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Author Topic: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?  (Read 4305 times)

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ackmondual

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Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« on: July 05, 2018, 04:36:34 am »
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Akin to having to +1 card from someone else's Council Room, the Wind's Gift (+2 cards, -2 cards) has been disruptive at times.  I've had moments where I would've preferred NOT to do that (so preface the text with may, akin to the other "may" Boons like Sky/-3 cards for Gold, or Earth/-1 Treasure for a $4 or less card).  Currently, you deal with it as best you can like any other required effect that can sometimes backfire.

Any further design insight into if this was optional at some point, or does it "just work" the way it was?
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Holunder9

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Re: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« Reply #1 on: July 05, 2018, 07:19:44 am »
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Except for deck management matters, e.g. Wind's Gift triggering a reshuffle when you would prefer not to, it is always useful.
The Mountain's Gift is a far worse mandatory Boon.
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crj

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Re: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2018, 08:44:00 am »
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Plenty of the other Boons are non-optional despite the fact they could hurt in certain circumstances: gain a Silver, +1 Card (now, or at end of turn), look at the top 4 cards of your deck, even gaining a Will-o'-Wisp!

Overall, that's six, half of them. Of the remaining six, two (+1Action,+$1 and +1Buy,+$1) are never harmful, and four are optional.

I'm guessing Donald X. decided discarding, top-decking and trashing were harmful more often than drawing or gaining, but now you mention it I'm wondering why optionality wasn't simply baked into the Boon mechanism rather than being decided on a case-by-case basis, especially given Pixie is already worded that way.
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Jfrisch

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Re: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« Reply #3 on: July 05, 2018, 08:58:07 am »
+2

Plenty of the other Boons are non-optional despite the fact they could hurt in certain circumstances: gain a Silver, +1 Card (now, or at end of turn), look at the top 4 cards of your deck, even gaining a Will-o'-Wisp!

Overall, that's six, half of them. Of the remaining six, two (+1Action,+$1 and +1Buy,+$1) are never harmful, and four are optional.

Edgecase both of those can be harmful in the presence of a storyteller which you want to play but don't want to trigger a reshuffle.
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Donald X.

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Re: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« Reply #4 on: July 05, 2018, 01:49:25 pm »
+3

Akin to having to +1 card from someone else's Council Room, the Wind's Gift (+2 cards, -2 cards) has been disruptive at times.  I've had moments where I would've preferred NOT to do that (so preface the text with may, akin to the other "may" Boons like Sky/-3 cards for Gold, or Earth/-1 Treasure for a $4 or less card).  Currently, you deal with it as best you can like any other required effect that can sometimes backfire.

Any further design insight into if this was optional at some point, or does it "just work" the way it was?
It's strictly for simplicity. It's normally simpler to not make something optional. Things only want to be optional when it's actually simpler that way for some reason (e.g. we will need an honesty clause otherwise), or when you really want to only sometimes do them.

I do imagine that today I would do Idol in a way that doesn't involve Boons, as it's the main case for being sad about what Boon you get.
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heron

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Re: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2018, 03:38:40 pm »
+2

Except for deck management matters, e.g. Wind's Gift triggering a reshuffle when you would prefer not to, it is always useful.
The Mountain's Gift is a far worse mandatory Boon.

There is also the very annoying case of having no cards left to draw and nothing you want to discard.
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crj

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Re: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« Reply #6 on: July 05, 2018, 03:41:32 pm »
+1

It's normally simpler to not make something optional.
The way my mind works, if there's a set of things (e.g. Boons) it is indeed simplest not to make them optional, but simpler to make all of them optional always than to make different ones optional under a variety of circumstances circumstances.

Am I weird?
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LastFootnote

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Re: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« Reply #7 on: July 05, 2018, 03:50:58 pm »
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It's normally simpler to not make something optional.
The way my mind works, if there's a set of things (e.g. Boons) it is indeed simplest not to make them optional, but simpler to make all of them optional always than to make different ones optional under a variety of circumstances circumstances.

Am I weird?

The difference is how likely you are to have to go to the rulebook. Everything else in Dominion that doesn’t say “you may” is mandatory. It would be weird if Boons were an exception.
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crj

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Re: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« Reply #8 on: July 05, 2018, 04:21:44 pm »
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There are only eight Fates, and four of them already have people receive Boons in unusual ways. Only four are a flat "Receive a Boon". It doesn't feel like wording all the Fates to become optional Boon-receivers would have been all that tricky.

(Comparing the wording on the various cards, I'm now scratching my head trying to work out why Pixie specifies that you discard "the top Boon" rather than just "a Boon".)
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trivialknot

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Re: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« Reply #9 on: July 05, 2018, 05:55:20 pm »
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DXV has said that the biggest design challenge for hexes and boons is that they tend to slow down games.  Giving players more choices makes it slower.

I do wish that the Sacred Grove boons were mandatory for everyone.
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ackmondual

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Re: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« Reply #10 on: July 06, 2018, 12:06:25 pm »
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I'm not as concerned with the other mandatory Boons, as Winds Gift has been the most detrimental to me at any rate.
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markusin

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Re: Could The Wind's Gift been optional?
« Reply #11 on: July 06, 2018, 02:34:20 pm »
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It's normally simpler to not make something optional.
The way my mind works, if there's a set of things (e.g. Boons) it is indeed simplest not to make them optional, but simpler to make all of them optional always than to make different ones optional under a variety of circumstances circumstances.

Am I weird?

You know, if you've drawn your deck, then getting Wind's Gift makes things slower when it's mandatory because now you have to decide what cards to discard instead of just skipping the effect :P .

But yeah it's pretty rough on Idol, especially because you typically get a bunch and you kinda have to play them to not have a dud turn.
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