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[King Leon]

Inspired by the game Citadels I have an idea to add Character cards to Dominion. In each round a selection of character cards is drawn and each player chooses one in a drafting (similar to 7 Wonders) and sets it face down. After all cards are distributed, the cards are called in ascending priority and the player who has that Character card, does their turn. Calling a Character means, that it is turned face up and the effect starts. In 2P games, 5 Character cards are drawn and each player gains two characters. Otherwise, one Character card more than players is drawn and each player gains one Character.

The character cards give an additional benefit and determine the turn order and character selection order of the next round. A round means that every player had their turn (inclusively additional turns by cards like Outpost, Possession and Mission). The character with lowest priority begins the round. In the first round, the character cards are distributed by random. After each round the characters are shuffled and the drafting starts with the player who had the lowest priority card in the last round.

Here are some example cards (untested yet):

King
Priority: 1
No additional effect

Queen
Priority: 2
Attack cards do not affect you.
Clarification: This does not protect against Attack cards of the Character with the number 1, because the Queen is still face down during that player's turn.

Assassin
Priority: 3
Name a Character. When this Character is called during this round, it has no ability. Whenever you gain a Curse, you may trash it.

Earl
Priority: 4
When the Character with the number 1 is in play, gain a Gold.

Braggart
Priority: 5
Each player gains a Copper for each uncalled Character card they have.

Cloth Merchant
Priority: 6
+1 Buy

Librariant
Priority: 7
+1 Card

Rebel
Priority: 8
+1 Action

Salt Merchant
Priority: 9
+$1
+1 Buy

Heretic
Priority: 10
You may trash a card from your hand.

Notary
Priority: 11
+1 Buy
Action and Treasure cards cost 1 less during your turn, but never less than $1.

Servants
Priority: 12
When you play an Action card for the first time during your turn, you may discard 1 card. If you do, replay the Action card.

Plumber
Priority: 13
Whenever you gain a card, you may put it on top of your deck or exchange it for a Silver.

Servants
Priority: 14
Whenever you gain a Treasure card, gain a copy of that card.

Actor
Priority: 15
At the start of your turn, pick a Character which has already been called and copy its abilities.

Loafer
Priority: 16
+1 VP

What do you think about this idea?

[Holunder9]

Too slow. I can easily imagine the character mini-game taking more time than the actual game. Perhaps try it as an Event that distributes States that endure for one turn/round or something like that?

[Gazbag]

It took me a while to figure out how this works, probably because you mentioned that the characters are distributed randomly in the first round after explaining that they are drafted which confused me. I think you should mention that first because the first paragraph doesn't really make sense until you read the second, to me at least.

Anyway, I think this would work better as a one time thing at the start of the game and then the characters activate on a certain turn so you can build your deck towards getting these effects on certain turns. I get annoyed by Mountain Pass happening when my opponent buys a random early Province so I think I'd really get annoyed by this character drafting stopping the game at multiple points.

[Holunder9]

Anyway, I think this would work better as a one time thing at the start of the game and then the characters activate on a certain turn so you can build your deck towards getting these effects on certain turns. I get annoyed by Mountain Pass happening when my opponent buys a random early Province so I think I'd really get annoyed by this character drafting stopping the game at multiple points.

That's a good idea. It is not like there is as much interaction among the characters as in Citadels but in Citadels drafting usually takes longer than playing. As Dominion features on average a bit more than twice as many rounds of Citadels (6-8) I also think that drafting shouldn't happen each round.
You could e.g. tie it in with the Season mechanism and do it when the season changes.

[loneXolf]

Anyway, I think this would work better as a one time thing at the start of the game and then the characters activate on a certain turn so you can build your deck towards getting these effects on certain turns. I get annoyed by Mountain Pass happening when my opponent buys a random early Province so I think I'd really get annoyed by this character drafting stopping the game at multiple points.

That's a good idea. It is not like there is as much interaction among the characters as in Citadels but in Citadels drafting usually takes longer than playing. As Dominion features on average a bit more than twice as many rounds of Citadels (6-8) I also think that drafting shouldn't happen each round.
You could e.g. tie it in with the Season mechanism and do it when the season changes.

Like holunder said drafting every round sounds like a pain, maybe it can be done quickly if every player is used to it. But I think it would disrupt the flow of game-play. What if each character's effect lasted a different number of rounds when called and you would draft again when every character ran out of rounds? I don't know. But that does seem like it could be a pain to track, maybe turning the card 90 degrees for each round or use of a token could help that...

[Ghacob]

Citadels is a drafting game. The idea of taking the entire "point" of game A and adding it to game B, does not make an A style variant of B, it means you're playing games A and B at once.