is the version of throne room that's okay to open with.  Somewhere in there is a political joke.  My boyfriend has a degree in law, that's the joke.

Retirement Fund
$3 Action-Victory
+1 action
Put 1 VP on your tavern mat.  VP on your tavern mat do not count towards your final score.

At the end of the game, for each Retirement Fund in your deck, you may take up to 3 VP on your tavern mat.

I like how alt-victory cards encourage all new strategies.  This one encourages you to buy some early, and pick up more in the late game.

Deciduous Forest Hag
$4 Action-Attack
+1 coin
+1 buy
Each other player with at least 5 cards in hand trashes a card from their hand that is not a curse.  Each other player gains a curse.

A lesser-known cousin of the swamp and sea hags, this is the result of an attempt to attach the drawback of Bishop to a different card.  So now it's on a curser, and the trashing is forced.

Uncharted village
$4 Action-Reserve
+2 cards
+2 actions
Put this on your tavern mat

If this is on you tavern mat, at the beginning of your turn, you may call this.  If you do, discard two cards.

We all like lost city, so now this is a lost city that has a different drawback.  You can skip a turn to find all your uncharted villages again.

Captain
$5 Action
Each other player may reveal this card (they may look through your discard pile to decide).  If anyone does, and this card is a Captain, then every other player takes their -1 card token.
If this card is a Captain, +2 coins, and every other player takes their -1 coin token.

In games with this card, as an action you may play any card face down.  That card is a Captain until it is revealed.

Obviously this is inspired by Coup.  Even if it doesn't work, we will laugh about it.

Garbage Processor
$5 Action
+1 action
The player to your left looks through your discard pile and chooses three cards.  Discard or trash one of them.  Put the rest into your hand.

I thought this might be too strong, like a lab with trashing. But then I thought, sometimes it will give you two copper and trash a copper.  Sometimes your discard pile will be empty.  So maybe it's balanced?

Awkward gift
$5 Action
If you have at least three actions in play, +2 actions and gain two gold.  Otherwise, +3 cards and gain an action card costing 4 or less.

The idea behind this card is to have a strong effect which is hampered by awkward placement.  If you have smithy-BM, you didn't really want that action, but okay, let's make the best of it.  If you have an engine, you didn't really want that gold, but gold is nice I guess.

White Elephant
$5 Action
+3 cards
Each player sets aside a card from their hand.  Set aside cards are revealed.  Each player gains a card costing up to 1 coin more than their revealed card, and puts the revealed card in the hand of the player to their left.  You may trash a card from your hand.

Masquerade is fun, but there's no incentive to pass good cards.  This variant encourages people to pass better cards, sometimes.  Also, pile control.

Tedious Tale
$6 Action-Victory
The player on your left gains this card.

When you buy this, +3 VP chips.

This tale is only really interesting if you were there.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2016, 11:00:21 pm by trivialknot »
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GendoIkari

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Re: Card ideas for gift
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2015, 05:50:39 pm »
+2

I'm pretty sure that Ghost Town is not weaker than normal Village. Maybe even stronger. Sure you don't want to discard your actions cards, but in most decks you'll be able to replace them with other actions, while sifting through any junk. So I'd cost t $3. Or you could just have them draw a card to replace each discarded action, in which case it might be a balanced $2, while also reducing wording on the card.
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Deadlock39

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Re: Card ideas for gift
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2015, 06:16:43 pm »
+1

Retirement Fund
$3 Action-Victory
+1 action
Put 1 VP on your tavern mat.  VP on your tavern mat do not count towards your final score.

At the end of the game, for each Retirement Fund in your deck, you may count up to 3 VP on your tavern mat towards your final score.

I like how alt-victory cards encourage all new strategies.  This one encourages you to buy some early, and pick up more in the late game.

I think it is a bit awkward how this card contradicts itself with
"VP on your tavern mat do not count towards your final score." and "...you may count up to 3 VP on your tavern mat..."

It might be a bit better to say
"At the end of the game, for each Retirement Fund in your deck, you may take up to 3 VP tokens from your tavern mat.

Tedious Tale
$6 Action-Victory
The player on your left gains this card.
When you buy this, +4 VP chips.

I think this might be too strong.  It reminds me of Ill Gotten Gains.  Your opponent gains the same amount of junk cards, you don't gain a junk card, you gain 3 more point relative to your opponent (4 if they can trash the junk), and it only goes from $5 to $6. 

I guess it junks less in multiplayer games.


Edit: I misinterpreted this one at first glance.  I pictured it passing on buy along with the tokens and being a completely dead card otherwise. the fact that it keeps moving makes it significantly less like IGG.  It is still way better than Duchy with 4 VPs, so it still feels like it should be reduced. I like the idea of making it 2 VP like Accatitippi suggested.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2015, 09:01:18 pm by Deadlock39 »
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Accatitippi

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Re: Card ideas for gift
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2015, 08:45:20 pm »
0

I think that for Tedious Tale you could use the same template of all 6-cost hybrid victory cards, that is being worth 2p+benefit (this would be being passed left immediately on buy). I think this hits a good balance with Duchies, which are in the same cost class but can keep their attractiveness, while at the same time being significant for scoring. The ability of being passed all around might slow down 2-3 player games as players hopelessly fight to clean their deck instead of advancing the game, much like the early game with ambassador (or a whole multiplayer ambassador game).

For me the star of the set is Retirement Fund, which (if you meant what Deadlock39 has paraphrased) uses a fun workaround to the endless game problem that is often brought up with regards to nonterminal vp token cards.
My suggestion is that you might want to try and icrease its max woth by one point. I'm not sure how often I'd use one precious early game buy to get an early Duchy that won't give me any benefit other than offering me a very good deal on a second (and potenially a third) Duchy in the endgame.
But maybe this would make them worth too much, so you'd probably have to test them before printing them.
But since you seem to be mostly after interesting rather than balanced, you'll be allright any way :)
« Last Edit: October 28, 2015, 08:46:57 pm by Accatitippi »
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trivialknot

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Re: Card ideas for gift
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2015, 11:08:24 pm »
0

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone!

I'm pretty sure that Ghost Town is not weaker than normal Village. Maybe even stronger. Sure you don't want to discard your actions cards, but in most decks you'll be able to replace them with other actions, while sifting through any junk. So I'd cost t $3. Or you could just have them draw a card to replace each discarded action, in which case it might be a balanced $2, while also reducing wording on the card.
Sifting is good, but mostly you want to sift to get those actions that you just discarded.  On the other hand, I agree that it's not weaker than village.  And maybe I don't want people to buy a bunch of them for cheap, so $3 might be better.

Retirement Fund
$3 Action-Victory
+1 action
Put 1 VP on your tavern mat.  VP on your tavern mat do not count towards your final score.

At the end of the game, for each Retirement Fund in your deck, you may count up to 3 VP on your tavern mat towards your final score.

I like how alt-victory cards encourage all new strategies.  This one encourages you to buy some early, and pick up more in the late game.

I think it is a bit awkward how this card contradicts itself with
"VP on your tavern mat do not count towards your final score." and "...you may count up to 3 VP on your tavern mat..."

It might be a bit better to say
"At the end of the game, for each Retirement Fund in your deck, you may take up to 3 VP tokens from your tavern mat.
I will take that wording suggestion

Tedious Tale
$6 Action-Victory
The player on your left gains this card.
When you buy this, +4 VP chips.

I think this might be too strong.  It reminds me of Ill Gotten Gains.  Your opponent gains the same amount of junk cards, you don't gain a junk card, you gain 3 more point relative to your opponent (4 if they can trash the junk), and it only goes from $5 to $6. 

I guess it junks less in multiplayer games.


Edit: I misinterpreted this one at first glance.  I pictured it passing on buy along with the tokens and being a completely dead card otherwise. the fact that it keeps moving makes it significantly less like IGG.  It is still way better than Duchy with 4 VPs, so it still feels like it should be reduced. I like the idea of making it 2 VP like Accatitippi suggested.
You crossed it out but I think the IGG comparison is fair.  Tedious tale is a weaker junker (half a dead card for each player in 2P), and hurts you more than your opponent.  But it's also 3 VP more than IGG, so that seems pretty strong.

There are several knobs I can tweak: price, VP value, and whether it's passed along when you buy it.  Maybe $6 for 3 VP?  $6 for 2 VP + pass on buy strikes me as weak.  Really it needs testing, and same for Retirement Fund.  Probably most of the testing would be after I present the gift, given that my boyfriend is my usual playmate.

I'd probably proxy the cards by putting numbered labels on blanks.  I'm not sure how I'd print them on identical card stock.
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Burning Skull

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Re: Card ideas for gift
« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2015, 05:53:11 am »
+1

trivialknot

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Re: Card ideas for gift -- Now with playtesting!
« Reply #6 on: April 20, 2016, 10:58:17 pm »
0

So, I eventually changed these cards, removed some, added more.  And then we playtested them.  I didn't mock them up, we just played with blanks, nothing too serious.  Anyways, if anyone is interested, here are the new versions, along with my comments:

Quote
Generous Gift - $2 Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Buy
The player to your right may discard a card to draw a card.

When you gain this card, put it in the discard pile of a player of your choice.
In playtesting I discovered that you often don't want to play this from your hand, because you don't need to draw that extra card, and you'd rather your opponent didn't get to draw one.  Anyways, it's pretty strong, but the +buy helps your opponent give Generous Gifts in return.  The gifting wars are hilarious.

Quote
Retirement Fund - $2 Action-Victory
+1 Action
Put 1 VP on your Tavern mat.  Any VP on your Tavern mat do not count towards your final score.

At the end of the game, if this is in your deck, take 3 VP from your tavern mat.  If you do, this is worth 1 VP.
This card has been buffed from its original version.  It needed the buff; it's not that strong.

Quote
Calendar - $3 Action
+6 Cards
Put five cards on top of your deck.
I submitted this to a fan card competition, and someone said it had a lot of AP.  I can say from experience, totally fair criticism.

Quote
Ghost Town - $3 Action
Reveal your hand.  If you have any Action cards, discard them and draw until you have six cards in hand.
+2 Actions
This card is a lot of fun.  Instead of having a draw-to-X village that just plays the same as a normal village most of the time, this one hardly ever plays the same as a normal village.  When you use this, you really want to load your deck up with terminals.  Sometimes it's amazing, sometimes it flops.  I haven't figured out how to predict it.

Quote
Research assistant - $4 Action-Reserve
+2 Cards
+1 Action
Put this on your Tavern mat

At the beginning of your Buy phase, before playing treasures, you may call this, to discard two cards.
Oh, another card I submitted to a competition, and it got in the semi-finals?  It's nearly the same as the original.  There are a lot of ways to use this card.  The main way is simply a lab.

Quote
Awkward gift - $5 Action
If you have at least three Actions in play, +2 Actions, gain a Silver, and put it in your hand.
Otherwise, +2 Cards, gain an Action card costing up to $4, and put it in your hand.
I played a game where this was the only village, and it was so fun.  It helped me pick up components and payoff, but the result was so clumsy because I had so much silver.  I love clumsy engines.

Quote
White Elephant - $4 Action
+1 Action
Reveal a card from your hand.  Have it switch places with the current Gift card.
If you received a card costing less than the one you revealed, then +$3, and you may trash a card from your hand.

Setup: Set aside a Silver as the initial Gift card.  The Gift card is not in the supply.
I playtested this at $5, and it was way too weak.  Haven't tried it at $4 yet, but I'm not optimistic.

Quote
Captain - $6 Action-Attack
Each other player looks through your discard pile, and may reveal this card. If anyone revealed a Captain, each other player gains a Curse; if this is revealed as something else, discard this.
If this is still in play, +$2, and each other player takes their -1 coin token.

In games with Captain, any card can be played face down as a Captain.  It stops being a Captain when it leaves play.
This was changed a bit, but embarrassingly I have not yet playtested it.

Quote
Colosseum - $8 Victory
5 VP

When you gain this, trash any two cards from the supply, each costing less than this.
This is based off a joke I had for an alternate victory card.  The card would cost $8 and be worth 6 VP.  That's it.  Well, this version is a little more exciting.  In one game, it led to a rush, and in another game it led to a slog.  I am pleased with this.

Quote
Echo - $2 Event
Put your deck in your discard pile.  Discard a non-Victory card.  Gain a copy of it.
The tradeoff here is interesting, because you get more copies of a card in exchange for not playing it.  In the one game I played, it was useful to pick up lots of advisors.

Quote
Reverb - $2 Event
Once per turn: Skip your cleanup phase (discarding no cards from play or your hand, and drawing no cards).  Take an extra turn after this one.
This is the village event you always wanted.  It's like having a coin of the realm permanently on hand, except more expensive.  You can use your silvers as necropolises, but then maybe you should have bought a village instead of a silver?

Supreme Court is the same, but now it costs $4.  Playtesting found it's not very exciting.  It's easier than Throne Room to collide with actions, but top-decking a card is as bad as taking a -1 card token.

The Deciduous Forest Hag is still the same, although I renamed it.  I found that it's a weak curser, but that's exactly what you want in a $4 curser.  After curses run out, sometimes it's good to play, sometimes it's a liability.

Garbage Processor is still the same, but I think it might need a redesign.  It's weak, because sometimes you don't have anything in your discard pile, and other times you just get three coppers.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2016, 11:13:59 pm by trivialknot »
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