Dominion > Variants and Fan Cards
Player-Interaction Cards (WIP; feedback appreciated)
KanjiRune:
Hello!
So I've had these card ideas for a while and am thinking finally of printing some of them as a present for a friend who's REALLY into Dominion. I think the cards have some pretty cool ideas--and who doesn't like player interaction?--but could probably use some balancing before I get them printed for $2 a pop. I don't think any of them are atrocious. Anyway. Feedback appreciated and desired.
(The first few cards are not the best, but I don't know how to work Imgur properly to stack the front with the good cards and try to hook people properly.)
http://imgur.com/a/BKNoy?
Thank you!
trivialknot:
As a whole the cards are quite unbalanced, and would result in wacky games. Which is its own kind of fun, of course.
Revolutionaries - The wording is ambiguous, but I'm guessing you take this card as the only card in your deck, and then you play it on your first turn. As you suspect the idea is probably unbalanceable. I think you could make it more powerful though. Maybe take out the estates.
Vultures - This has the problem that it can completely pin your opponents. Play 5 vultures on your turn, and nobody else gets a turn. You hurt yourself too, but it's possible to draw cards midturn. One easy fix is if it said "Each player with at least 4 cards in hand discards a card". I think it would still be very wacky, but at least playable.
Trade Mission - This is very powerful, and becomes more so the more players there are in the game. BTW, what happens if there are multiple Trade Missions, does playing a Victory card count for all of them? Also, if I play an Island, do I get +1 Card +1 Action, and do I do it before or after Island's other effect?
Reinforcements - I think this is balanced, and just fine. The rule that you can't gain it until opponents gain provinces is interesting. In a few games, it could cause a stalemate because nobody wants to buy a province. However I think the stalemate would be unstable, and still very interesting.
Pilgrims - I think this card would work just fine. My main complaint is that a 4/3 split is much better than 5/2 with this. You could also make it a bit weaker so that it isn't such an automatic buy in the opener.
Locusts - Some (most?) games with Locusts, you will just buy all the locusts you can. Even if they all get trashed, you will hand out a lot of curses. The problem with this is that there are already 2 piles out, and maybe everyone rushes Estates to end the game. Basically this card should be a lot weaker.
Acculturation - This top ability is not strong, but occasionally decent. As far as the reaction ability goes... sometimes you can draw your deck with it, and those games would be rather interesting.
BTW, when can you reveal this card? Is it when they play their 4th action card that turn? Can you also reveal on their 5th action play?
Commerce / Commons - Both of these look fine, although not the most exciting. One's almost a silver, and the other is almost a duchy, and well silver and duchy are not tremendously exciting.
Emissary - Yeah, I think this has a kingmaking problem, but maybe you are okay with kingmaking. I think the main problem with this card is that it's rather powerful--compare Gladiator. And if everyone buys an Emissary, its passing ability isn't so exciting anymore now is it.
Expatriate - The top part is Lastfootnote's Wanderer. There's nothing obviously wrong with Wanderer, and I like the bottom part.
Guerrilla - This is unclear rules-wise. I assume you mean that if you can play an action from hand and Guerrilla is available, then you must play Guerrilla before any other actions. It has accountability issues (how do opponents know whether you have a Guerrilla in hand?). It's also an attack that hurts only a single opponent. And, if you give an opponent enough of them, you can effectively pin them.
Monopoly - This can also effectively pin players. Note that Taxman has a similar attack, but only affects players with at least 5 cards in hand. Otherwise, this is on the weak side.
GendoIkari:
I don't understand Revolutionary... missing multiple turns already is a huge disadvantage that you probably can't overcome. This card punishes you with more junk on top of that. Even if you changed it around to give you Golds or something, it would be completely impossible to ever balance... there's a huge difference between joining a game after 2 turns, and joining a game after 8 turns. Anything balanced for one scenario would be too good or absolutely terrible for the other scenario.
All that aside, I'm not sure when such a card would really get used... does it happen a lot in your playgroup that 2 or 3 people are playing Dominion, and in the middle of a game, another person comes over and wishes he could just jump in? It's a pretty short game; he can just join the next game.
*Edit* Just saw trivialknot's post and also just read your own explanation... so yeah, my criticism was probably not needed. Also, I was thinking that you'd add those cards to a regular starting deck, as opposed to starting with just Revolutionary.
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Vultures needs something to limit it. As it is, if you play 5 in a row, your opponent has no hand and you can lock him out of the game forever by doing that every turn. There's good reason that Militia says "discards down to 3" instead of "discards 2".
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Trade Mission actually seems pretty interesting. Keep in mind that giving your victory cards +1 card +1 action is very similar to Cellar, which lets you discard X cards to draw X cards. But each version has some advantages over the other.
I'd be worried that the interesting decision you mention (which is indeed interesting) might lead to too much analysis paralysis on your opponent's turn. Also, it can be hard to track how many VP cards were played; you just have to remember, which could be a lot to remember.
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Reinforcement's ability ends up being a lot like Market Square. At least, +1 card, +1 action, +1 buy is the net effect you end up with. But the ability to dig for an action means that it's much better so long as it discards any junk along the way. As a whole, I like it. I think it probably should cost though. Due to the double-gaining, you could drain the pile really quickly.
Also, it needs a "discard the rest" instruction for revealed cards. And, there's no way to actually track if another player has bought a Province yet. I'd just change it to "unless a Province has been gained"; which is trackable. Though you lose some player interaction there. But it's not like anyone is going to turn down a Province just to stop you from getting these.
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Pilgrims - The effect is super-strong as an opener; but hard to say how it compares to Chapel. I know other people have tried fan cards with a "the player to your left gains this" clause.
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Locusts seems maybe too swingy. When it works, it's just a very cheap Familiar. Maybe it's not worse that Swindler though. You'll want to say "reveals and discards", because they technically wouldn't have to show the other discarded cards otherwise.
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Acculturation has an interesting problem. Both the reaction effect and the on-play effect are pretty good; and because you can't do both, you have to choose. Now, normally that might be an interesting choice to have to make, but the time that you have to make it is awkward; as soon as your opponent plays his 4th action. So you have to stop his turn to decide if you want to discard it or not.
The on-play effect is probably too strong. It's better than Workshop in multiple ways (puts the gained card in your hand, and lets you trash a card), for the same cost. Of course the downside is that what you gain is dependent upon your opponent's hand. Kind of like Smuggler. But once you're past the beginning of the game, I think it's pretty likely that you'll find a card you want. But be careful with gaining cards directly to hand; it can get crazy pretty quickly. You could instantly drain the Acculturation pile if you had a +1 action token on them, or Champion in play.
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I think the problem with Commerce is that it's only good if your opponents also have them... so nobody will want to buy them. More often than not, it's just a Copper.
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Commons is very weak. In a 2 player game, if you buy just 1 or 2 of them, it's 4; same as a Distant Lands. But as soon as a third is bought, they are now just Duchies with the potential to get worse. It scales differently for 3-4 player games of course. I think the idea is good; it just needs the potential to net more VP. But I don't know how to scale it so that it's not overpowered.
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Emissary has a tracking problem too; it's up to all players to remember who bought one or not. You could introduce Emissary tokens to track that if you want. But that aside, I think it's pretty interesting. I'd remove the parentheses around the "otherwise", it's a regular card instruction, not a reminder or an aside.
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Expatriate - I don't know when I'd buy this, unless I just had and there were no other s on the board. On average, it is just really good for everyone; not especially good for one player over another; meaning there's no way to base a strategy on it. That is to say, the on-play effect and the special gaining effect will just accelerate games as a whole, without really giving an advantage to a player who made good decisions about when to buy or play it.
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Guerrilla has accountability issues... this specific idea is talked about in rinkworks' guide. I don't have to show you my hand when I start my turn or anything. Aside from that, it has a similar problem to Expatriate... both players will end up using each copy about the same number of times, except for bad luck of one player getting Cutpursed every shuffle while the other draws it with a Silver and is done with it. So I'd have almost no reason to spend coin and a buy getting one of these, as in the end, it has an equal chance of hurting me or my opponent more. Ok, not completely equal as it will hurt him an extra .5 times on average (if the game ends while it's in his possession). But still.
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Monopoly can lock players out of the game if you get it early enough. Just make them discard all their Copper every turn. Compare it to Taxman... although Monopoly costs instead of , it still has multiple advantages over Taxman for a similar effect.
KanjiRune:
--- Quote ---As a whole the cards are quite unbalanced, and would result in wacky games. Which is its own kind of fun, of course.
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I'll take it!
--- Quote ---Revolutionaries - The wording is ambiguous, but I'm guessing you take this card as the only card in your deck, and then you play it on your first turn. As you suspect the idea is probably unbalanceable. I think you could make it more powerful though. Maybe take out the estates.
I don't understand Revolutionary... missing multiple turns already is a huge disadvantage that you probably can't overcome. This card punishes you with more junk on top of that. Even if you changed it around to give you Golds or something, it would be completely impossible to ever balance... there's a huge difference between joining a game after 2 turns, and joining a game after 8 turns. Anything balanced for one scenario would be too good or absolutely terrible for the other scenario.
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So yes; Revolutionary is the only card in your deck at first, and can be played like a normal Action from then on. Maybe having it give three Coppers and one Estate would be slightly better; guarantees you draw Revolutionary on turn two, involves less junk, etc. Could also gain to hand if people think the start up's too slow. Obviously the idea is that what it gives you is like a starting deck but slightly more streamlined, but the exact proportions definitely are escaping me. Of course anything balanced for one scenario wouldn't be for others, hence the attempt at at least having two phases depending on if a Province has been bought, but if people have ideas for better segmentation/etc. I'm all ears.
--- Quote ---Vultures - This has the problem that it can completely pin your opponents. Play 5 vultures on your turn, and nobody else gets a turn. You hurt yourself too, but it's possible to draw cards midturn. One easy fix is if it said "Each player with at least 4 cards in hand discards a card". I think it would still be very wacky, but at least playable.
Vultures needs something to limit it. As it is, if you play 5 in a row, your opponent has no hand and you can lock him out of the game forever by doing that every turn. There's good reason that Militia says "discards down to 3" instead of "discards 2".
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You're right in that it should absolutely have a limit. However, given its whole gimmick is "aftermath of Attack cards," I'm thinking it should say "Each player with at least 3 cards in hand discards a card"; still super strong, obviously, but thematic. I can make the drawback of playing Vultures stronger if discarding others down to potentially 2 is just too strong as-is.
--- Quote ---Trade Mission - This is very powerful, and becomes more so the more players there are in the game. BTW, what happens if there are multiple Trade Missions, does playing a Victory card count for all of them? Also, if I play an Island, do I get +1 Card +1 Action, and do I do it before or after Island's other effect?
Trade Mission actually seems pretty interesting. Keep in mind that giving your victory cards +1 card +1 action is very similar to Cellar, which lets you discard X cards to draw X cards. But each version has some advantages over the other.
I'd be worried that the interesting decision you mention (which is indeed interesting) might lead to too much analysis paralysis on your opponent's turn. Also, it can be hard to track how many VP cards were played; you just have to remember, which could be a lot to remember.
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As for how Trade Mission works; the wording is tricky, but read literally (as I intended it); you may play a Victory card as an Action cantrip, but you don't have to--so you could choose to play Island as Island, or as a cantrip (and give everyone who' has a Trade Mission out +$1 their next turn). I agree that the decisions might slow the game, but if this is the only card I made that slows things down, I think I'm okay with it. As for the tracking issue; perhaps there could be Trade tokens?
I'm not sure how it's too powerful; if we assume other people only use the ability when it's going to help them more than you at least half the time, the only net gain is that you yourself can play Victory cards for a turn as delayed Peddlers, which doesn't seem too strong. If the other players are good, its Duration element for them would probably be better for them than for you! Plus it doesn't stack well; you playing two only gets you an additional $1 per Victory card, which isn't great, and further dicincentivizes others from playing Victory cards of their own (since then you'd be getting $2 per).
--- Quote ---Reinforcements - I think this is balanced, and just fine. The rule that you can't gain it until opponents gain provinces is interesting. In a few games, it could cause a stalemate because nobody wants to buy a province. However I think the stalemate would be unstable, and still very interesting.
Reinforcement's ability ends up being a lot like Market Square. At least, +1 card, +1 action, +1 buy is the net effect you end up with. But the ability to dig for an action means that it's much better so long as it discards any junk along the way. As a whole, I like it. I think it probably should cost though. Due to the double-gaining, you could drain the pile really quickly.
Also, it needs a "discard the rest" instruction for revealed cards. And, there's no way to actually track if another player has bought a Province yet. I'd just change it to "unless a Province has been gained"; which is trackable. Though you lose some player interaction there. But it's not like anyone is going to turn down a Province just to stop you from getting these.
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I don't think Reinforcements needs to cost $4 for a simple reason; the pile might drain quickly once you start buying Reinforcements, but you can't even start buying them until late-game. So I say at that point it's a wash. I realize whether someone else has bought a Province isn't strictly trackable, but it's an easy enough thing to remember in my experience (when I play, people freak out the first time someone else buys a Province). But I can change if it people think it'd be better.
--- Quote ---Pilgrims - I think this card would work just fine. My main complaint is that a 4/3 split is much better than 5/2 with this. You could also make it a bit weaker so that it isn't such an automatic buy in the opener.
Pilgrims - The effect is super-strong as an opener; but hard to say how it compares to Chapel. I know other people have tried fan cards with a "the player to your left gains this" clause.
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I don't have a problem making a 4/3 split better than 5/2 necessarily. And I should explain the idea here: Pilgrims is supposed to be an automatic buy. The interesting thing is--who buys it? Is it still an automatic buy if the player to your left gets one and you know you have it coming your way soon? Do you not buy it knowing other people are just planning on pigging backing off your Pilgrims while they buy cards that build up their deck? It's interesting and I think much less clear-cut than you guys might think.
--- Quote ---Locusts - Some (most?) games with Locusts, you will just buy all the locusts you can. Even if they all get trashed, you will hand out a lot of curses. The problem with this is that there are already 2 piles out, and maybe everyone rushes Estates to end the game. Basically this card should be a lot weaker.
Locusts seems maybe too swingy. When it works, it's just a very cheap Familiar. Maybe it's not worse that Swindler though. You'll want to say "reveals and discards", because they technically wouldn't have to show the other discarded cards otherwise.
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I'm surprised Locusts would seem so powerful, just for the opportunity cost of buying permanent deck-enhancers; I feel with a cycling as fast as 3 cards off the top every time, it'd trash itself quite quickly. I originally had it set to 2 cards on top to slow it, but then it lasts longer and is even swingier than now. Would it be more balanced at $4? But man, I want it to work at $3.
Noted again about "reveals and discards"!
--- Quote ---Acculturation - This top ability is not strong, but occasionally decent. As far as the reaction ability goes... sometimes you can draw your deck with it, and those games would be rather interesting.
BTW, when can you reveal this card? Is it when they play their 4th action card that turn? Can you also reveal on their 5th action play?
Acculturation has an interesting problem. Both the reaction effect and the on-play effect are pretty good; and because you can't do both, you have to choose. Now, normally that might be an interesting choice to have to make, but the time that you have to make it is awkward; as soon as your opponent plays his 4th action. So you have to stop his turn to decide if you want to discard it or not.
The on-play effect is probably too strong. It's better than Workshop in multiple ways (puts the gained card in your hand, and lets you trash a card), for the same cost. Of course the downside is that what you gain is dependent upon your opponent's hand. Kind of like Smuggler. But once you're past the beginning of the game, I think it's pretty likely that you'll find a card you want. But be careful with gaining cards directly to hand; it can get crazy pretty quickly. You could instantly drain the Acculturation pile if you had a +1 action token on them, or Champion in play.
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I'm getting mixed signals if the top part's too strong. :d If so, I can easily just make it gain the card not to hand. And yes; you could have to make the choice and reveal the card specifically on the 4th action. While I think that's an awkward time, I don't think in most circumstances people will pause the game to decide if they want to reveal and discard Acculturation; four actions in, even on the next player's turn, is I think enough time to make up your mind. If people are skeptical and think the wording should be more flexible though, I'm all ears--just not sure how.
--- Quote ---Commerce / Commons - Both of these look fine, although not the most exciting. One's almost a silver, and the other is almost a duchy, and well silver and duchy are not tremendously exciting.
I think the problem with Commerce is that it's only good if your opponents also have them... so nobody will want to buy them. More often than not, it's just a Copper.
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I will admit I want to balance Commerce more. That said, it isn't just good if your opponents have them--it's also good if your opponents have Silver, which I think is a pretty common buy. Perhaps I could kick the price back to $3? Otherwise I could make it start as a Silver (i.e. give $2 on play no matter what) and gain +$2 if Commerce/Silver is revealed. But then it'd have to cost 5, and then it's just another Silver+ at $5.
--- Quote ---Commons is very weak. In a 2 player game, if you buy just 1 or 2 of them, it's 4; same as a Distant Lands. But as soon as a third is bought, they are now just Duchies with the potential to get worse. It scales differently for 3-4 player games of course. I think the idea is good; it just needs the potential to net more VP. But I don't know how to scale it so that it's not overpowered.
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Yeah, scaling here is a huge issue. The "whisper into your ear" backstage secret here is that I personally only play Dominion with 3-4 players, so Commons as it is works just fine for me (starts at 6 VP!), but ideally I'd still like it to be a functionally good card outside my Dominion idiosyncrasies.
--- Quote ---Emissary - Yeah, I think this has a kingmaking problem, but maybe you are okay with kingmaking. I think the main problem with this card is that it's rather powerful--compare Gladiator. And if everyone buys an Emissary, its passing ability isn't so exciting anymore now is it.
Emissary has a tracking problem too; it's up to all players to remember who bought one or not. You could introduce Emissary tokens to track that if you want. But that aside, I think it's pretty interesting. I'd remove the parentheses around the "otherwise", it's a regular card instruction, not a reminder or an aside.
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Hm. Originally I was going to counter about "everyone getting one" that the schtick with the moving cards is, you might not want to buy one if you know one's coming for you, but of course Emissary incentivizes you to buy one at least eventually. I still think a comparison with Death Cart is more fruitful and is basically why I'm not too scared of the thing; perhaps I can make that comparison better and solve a bit of the power issue by just bumping Emissary up to costing $4?
--- Quote ---Expatriate - The top part is Lastfootnote's Wanderer. There's nothing obviously wrong with Wanderer, and I like the bottom part.
Expatriate - I don't know when I'd buy this, unless I just had and there were no other s on the board. On average, it is just really good for everyone; not especially good for one player over another; meaning there's no way to base a strategy on it. That is to say, the on-play effect and the special gaining effect will just accelerate games as a whole, without really giving an advantage to a player who made good decisions about when to buy or play it.
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Thanks for the credit! I'll add it to the album. As for Gendo--of course you don't buy it, that's what the bottom is for. And the key to this card is, it helps everyone and speeds up the game, but it helps whoever's winning (read: buying Victory cards) least, which is in my mind key. Now you might (might) hesitate buying Victory cards; now even if you're losing, the game throws you this minor bonus.
--- Quote ---Guerrilla - This is unclear rules-wise. I assume you mean that if you can play an action from hand and Guerrilla is available, then you must play Guerrilla before any other actions. It has accountability issues (how do opponents know whether you have a Guerrilla in hand?). It's also an attack that hurts only a single opponent. And, if you give an opponent enough of them, you can effectively pin them.
Guerrilla has accountability issues... this specific idea is talked about in rinkworks' guide. I don't have to show you my hand when I start my turn or anything. Aside from that, it has a similar problem to Expatriate... both players will end up using each copy about the same number of times, except for bad luck of one player getting Cutpursed every shuffle while the other draws it with a Silver and is done with it. So I'd have almost no reason to spend coin and a buy getting one of these, as in the end, it has an equal chance of hurting me or my opponent more. Ok, not completely equal as it will hurt him an extra .5 times on average (if the game ends while it's in his possession). But still.
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The accountability issue is awful, I'd forgotten about it. The secret whisper again is that I personally don't mind accountability issues on these cards; if I like someone well enough to play Dominion with my super special fake nerd cards, I'm gonna trust that they know the game well enough/are honest enough to play this as it is. This is probably the one card where I'm going to just ... ignore good principle and use it anyway.
Assuming I can get it to balance! I disagree that it's an Attack that only hits one player, since it technically has the potential to hit everyone at some point. I think it would travel a little less than Gendo thinks, in which case it might not reach you, but really I'm not sure. Again I was thinking 3-4 player games; I hadn't realized until now that this in a 1v1 would probably be the worst. The only other thing I can say re: why would I buy this, maybe you know your friend has a lot of Coppers and you don't, or they have not a lot of Treasures (in which case it's just a dead card) and you do. I dunno. Any specific ideas for balancing?
--- Quote ---Monopoly - This can also effectively pin players. Note that Taxman has a similar attack, but only affects players with at least 5 cards in hand. Otherwise, this is on the weak side.
Monopoly can lock players out of the game if you get it early enough. Just make them discard all their Copper every turn. Compare it to Taxman... although Monopoly costs instead of , it still has multiple advantages over Taxman for a similar effect.
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I forgot about Taxman! I don't have that expansion. Hmm. Would adding the "at least 5 cards in hand" be enough to balance this? It could make people discard below 3, but only if they're playing really boring. But if it's on the weak side already ... maybe "at least 3 cards in hand"? That way, you can hit with a Monopoly twice, if you're really lucky. At that point you're maybe looking at the pinning problem again, but if the only way you're getting pinned is because you're doing nothing but buying two types of Treasures, on a board that has Monopoly in it ... I feel that's your problem, heheh.
majiponi:
Monopoly - How about letting others to redraw?
--- Quote ---Monopoly
cost $6 - Treasure - Attack
You may play a Treasure from your hand twice.
Each other player reveals their hand, discards all that you've played, and draws until they have 5 cards in hand.
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