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[JThorne]

A question for Donald X: Has there ever been any thought of creating cost increasers?

I tried searching the forum for prior discussions but couldn't find anything. We have Bridge, Highway, Bridge Troll, Quarry and Peddler, all of which are cost reducers, but there are no cards that I can think of that cause cards to cost more (Summon, Ball and Seaway, arguably, but that's a stretch.)

A cost-increasing attack seems plausible, though on reflection, it could be more painfully crippling than any other attack, particularly if it stacked. The fact that even the -1 coin token can't stack, and that there's no attack that gives debt is probably a good indication that this is a non-starter.

[ThetaSigma12]

Check the secret history for Adventures.

Bridge Troll: Seaside had an attack that made cards cost $1 more on other players' turns. It died because it would have been the only duration card to go away other than at the end of your own turn. I figured out a fix for it and used it on Lighthouse but the cost increaser had already turned into Cutpurse. So, new duration cards, time to try that concept out again. It was a one-shot, then a non-one-shot, then a non-one-shot that was non-cumulative. It increased costs by $2 and then just $1. It was getting to be a mess and was still scary. Finally it just cost everyone else $1 via the token, turning into Cutpurse again. Only, it's the Cutpurse that never misses. Increasing costs had a certain charm but man the world does not need to be subjected to it. The upside of the card meanwhile had various forms before settling on Bridge. It's two turns of Bridge, but instead of getting +$1, you make the others lose $1. It worked with Thrones originally but it was too much. Kent Bunn insisted this card be called Bridge Troll (it was Highwayman). When I put in the Adventures theme, okay, Bridge Troll it was.

Edit: Here's the quote on Cutpurse.

Cutpurse: This started out as "Cards cost $1 less this turn, then $1 more until your next turn." That doesn't have the same timing as the other duration cards - it goes away at the end of the previous player's turn, rather than at the end of your turn. The developers didn't like that. I replaced it with "+$2, name a treasure card, each other player discards it." That was quite strong. You don't have to discard Gold very many times before you're sick of it. I reined it in by having it only hit Copper. It's still quite annoying if multiples get played against you early on.

Edit: And some other stuff.

Envious made cards cost more (which has rules issues), then made you discard cards to buy cards.

"Tax Collector:" This turned into Cutpurse. "Cards cost $1 less this turn and then $1 more until your next turn," for $3. There was no duration type or color, but I did have the rule that cards stayed out until the end of the turn they finished doing things. Multiplayer with multiple people playing Tax Collectors would have odd shifts in costs. I play it. On your turn you play another one; you break even. On the next player's turn they are hit by two at once. The 4th player plays one and so is only being hit by one total. On my turn mine goes away but the other two are hitting me.

[ben_king]

Donald actually just answered this recently on a BGG thread about Dismantle:

I've tried a few inverse Bridges over the years, starting with the card that turned into Cutpurse. They're problematic. In multiples you can shut people out; Empires was a chance to make a debt version instead (take a debt when you buy a card), which solves that, but that didn't happen (in part because there's already Bridge Troll). Also increasing costs means you need a rule for which happens first, Bridge or Anti-Bridge.

I think all it does is punish +Buy and Workshops - so, don't play it with those - and give you combos like the Dismantle one you cite, where the high cost is worth something. Those aren't ubiquitous but the card could have more going on too. However there's still the issue of needing to add timing for Bridge vs. it (probably the card itself would provide that timing). And I do have an existing card that gets at those combos, which is Peddler; and there you go, you can Dismantle a Peddler that cost you $0 into two Golds or what have you.

[crj]

I'd argue that Tax comes really close to increasing the cost of a card by an amount of debt.

Something that surprises me is that we've not yet seen anything which increases the cost of a specific card. Say, an anti-Ferry, anti-Quarry or anti-Peddler that gave you some benefit worth the penalty. There, the closest equivalent I can think of is Castles, where in some sense the cost increases according to how many people have already bought Castles this game.