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[gambit05]

I think Observatory is kind of weak for a $5 since it only draws up to 5. I think it should either draw up to 6, or make the return to hand part happen at the buy phase instead of the night phase and make Telescope a treasure. (If you do the latter thing, you probably want to limit the amount of cards you can set aside to keep it from being too strong.)

Perhaps rather than first setting aside cards and then drawing up to 5, Observatory should let you draw up to X cards and then set aside X cards for the Night phase.  That would make it easier to set up the Night phase with Telescope to be like a second turn.

Yes I agree, Observatory seems to be a bit weak. As you have suggested, a simple way to make it stronger is to increase its drawing capacity. This can be easily done without changing the concept. The idea to make Telescope a Treasure would be an alternative. However, I don’t like this as it would change the concept too much. Same with first drawing to X and then discard. It makes playing it easier, but the idea of the card is not to power it up to its maximum. The way it is seems more interesting, since players have to decide beforehand which cards they are willing to set aside. I could be wrong about the power level of Observatory, but if it needs a fix, it shouldn’t be this way. The simplest way is to allow it more cards to draw as LibraryAdventurer suggested.

Thanks to both of you. I will change the card to “draw to 6” and hopefully I will have the opportunity to test that version anytime soon.

[gambit05]

Grammatically, saying "equip this" works fine. You don't need "with".
OTOH, I preferred "take" because "equip" makes it sound like it's ready to use immediately when it isn't (at least not in the case of cabinet cards: you don't get the effect of the equipment card until after you draw and play it). 

I don't like the concept of Kingsman/Tinker/Truth because for the effect of playing one card, you need to refer to three or four other cards in addition to the one you played. It's too much.

I like Camp & Tent, although I think it could be worded more simply.
Instead of "follow the instructions...", Camp could say "If you have a Tent on your cabinet mat, +1 Card and discard the Tent at the start of clean-up."
Pawnshop and Balance look good to me too.

Interesting. So, to be sure, lets say there is a Bowman, a Quiver and some arrows. Can one say in English: “Equip your Quiver” in the sense that the Bowman gets the Quiver? I would use this phrase when something is added to the Quiver, here in the example arrows: the Quiver is equipped now. “Equip with your Quiver” instead would mean the Bowman is equipped with the Quiver. Is my understanding correct here?

I am undecided about the use of “take” versus “equip”, but tend to go for the latter. “Take” sounds a bit more natural, but is used for other things in Dominion. The term “equip” perfectly fits to the card type Equipment, and hasn’t been used in Dominion as a keyword. As you pointed out the Cabinet cards are not yet equipped when they enter the game, but it still seems reasonable to use “equip” due to the direct association with Equipment.

The wording you suggest for Camp is indeed much simpler. However, it could be confusing that it differs from how the instructions are on the other Cabinet cards. I tried to use the same principle for all those cards: Kingdom cards refer to the Equipment on the Cabinet (“Follow...”); Equipment cards on the Cabinet specify the abilities.

I am sorry to hear that you don‘t like the concept of the cards with multiple Equipment cards, but there is not much I can do about it as this is there core concept of those cards.

Anyway, thank you very much for your feedback.

[scolapasta]

Sorry I haven't opined much recently here, mostly been busy, but also my opinion hasn't changed with the new cards.

I still haven't seen anything in the cards where it matters for them to be set aside and "yours" before the game starts and not just a non supply pile. (since having 1 or more extra cards for Gardens, etc. isn't core to the design). The only reason is so you can only "take" one, but, in my opinion, that is handled perfectly well by "once per game".

Note in this scenario, it may not even be necessary for the "Equipment" type. You would only need the "equipment" footer on those supply cards that don't allow you to gain the cards themselves (e.g. Bowman), so you would know to include the non supply pile in the setup.

For something like Camp, it isn't necessary since it would be handled by the "gain a Tent", like Spoils gainers do. There would have to be some other tweaks to the text to handle cases like Kingsman or Tinker, but I still think this is the cleaner design.

[silverspawn]

Getting rid of the Equipment type is an idea worth considering. I cautiously disagree that it's the cleaner design, though. If you're going to have a type of card that obeys certain rules, giving it a type seems to have intuitive value, doesn't it?

Although, I think there is a case that you should either go all-in with the type and define Equip: as a key word (which was my previous suggestion) or get rid of the type altogether, and handle it by 'once per game' plus the new ruling that if you gain a specific card, you can do it even if it's not in the supply. (That is, as supposed to doing a hybrid where you have the type but don't make the card texts as short as possible.)

[scolapasta]

Getting rid of the Equipment type is an idea worth considering. I cautiously disagree that it's the cleaner design, though. If you're going to have a type of card that obeys certain rules, giving it a type seems to have intuitive value, doesn't it?

Although, I think there is a case that you should either go all-in with the type and define Equip: as a key word (which was my previous suggestion) or get rid of the type altogether, and handle it by 'once per game' plus the new ruling that if you gain a specific card, you can do it even if it's not in the supply. (That is, as supposed to doing a hybrid where you have the type but don't make the card texts as short as possible.)

Sorry, I guess I mean the whole concept (non supply, gain, possibly no type) is cleaner. The no type suggestion was the one I was least sure of.

Also, I will add that for camp for example, the "when play" text could just be "If you haven't yet this game, gain a Tent." Clear, simple, no special rules.

[gambit05]

Getting rid of the Equipment type is an idea worth considering. I cautiously disagree that it's the cleaner design, though. If you're going to have a type of card that obeys certain rules, giving it a type seems to have intuitive value, doesn't it?

Although, I think there is a case that you should either go all-in with the type and define Equip: as a key word (which was my previous suggestion) or get rid of the type altogether, and handle it by 'once per game' plus the new ruling that if you gain a specific card, you can do it even if it's not in the supply. (That is, as supposed to doing a hybrid where you have the type but don't make the card texts as short as possible.)

Sorry, I guess I mean the whole concept (non supply, gain, possibly no type) is cleaner. The no type suggestion was the one I was least sure of.

Also, I will add that for camp for example, the "when play" text could just be "If you haven't yet this game, gain a Tent." Clear, simple, no special rules.

How would you handle for example the Equipment cards coming with Kingsman. Just imagine 4 players means 4x4=16 cards. How do you track who has already gotten which one during the game?

[silverspawn]

Sorry, I guess I mean the whole concept (non supply, gain, possibly no type) is cleaner. The no type suggestion was the one I was least sure of.

I think they should also go together. If you have a unique type, it doesn't feel like it makes it more complicated if it's in your deck from the start. That's how equipments work. But if you don't, it's a weird rule since, as you observed, it doesn't make a difference for existing cards. Not sure if this is an intuition anyone shares.

[gambit05]

Part 4

After some more thoughts about the terminology and no comments on how to deal with Equipment non-Supply piles that have been suggested by some of you, I would like to continue and to show you the last set of cards. For Equipment cards I will use the term “equip” instead of “take”, “gain” or anything else. “Equip” has been suggested by some of you (spineflu, silverspawn and Timinou) at some point during the discussion and thus can’t be too bad. The cards I’ll show you in this part of the thread all deal with Moral and only the first one is about Equipments.

Moral
Morals are a pile of landscape “cards” that are inspired by Boons and Hexes. Morals start face down and by playing certain Kingdom or Equipment cards the top one is revealed. All players follow its instruction at the start of their turn, until the next Moral is revealed, which in practice is just placing it face up on top of the previously revealed Moral. When the pile is empty and the next Moral has to be revealed, the pile is shuffled again. So, pretty much the same as with Boons and Hexes.
The Moral pile consists of 9 different “cards”, which come in different quantities. The numbers are: 2x Excellent; 3x High; 5x Good; 8x Average; 3x So-So; 3x Weakened; 2x Low; 1x Disastrous; 3x Confused. I have given the numbers below the images as well. At the start of the game, no Moral is revealed. The Moral Confused causes reshuffling of the pile. This is to keep the likelihood for revealing the different Morals relatively constant, i.e. to counteract extreme cases where for example both Excellent Morals have been revealed very early.

2x

3x

5x

8x

3x

3x

2x

1x

3x

I have designed 3 cards that reveal Morals. One is an Equipment associated with a Kingdom card, the other two are Kingdom cards unrelated to Equipments:

Drummer $4 – Treasure            Equipment: Drums            $2 If the Moral is Good or better, +1VP.

Drums $0 – Treasure – Moral - Equipment $2    If the Moral is Good or better, +1VP.    Reveal the top Moral. Players receive it at the start of their turn. -------------------------------- When you gain a Treasure, equip this.

Muster $3 – Action - Moral +3 Cards If you have 3 or more cards in play, reveal the top Moral. If         it’s Good or better, +1 Villager.        Players receive the Moral at the start of their turn. Exile this.

Jouster $5 – Action - Moral +1 Card +1 Action If this is the first time you played a Jouster this turn, reveal the top      Moral. Otherwise, +1 Buy and +$2.      Players receive the Moral at the start of their turn.

Drummer/Drums
Both are Treasures producing $2. Drummer is a Kingdom supply card that can be gained, whereas Drums is an Equipment card which is “taken” when the player gains a Treasure. Thus, taking Drums in a game can only be avoided when no Treasures are gained at all. On the other hand, it is not mandatory to gain a Drummer in order to get Drums. When Drums is played the player takes +1 VP if the actual Moral is Good or better. “Better” means High or Excellent. Then the player reveals the next Moral. This Moral is received at the start of each players turn until the next Moral is revealed. When a player plays a Drummer they can also get 1VP if the Moral is good enough.

Muster
Muster is a Smithy variant that is Exiled after being played. Muster reveals the next Moral only when at least 3 cards are in play at the time when Muster is played. If the revealed Moral is Good or better (i.e. High or Excellent), the player gets +1 Villager. In any case, the instructions of the Moral themselves are followed at the start of the turns and thus don’t matter when Muster reveals the Moral.

Jouster
Jouster reveals Morals only for the first time it is played during a player’s turn. All Jousters subsequently played in the same turn give +1 Buy and $2 instead.

[scolapasta]

FWIW, I do like Equip better than take. (and your point on tracking is a good one, though in practice, I imagine you could use some sort of colored token).

A couple of points on these new cards:

• I think you might mean Morale instead of Moral. At least that seems to fit more with "If the Moral/Morale is good", etc.

Morale: the confidence, enthusiasm, and discipline of a person or group at a particular time.

Moral: a lesson, especially one concerning what is right or prudent, that can be derived from a story, a piece of information, or an experience.


• I think you can save text by removing the "Players receive it at the start of their turn"; as that is just the standard rule for these cards.

[Timinou]

FWIW, I do like Equip better than take. (and your point on tracking is a good one, though in practice, I imagine you could use some sort of colored token).

A couple of points on these new cards:

• I think you might mean Morale instead of Moral. At least that seems to fit more with "If the Moral/Morale is good", etc.

Morale: the confidence, enthusiasm, and discipline of a person or group at a particular time.

Moral: a lesson, especially one concerning what is right or prudent, that can be derived from a story, a piece of information, or an experience.


• I think you can save text by removing the "Players receive it at the start of their turn"; as that is just the standard rule for these cards.

Agree on the name.  Morale would fit better.

I also agree that if the rules say that players always receive the Moral at the start of their turns, it doesn't need to be on the cards.

I think it could be a bit confusing to have Moral as the card type as well, but it doesn't bother me too much.

I don't know if you plan to have a card that would let you cycle through different Morals.  Jouster is pretty strong when stacked, but I think it would also be good to have an option to let you combo with Drums / Drummer.

I'm not sure I like the fact that in multiplayer games one player could receive High or Excellent, then the next one could get Low or Disastrous.

Just another minor comment - think Drummer and Drums would be less ambiguous if they said "Good, Excellent, or High" instead of "Good or better".

[segura]

I’d use different background colours to differentiate the three levels.

[segura]

I’d also put the frequency on the card, a small number in the corner or something like that.

[gambit05]

FWIW, I do like Equip better than take. (and your point on tracking is a good one, though in practice, I imagine you could use some sort of colored token).

I have played with similar versions of Drummer/Drums, Bowman/Quiver and with Kingsman and its 4 Equipment cards in real life, with each about 10 times with 3 players. It was really easy to do it the way I tried to present here.

A couple of points on these new cards:

• I think you might mean Morale instead of Moral. At least that seems to fit more with "If the Moral/Morale is good", etc.

Morale: the confidence, enthusiasm, and discipline of a person or group at a particular time.

Moral: a lesson, especially one concerning what is right or prudent, that can be derived from a story, a piece of information, or an experience.

Of course, I mean Morale. Funny thing is in German you use the same word for both, i.e. Moral. I was familiar with both English words, but wasn't aware of the difference. Thanks for this. Something I learnt today, I'll probably never forget.

• I think you can save text by removing the "Players receive it at the start of their turn"; as that is just the standard rule for these cards.

I wanted to be player friendly similar to some obvious text on some official cards, but since you and Timinou suggest to skip it, I will do so.

I think it could be a bit confusing to have Moral as the card type as well, but it doesn't bother me too much.

I just used it analogous to how Fate and Doom cards are labelled for receiving Boons and Hexes, respectively.

I don't know if you plan to have a card that would let you cycle through different Morals.  Jouster is pretty strong when stacked, but I think it would also be good to have an option to let you combo with Drums / Drummer.

I do not plan to have more Morale cards. I think it is better to keep their absolute number low, since if more than 1 (or 2?) are in a game, the Morale would change too often, which may become annoying. Ideally, the Morale cards shouldn't be able to change too often. I am not sure what you meant with the strengths of Jouster. It is designed for stacking, but only the first one reveals the next Morale.

I'm not sure I like the fact that in multiplayer games one player could receive High or Excellent, then the next one could get Low or Disastrous.

With the limited experience I have with Drummer/Drums, I can say that it worked very well in 3-player games. One important thing seems to be that the Morale doesn't change too often. It can even develop in a kind of team spirit were everyone hopes that the next Morale is better than the previous one or something like that. This is probably not ideal for high level competitive 2-player games, but in social multiplayer games the fun part is much higher than any drawback due to swinginess. Over a long run it balances out.

Just another minor comment - think Drummer and Drums would be less ambiguous if they said "Good, Excellent, or High" instead of "Good or better".

Yes, I mainly used the "or better" because of the limited space on Drums. Now that I delete the "players receive..." part, this shouldn't be a problem.

I’d use different background colours to differentiate the three levels.

I think the cards are already quite colorful. Labeling the cards with the type Morale should be enough and their text also tells the player to reveal the next Moral. It is basically the same principal as with Fate and Doom cards.

I’d also put the frequency on the card, a small number in the corner or something like that.

The frequency of the Morale cards may still change. In a first version I also had 2 single-copy Morale cards (which were stupid), but I may come up with better ones, or I may change the ratio of good versus bad Morales.



Finally, I have a question to all of you. For Drums I have used "...equip this". Is that correct? Or is it better to use "...equip with this"?

Thank you all very much for your help!

[silverspawn]

equip this.

[Gubump]

"Equip with this" is grammatically incorrect, so all of the Equipment cards should say "Equip this." I think it should also be a capitalized keyword a la Exile.

[LittleFish]

Kingsman
$4 – Action
Equipment: Harp, Shield, Sword, Trumpet

+1 Action
Follow the instructions of the
Kingsman’s Equipment cards
on your Cabinet mat.

Take one of your set-aside
Kingsman’s Equipment cards.

I believe the part saying "Follow the instructions of the
Kingsman’s Equipment cards
on your Cabinet mat." are not important, due to them already saying to take those bonuses when a Kingsman is played. The way it is currently worded, you already get the bonus for playing kingsman without the clause

[gambit05]

Kingsman
$4 – Action
Equipment: Harp, Shield, Sword, Trumpet

+1 Action
Follow the instructions of the
Kingsman’s Equipment cards
on your Cabinet mat.

Take one of your set-aside
Kingsman’s Equipment cards.

I believe the part saying "Follow the instructions of the
Kingsman’s Equipment cards
on your Cabinet mat." are not important, due to them already saying to take those bonuses when a Kingsman is played. The way it is currently worded, you already get the bonus for playing kingsman without the clause

I have thought about that. For the other Kingdom cards with a similar function (Truth, Tinker, Camp), I think it is better to have the instruction on the card. Then it would be consistent to also have it on Kingsman. It is not essential, but it avoids that the instruction is missed when a Kingsman is played. Also official cards have some instructions (though usually in parenthesis) that are not really required; they are more like a reminder. So, for now I will leave it there. Anyway, thanks.

[Carline]

I like very much the idea of Moral (or Morale), but I would like better if it would be the same for all players. One way I would like is to change the Morale at the start of each of the turns of the first player and have more cards like Drummer which are sensible to the current Morale.

[gambit05]

I like very much the idea of Moral (or Morale), but I would like better if it would be the same for all players. One way I would like is to change the Morale at the start of each of the turns of the first player and have more cards like Drummer which are sensible to the current Morale.

Your suggestion is a quite a different concept of Morale as compared to my version. The active Morale would be fixed and cards that can profit from it (Drummer and Muster) would have a more central role, and as they are from Kingdom piles with 10 copies they may dominate the game much more. I am not saying that your idea is bad, but it would play out quite differently.

Do you think it would be more interesting or funnier to play with your version?