Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[grrgrrgrr]

Modifiers are card shaped objects in the vein of Events, Projects, Landmarks and Ways. When the Kingdom has a Modifier, one of the Action supply piles will have the Modifier token on it. When a player plays a card from that pile, he/she first gets the effect as described on the Modifier, before following the instructions of the card itself (similar to Adventure tokens). The effect is involuntarily and lasts an entire game. Some modifiers alter intrinsic properties such as the cost.

Here are ideas I came up with. As you see, Modifiers typically have a double-edged sword kind of effect. Some modifiers just give the card a small buff.




Edit: OUTTAKE:

[Gubump]

Ice Crown needs rewording; as it is currently, it ignores +Actions forever, which is obviously accidental. Here's my wording suggestion:

+2 Actions
After you finish playing this card, ignore any further +Actions you get for the rest of this turn.

[emtzalex]

Modifiers are card shaped objects in the vein of Events, Projects, Landmarks and Ways. When the Kingdom has a Modifier, one of the Action supply piles will have the Modifier token on it.

I presume this is done at random? Some of these modifiers ruin certain cards if they are attached to them (off the top of my head, Floaty Hands ruins Band of Misfits; Magic Suit ruins Lab, Lost City).

More broadly, I have two general concerns, which are directly related to one another. All of the official landscapes (generally) increase the number of options/potential strategies a player has (i.e. an Event/Project is an extra buy option; a player can modify their gameplay to get VP from a Landmark; a Way is an extra strategy to use Action cards). This never does. It changes the way one of the cards in the Kingdom works. But you don't have the choice of the original or a modified version of the card; rather you have the option of the modified card and lose the option of the original card.

This gets to my second point, which is that, in my experience, designing cards and giving them a proper balance is a rather delicate thing. I worry that slapping their effect onto a card at random is going to upset that balance, either making the card unplayable or making it the only viable strategy. This will mean that having a modifier will actually reduce the overall number of options or viable strategies in a game.


EDIT: I want to add some context to this, which will maybe help clarify my thoughts (which I think could be clearer). My above comments were strongly influenced by my thinking about a recent post I read elsewhere on the forum. In the post, provocatively titled "
Dominion is getting worse with each expansion", faust (to summarize very generally) raised the issue that as the number of expansions increases, so do the number of Kingdom cards, and therefore the number of randomizers. As a result, the chance of a randomized game lacking an element that makes for an interesting game (faust used +Buy as an illustrative example) increases, even if the proportion of cards with that element stays the same. (See the OP for the math).

In response, segura suggested that one way to mitigate this when playing with many expansions is to add a third landscape card. This made me think about landscapes as being a strong tool to increase the number of options in a game, without adding an additional Kingdom card piles, and therefore to make for more interesting games. In that context, Salesman's Hat is actually probably a really good thing, as it will often add one of those interesting elements into a game.

[emtzalex]

Another way that these might increase the set of options for players is to borrow an element from adaptive cards, and have each player choose whether or not they want the Modifier in effect. They can make the choice either at the beginning of the game or when they first gain the card (or, potentially, at some other time), and you can have a token which they put onto the Modifier to indicate they are using it. For some of these (like Salesman's Hat or Clown Suit) players will just always take it, but in others it at least offers some choice.

Alternatively, the players could have the option of which Kingdom Action pile gets modified. Again, this could happen either at the start of the game, or when they gain an Action card for the first time (or, in theory, whenever they gain an Action card, although this could create issues with the ones you up-price). Whichever way you do it, I think it should probably be locked in for the rest of the game. (If they do it at the start of the game, you may want to have each player choose and reveal the choices simultaneously to avoid strategically choosing based on other player's selection, although going in turn order could be a way to slightly mitigate first turn advantage).

[grrgrrgrr]

Thanks for the input, emtzalex! Glad that I didn't keep this mechanic untill I'd host a Fan Mechanic contest.

The idea of this Modifier is to provide an extra challenge in finding the path to the victory. Although it doesn't increase the amount of options like Events do, it causes the kingdom to have a pile of cards that aren't as well understood as your average Dominion card. The card may not have a publish-worthy effect, but the player still has to figure out how this "new" version of the card plays in comparison to the old version, and then find out if and how it fits in the strategy. But I get there may not be a need for it and people would rather play with 10 well polished cards. The topic you have linked to examplifies that. And the mechanic should obviously not make the Landscape synonymous to "This card is left out of the kingdom", which is likely the biggest hurdle to overcome.

Your suggestions are interesting, particularly the one where players can choose if the Modifier should take place or not. It definitely prevents the modifier from destroying the card, but being forced onto a given set of resources and give this new monstrosity a chance is also part of the charm. I will definitely take this into consideration.

Still, I can't help but feel that aside from Magic Suit, the ideas are at least somewhat decent. But this obviously needs to be proven through playtesting.

[mxdata]

Interesting ideas. Some of these could skew games, but not horribly so I don't think. Floaty Pants on certain expensive cards would make them much easier to buy.  A King's Court for 7D, for example, would really skew things (on the other hand, as Emtzalex pointed out, Band of Misfits would become worthless, Border Village is another one that would become much less useful - it's now 6 debt for a plain village + a Copper most of the time; barring sufficient cost-reduction, Copper, Curse, and Engineer are the only cards that cost less than 6D). Floaty Pants on Gladiator would be interesting - it would make Fortune's cost 16 debt! I'm assuming also that it would apply after any other cost-reduction?  E.g., if it's on a $6 cost card and you have 3 Highways in play, the cost would be 3D?

Sorcerer's Wand is one that would be really tricky to play optimally. It would make an obvious strong combo with Fortress. Does its trashing happen before or after the card's effects? This would be important for one-shots like Horse (determining whether it ends up back in its pile or in the trash) and Pillage (determining whether you get its effects or not)

Stolen Wear would be really strong on some cards and really bad on others - Peddler variants would effectively become simple cantrips, while a village that gives you 1 debt every time you play it might not be worth buying at all (especially if there are other villages). On the other hand, a $5 King's Court that gives you 1 debt when you play would be well worth it in most kingdoms - and imagine being able to open with double Mountbank (albeit, one with only a net +$1)!