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[DunnoItAll]

This set of Travelers allows you, with the early cards, to sift through the Gemstone pile, positioning yourself to grab the Gemstones that you think will synergize with your Kingdom plan.  The Gemstone pile has many Gemstones that will be virtually worthless to you, but there may be some that could be very valuable.  They might also be valuable to your opponent(s), though. 

The middle Travelers will allow you to "take" Gemstones. When Gemstones (the card-shaped objects in the "Gemstone pile") are "taken," they are placed in front of you.  The mid-to-late Travelers allow you to gain and use "gems."  Gems are a new token (little red diamond-shaped tokens, ideally) - when you gain one, you choose, for each one you gain, which Gemstone you put it on.

Gems are then played like Coffers in your Buy phase. However, when they get played from your Gemstones, they each have the value assigned to them by the Gemstone they are on.

Here are the Gemstones:






The Gemstone pile is facedown (even the top card).  Many Gemstones will be worthless in many Kingdoms.  The point, though, is to try to use the Travelers to help you gain the one(s) that synergize with your Kingdom plan.

[BBobb]

Just some things about wording:
Miner: Why do you have to reveal these. You could just make it "Look at" like Appraiser is. But otherwise, it is fine.

Appraiser, Goldsmith: No changes

Jeweler: You should bold +1 Gem.

Gem Broker: This doesn't need the Traveller type, see Teacher, Champion. You should bold +1 Gem again. For the bottom part, it could be instead like Bridge Troll: "While this is in play, each Gem you play is worth + during your turns".

Overall line: I would make the costs so it is 2, 3*, 4*, 5*, 6*. Also, I think that you don't need all of them to be Jewelry type, you could just have the first one be it.

For the Gemstones, I think you could shorten the wording. Just say in the rulebook, "You can spend Gems during any point during your Buy phase. When you spend them, each one is worth the amount shown on the Gemstone it is on."
Also, Donald X. is moving away from "worth". I would change it to +
Then, you could make the texts shorter e.g. Aquamarine could say "+ per 2 Coffers on your Coffers mat"

Black Opal is strictly better than Ruby.

Blue Diamond, Garnet, and Turqoise (which should be spelled "Turquoise") should all first say "reveal your hand".

[DunnoItAll]

Miner: Why do you have to reveal these. You could just make it "Look at" like Appraiser is. But otherwise, it is fine.

The idea is so that all players have the information. Later cards are stronger in that they only give the player the information.

Jeweler: You should bold +1 Gem.

I tried!  I've been wrestling with the generator a lot lately.  It doesn't like me.

Gem Broker: This doesn't need the Traveller type, see Teacher, Champion. You should bold +1 Gem again. For the bottom part, it could be instead like Bridge Troll: "While this is in play, each Gem you play is worth + during your turns".

I decided on this wording just to make it clear that it only has something to do this turn and the next.  I think with your wording it's not clear how many turns the card should stay out.

Overall line: I would make the costs so it is 2, 3*, 4*, 5*, 6*. Also, I think that you don't need all of them to be Jewelry type, you could just have the first one be it.

That seems fair.

For the Gemstones, I think you could shorten the wording. Just say in the rulebook, "You can spend Gems during any point during your Buy phase. When you spend them, each one is worth the amount shown on the Gemstone it is on."
Also, Donald X. is moving away from "worth". I would change it to +
Then, you could make the texts shorter e.g. Aquamarine could say "+ per 2 Coffers on your Coffers mat"

I will play around with the wording.  Good point about the change to +$.

Black Opal is strictly better than Ruby.

This was intentional.  I want a wide variety of card strengths in this pile.  There is ample opportunity to try for the better cards.

Blue Diamond, Garnet, and Turqoise (which should be spelled "Turquoise") should all first say "reveal your hand".

Isn't this just a design choice, though?  I don't necessarily want the player to need to reveal their entire hand.

[emtzalex]

Gems are then played like Coffers in your Buy phase. However, when they get played from your Gemstones, they each have the value assigned to them by the Gemstone they are on.

If I am understanding the concept correctly, each Gemstone is like a specialized Coffers mat that only one player can get. If that is the case, and you get the +$ from removing the Gems, the language "Each [> on this card is worth..." should be changed, both because the Gem is not on the Gemstone when you get the coins, and because the Gemstone is not a card.

If you wanted to copy of the Coffers mat wording (with slight modification), it would be "During your Buy phase, before you buy anything, you may remove [> from this for +$1 per . . . for each [> removed."

It might be hard to squeeze that all onto each Gemstone. One solution might be to have a Gemstone mat (which could have the added advantage/disadvantage of limiting the number of Gemstones a player can take) that explains "During your Buy phase, before you buy anything, you may remove [> from one or more Gemstones on this. Each time you do, follow the instructions on the Gemstone from which the [> was removed." Then the Gemstones could just say "+$1 per...."

Black Opal and Ruby are weakened significantly by the rule that you have to get your money before you start buying, so maybe you want to modify that here.

[silverspawn]

Goldsmith is way way way too weak. Trashing a Gold from your hand is a massive penalty. Remodel gains you a province for the same 'cost', and that's a fairly mopey 4$ .

[DunnoItAll]

Gems are then played like Coffers in your Buy phase. However, when they get played from your Gemstones, they each have the value assigned to them by the Gemstone they are on.

If I am understanding the concept correctly, each Gemstone is like a specialized Coffers mat that only one player can get. If that is the case, and you get the +$ from removing the Gems, the language "Each [> on this card is worth..." should be changed, both because the Gem is not on the Gemstone when you get the coins, and because the Gemstone is not a card.

If you wanted to copy of the Coffers mat wording (with slight modification), it would be "During your Buy phase, before you buy anything, you may remove [> from this for +$1 per . . . for each [> removed."

It might be hard to squeeze that all onto each Gemstone. One solution might be to have a Gemstone mat (which could have the added advantage/disadvantage of limiting the number of Gemstones a player can take) that explains "During your Buy phase, before you buy anything, you may remove [> from one or more Gemstones on this. Each time you do, follow the instructions on the Gemstone from which the [> was removed." Then the Gemstones could just say "+$1 per...."

Black Opal and Ruby are weakened significantly by the rule that you have to get your money before you start buying, so maybe you want to modify that here.

Good suggestions, thank you!

[DunnoItAll]

Goldsmith is way way way too weak. Trashing a Gold from your hand is a massive penalty. Remodel gains you a province for the same 'cost', and that's a fairly mopey 4$ .

Yeah, I haven't really put a whole lot of effort into that side of the cards, yet.  I will get that fixed.  Thank you!

[GendoIkari]

A note about post formatting; having the rules text shown in an image instead of typed in makes it difficult to read. If you have the page zoomed in; the image itself is cut off on the right side. And the text in the image is fuzzier and harder to read than normal text.

Is the intent that there will be other Jewelry cards in a fan set? Or do the Gemstones exists purely for this traveller line? If the latter; that's a lot of cards (in terms both amount of things to read/learn and components to use) for just 1 Kingdom card. If the former, then it seems like games with only a single Jewelry card will play very differently than games with multiple. Moreso than single potion-cost cards vs multiple potion-cost cards, etc. It might be difficult to balance the strength of any card when other cards could have so much influence over how good Gemstones in general are.

Goldsmith looks very weak. First off you have to happen to line it up with a Gold in your hand; and you're going to want to play it to exchange it whether you have a Gold in your hand at the right time or not. So most of the time that you actually paly one, it's going to do nothing except take up an action. Even when you do line it up with Gold, it's often not going to be a good move to trash it.... the 2 gems you get now may replace the lost for this turn, or might be better than that; but it's still only money you get to use once; while the Gold is per shuffle. Unless you have a great engine and don't need the money in your deck.

*Edit* Didn't notice that silverspawn already pointed that out.

[DunnoItAll]

Is the intent that there will be other Jewelry cards in a fan set? Or do the Gemstones exists purely for this traveller line? If the latter; that's a lot of cards (in terms both amount of things to read/learn and components to use) for just 1 Kingdom card. If the former, then it seems like games with only a single Jewelry card will play very differently than games with multiple. Moreso than single potion-cost cards vs multiple potion-cost cards, etc. It might be difficult to balance the strength of any card when other cards could have so much influence over how good Gemstones in general are.

Not set on that yet.  Ideally, other cards could use the Gemstone deck, too.  However, I only have the Traveler set designed to use it that way.  I could definitely see accessing it through a Split pile with a similar idea in mind, but approached differently.  I share your view that it is a bit out of whack to have that many cards associated with just one kingdom card.

[Timinou]

Is it your intent that many of these will be completely worthless in some Kingdoms (e.g. Aquamarine, Fire Opal, Sapphire, Citrine, Peridot, Amber, etc)?

[segura]

Looks extremely weak. You gotta play 3 quasi-dead cards two get something like a Baker, but it is not even clear that it is better than Baker.
A good Traveler line has some versatility. For example Champion is for Actions, Hero is for payload and Warrior is for draw. Your line is all about payload.

[DunnoItAll]

Is it your intent that many of these will be completely worthless in some Kingdoms (e.g. Aquamarine, Fire Opal, Sapphire, Citrine, Peridot, Amber, etc)?

Yes.  Part of the way that this introduces strategic decision making is through the sifting through the pile down by the early travelers.  Ideally, I'd like them all to be worth something fairly consistently, but some to just be more valuable.  It seemed impossible to do this without having some be game-breakingly good, so I tried to lean conservative with them. I think having some be pretty much useless in some kingdoms is not a huge problem, as long as you have a way to work around it.  I think some balancing likely needs to be done here, of course.

I've been thinking about making the Gemstone pile accessible through a Split pile, also.  Top half something like Look at the top 5 Gemstones and take 1, bottom half being something that grants gems to put on them.  Stuff like that.  Haven't gotten very far in that thought process yet, though, obviously.  It just seems like it would be a fun mechanic.

[emtzalex]

Is the intent that there will be other Jewelry cards in a fan set? Or do the Gemstones exists purely for this traveller line? If the latter; that's a lot of cards (in terms both amount of things to read/learn and components to use) for just 1 Kingdom card. If the former, then it seems like games with only a single Jewelry card will play very differently than games with multiple. Moreso than single potion-cost cards vs multiple potion-cost cards, etc. It might be difficult to balance the strength of any card when other cards could have so much influence over how good Gemstones in general are.

Not set on that yet.  Ideally, other cards could use the Gemstone deck, too.  However, I only have the Traveler set designed to use it that way.  I could definitely see accessing it through a Split pile with a similar idea in mind, but approached differently.  I share your view that it is a bit out of whack to have that many cards associated with just one kingdom card.

I think there are definitely other ways to use the Gemstones. A challenging part of implementing the Gemstone mechanic in one or two cards is that the thing that happens less frequently (getting a Gemstone) is also the thing that absolutely has to happen first. This makes mechanics like Reactions less useful. These are some ways you might do it. (Note: I slapped these together pretty quickly, and did  not spend a lot of time thinking about balance/names/wording/interactions).

One obvious solution is to use an on-buy effect. It might look something like this:

Diamond District - $6 Action - Jewelry +1 Card +1 Action +1[> ---- When you buy this, look at the top 3 Gemstones on their pile. Take one. Put one on the bottom of the pile. Put the other one on top of the pile.	Gem Collection - $4+ Treasure - Jewelry 2[> ---- When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, look at one Gemstone from the top of their pile. Take one of them and put the rest on the bottom of the pile.

This is pretty straightforward. You get the Gemstone along with the card that needs it. This might be too easy, and take away some of the strategic element. On the other hand, if you don't get a Gemstone that is usable when you buy the first card, the card is basically useless until you can buy another one.

A second option would be to have a card that does both as part of its action. Either by the player's choice...

Gem Mine - $4
Action - Victory - Jewelry
Reveal the top Gemstone on its pile. Choose one: take the revealed Gemstone; or put the revealed Gemstone on the bottom of the pile and +1[>.
----
Worth 1VP for each Gemstone you have with at least 2[> on it.

...or based on some condition.

Jewel Smugglers - $5
Action - Night - Jewelry
If it's your Night phase, look at the top 2 Gemstones on their pile; take one and put the other one on the bottom of the pile. Otherwise, +2[>

Gem Hunter - $3
Action - Jewelry
Turn your Journey token over (it starts face up). Then if it's face down, reveal the top Gemstone on its pile, and either take the revealed Gemstone or put the revealed Gemstone on the bottom of the pile. If your Journey token is face up, +1[>.

As DunnoItAll pointed it out, another method could be to use a split pile. A challenge in implementing that is that you really don't need or want 3-4 copies of a card that involves getting Gemstones, so in a 2 player game, after each player buys one, there is a strong incentive not to buy the rest of them, and the second card of the split never becomes available. A solution I came up with was to use the Reserve mechanic (in a card inspired by Wine Merchant) to put away the Gemstone cards, and to make the second card of the split more powerful the more copies of the first card you have:

Gem Merchant - $4 Action - Reserve - Jewelry Look at the top 4 Gemstones on their pile. Take one. Put the others on the bottom of the pile. Put this on your Tavern mat. ---- At the end of your Buy phase, if you have at least 2[> on a Gemstone, you may discard this from your Tavern mat.	Gem Market - $5 Action - Jewelry +2[> If your Tavern mat has at least... 1 Gem Merchant, +1 Buy 2 Gem Merchants, +1 Action 3 Gem Merchants, +1 Card 4 Gem Merchants, +$1 5 Gem Merchants, +3[>

[DunnoItAll]

Is the intent that there will be other Jewelry cards in a fan set? Or do the Gemstones exists purely for this traveller line? If the latter; that's a lot of cards (in terms both amount of things to read/learn and components to use) for just 1 Kingdom card. If the former, then it seems like games with only a single Jewelry card will play very differently than games with multiple. Moreso than single potion-cost cards vs multiple potion-cost cards, etc. It might be difficult to balance the strength of any card when other cards could have so much influence over how good Gemstones in general are.

Not set on that yet.  Ideally, other cards could use the Gemstone deck, too.  However, I only have the Traveler set designed to use it that way.  I could definitely see accessing it through a Split pile with a similar idea in mind, but approached differently.  I share your view that it is a bit out of whack to have that many cards associated with just one kingdom card.

I think there are definitely other ways to use the Gemstones. A challenging part of implementing the Gemstone mechanic in one or two cards is that the thing that happens less frequently (getting a Gemstone) is also the thing that absolutely has to happen first. This makes mechanics like Reactions less useful. These are some ways you might do it. (Note: I slapped these together pretty quickly, and did  not spend a lot of time thinking about balance/names/wording/interactions).

One obvious solution is to use an on-buy effect. It might look something like this:

Diamond District - $6 Action - Jewelry +1 Card +1 Action +1[> ---- When you buy this, look at the top 3 Gemstones on their pile. Take one. Put one on the bottom of the pile. Put the other one on top of the pile.	Gem Collection - $4+ Treasure - Jewelry 2[> ---- When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, look at one Gemstone from the top of their pile. Take one of them and put the rest on the bottom of the pile.

This is pretty straightforward. You get the Gemstone along with the card that needs it. This might be too easy, and take away some of the strategic element. On the other hand, if you don't get a Gemstone that is usable when you buy the first card, the card is basically useless until you can buy another one.

A second option would be to have a card that does both as part of its action. Either by the player's choice...

Gem Mine - $4
Action - Victory - Jewelry
Reveal the top Gemstone on its pile. Choose one: take the revealed Gemstone; or put the revealed Gemstone on the bottom of the pile and +1[>.
----
Worth 1VP for each Gemstone you have with at least 2[> on it.

...or based on some condition.

Jewel Smugglers - $5
Action - Night - Jewelry
If it's your Night phase, look at the top 2 Gemstones on their pile; take one and put the other one on the bottom of the pile. Otherwise, +2[>

Gem Hunter - $3
Action - Jewelry
Turn your Journey token over (it starts face up). Then if it's face down, reveal the top Gemstone on its pile, and either take the revealed Gemstone or put the revealed Gemstone on the bottom of the pile. If your Journey token is face up, +1[>.

As DunnoItAll pointed it out, another method could be to use a split pile. A challenge in implementing that is that you really don't need or want 3-4 copies of a card that involves getting Gemstones, so in a 2 player game, after each player buys one, there is a strong incentive not to buy the rest of them, and the second card of the split never becomes available. A solution I came up with was to use the Reserve mechanic (in a card inspired by Wine Merchant) to put away the Gemstone cards, and to make the second card of the split more powerful the more copies of the first card you have:

Gem Merchant - $4 Action - Reserve - Jewelry Look at the top 4 Gemstones on their pile. Take one. Put the others on the bottom of the pile. Put this on your Tavern mat. ---- At the end of your Buy phase, if you have at least 2[> on a Gemstone, you may discard this from your Tavern mat.	Gem Market - $5 Action - Jewelry +2[> If your Tavern mat has at least... 1 Gem Merchant, +1 Buy 2 Gem Merchants, +1 Action 3 Gem Merchants, +1 Card 4 Gem Merchants, +$1 5 Gem Merchants, +3[>

Awesome stuff. I might play around with some of these ideas if you don't mind. Will give credit where due.

[Gubump]

If you do end up using Gem Collection, you should definitely rework Goldsmith. Gem Collection is strictly better than it, by a large margin (it's non-terminal and gives +2 Gems unconditionally, along with having an overpay effect) and is much easier to get. Although Goldsmith is way too weak as-is.

[Timinou]

The whole Traveller line looks too slow, especially if you're not able to fish out a decent Gemstone for that particular Kingdom the first time you play Appraiser.

If you stick with the Travellers, I would consider having fewer of them (e.g. get rid of Miner and start with Appraiser). 

I don't really like the fact that there's only one copy of each Gemstone, especially since they are not well balanced.  The conundrum you'll have is that if you devise a mechanic to make getting Gems easier, then this will favor the player that is able to get the best Gemstone(s) for a particular Kingdom (which is quite luck-based).  That doesn't seem very fun to me.  On the other hand, if Gems aren't easy to obtain, players would be better off getting their economy through other means.

Are you married to the idea of having all the Gemstones in a face down pile that players need to sift through?  What if there were some that are face up at the start of the game, so that players can better plan if this is a strategy they want to pursue at the beginning of the game?  Or what if Gemstones were more similar to Projects, whereby you choose a few randomly for each game and they are equally accessible to all players?

[emtzalex]

I might play around with some of these ideas if you don't mind.

Please do. This is a really cool idea and for some reason the question of getting Gemstones versus Gems really grabbed my attention. As I said, these are just examples for the basic concepts for how that could work using mechanics that already exist in the game. I think the cards themselves probably all need a lot of adjusting in terms of balancing (and better names; I got very lazy and just started calling everything "Gem [Noun]").

I'll look forward to seeing what you do with it.