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Author Topic: Fan Card Mechanics Week 23: Laying Down The Law  (Read 4314 times)

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emtzalex

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Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 23: Laying Down The Law
« Reply #25 on: November 26, 2021, 03:07:55 pm »
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emtzalex's Laws (Succession, Primogeniture, Dead Hand, Estate Tax)
This is an intriguing set with some good synergy.  Succession allows you to set aside an Action card from your hand in order to power up Primogeniture, Dead Hand, and Estate Tax.  Primogeniture and Dead Hand are like Inheritance for Duchies and Curses, respectively, except that most of the time these cards will still clutter your deck.  It's not clear to me that you would want to gain Duchies or Curses in order to take advantage of Primogeniture and Dead Hand, unless you are playing with Archives and can stash them away for turns where they would not be activated.  Setting it up through Succession also comes with an opportunity cost since you are removing an Action card from your deck.  I could definitely see it being detrimental, since it will not only slow down your tempo but having Curses and Duchies in your deck during turns where Dead Hand or Primogeniture are not available will make your deck less reliable.  I suspect that Estate Tax would probably be the strongest Law of the bunch and the most contested one. 
WINNER:

emtzalex's Laws (Succession, Primogeniture, Dead Hand, Estate Tax)

Thanks for the feedback and the win. I will try to post a new contest shortly.
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Thanks to Shard of Honor for his Extended Version of the Dominion Card Image Generator, which I use to mock up my fan cards, and to Violet CLM, who made the original.

spineflu

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Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 23: Laying Down The Law
« Reply #26 on: November 28, 2021, 01:26:04 pm »
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spineflu's Bromides (A Sparing Father, A Spending Son, Make Light Work, Look a Gift Horse, Reach for the Sky, Over the Moon, Tricks of the Trade)

Unlike Laws, Bromides are randomly selected from the set based on the number of players.  In a 2-player game, there would be 3 available.  As emtzalex pointed out early in the thread, have 3 to choose from in 2-player game will essentially only give the players a choice the first time they place their cube (e.g. Player 1 selects Bromide A, Player 2 then selects Bromide B, then Player 1 has no choice but to select Bromide C, and Player 2 has no choice but to select Bromide A, and so on).  Tweaking the rule to using n+2 Bromides, where n is the number of players, would give the player an actual choice to make.
Bromides have an interesting feature whereby they give the active player a bonus and a different bonus to their opponents.  In the case of a Spending Son and Make Light Work, the bonus that your opponents get is arguably better than what you get, so you need to be wise about whether your really need to take the +$1 or +1 Action.  On the other hand, a well-timed Over the Moon might not give your opponent any advantage if their discard pile is empty, and the remaining Bromides generally have better bonuses for the active player than their opponents.  It may mean that players will gravitate towards the latter ones.

I don't think giving the players a choice every time is a good idea - you're going to be stuck on your particular orbit through the bromides, and your opponents can plan for that. Otherwise the "better for your opponents than yourself" ones will never get picked; it's like randomly getting a dud Council Room draw.
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Timinou

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Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 23: Laying Down The Law
« Reply #27 on: November 29, 2021, 11:16:20 pm »
+1

spineflu's Bromides (A Sparing Father, A Spending Son, Make Light Work, Look a Gift Horse, Reach for the Sky, Over the Moon, Tricks of the Trade)

Unlike Laws, Bromides are randomly selected from the set based on the number of players.  In a 2-player game, there would be 3 available.  As emtzalex pointed out early in the thread, have 3 to choose from in 2-player game will essentially only give the players a choice the first time they place their cube (e.g. Player 1 selects Bromide A, Player 2 then selects Bromide B, then Player 1 has no choice but to select Bromide C, and Player 2 has no choice but to select Bromide A, and so on).  Tweaking the rule to using n+2 Bromides, where n is the number of players, would give the player an actual choice to make.
Bromides have an interesting feature whereby they give the active player a bonus and a different bonus to their opponents.  In the case of a Spending Son and Make Light Work, the bonus that your opponents get is arguably better than what you get, so you need to be wise about whether your really need to take the +$1 or +1 Action.  On the other hand, a well-timed Over the Moon might not give your opponent any advantage if their discard pile is empty, and the remaining Bromides generally have better bonuses for the active player than their opponents.  It may mean that players will gravitate towards the latter ones.

I don't think giving the players a choice every time is a good idea - you're going to be stuck on your particular orbit through the bromides, and your opponents can plan for that. Otherwise the "better for your opponents than yourself" ones will never get picked; it's like randomly getting a dud Council Room draw.

I can see the potential appeal of not having a choice except for the first card you pick, especially if it allows you to plan for the bonus that you're likely to get on your next turn or your opponent's turn.  However, I don't know that this set of Bromides is conducive to that kind of tactical foresight, except for Over the Moon.
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emtzalex

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Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 23: Laying Down The Law
« Reply #28 on: November 30, 2021, 02:38:39 pm »
+1

Primogeniture and Dead Hand are like Inheritance for Duchies and Curses, respectively, except that most of the time these cards will still clutter your deck.  It's not clear to me that you would want to gain Duchies or Curses in order to take advantage of Primogeniture and Dead Hand, unless you are playing with Archives and can stash them away for turns where they would not be activated.  Setting it up through Succession also comes with an opportunity cost since you are removing an Action card from your deck.  I could definitely see it being detrimental, since it will not only slow down your tempo but having Curses and Duchies in your deck during turns where Dead Hand or Primogeniture are not available will make your deck less reliable.  I suspect that Estate Tax would probably be the strongest Law of the bunch and the most contested one. 

I definitely agree with this analysis, and I think it is a potentially interesting design space for these. Effects that would be too strong as outright Projects or Project-like Events (like the ones in Adventures that use player-specific tokens) can be made into laws, where players will only have the effect some of the time--as I mentioned in my post, at most on 1/2 their turns. Depending on the number of players and if a Law is contested, a player might only be able to get it 1/3 of the time. Also, even if a player decides not to pursue the strategy (in this case, deciding not to set aside any laws), they can still use their token to limit their opponent(s) and limit their access to the most advantageous laws, without any opportunity cost (unlike something like Flagbearer / the Flag).

That being said, it is tricky to design something that is strong enough to make pursuing it worthwhile in those circumstances without making it too powerful on those turns that you do get the desired Law. The need for collision helps (here with Curse, Duchy, or a copy of the set aside card). You can choose to the cards in your hand at the start of the turn, but only if you aren't blocked or already there.

I did have one thought about some of the syntax. I followed Timinou's example from Industrial/Commercial/Economic/Sacred and used "At the start of your turn, . . . " (which is how an equivalent Project would be worded). However, a player's token is moved at the start of the turn. According to the official rules, when multiple things happen at the start of your turn, you choose the order in which they happen. Thus, a player who previously had their token on Economic could, at the start of their turn: (1) take the +$1 from Economic; (2) under the rules move their token to Commercial; (3) take the +1 Buy from Commercial. I am almost certain this wasn't the intention, and it could in theory be fixed by saying that a player's token is moved at the beginning of the start of their turn. However, since the token is moved at the start of the turn, and that is when those bonuses are to be given, it could be simplified even further by being phrased like an Action card. Thus, Timinou's first example would become:

Quote
Industrial - Law
+1 Action

Quote
Commercial - Law
+1 Buy

Quote
Economic - Law
+$1

Quote
Sacred - Law
Trash a card from your hand.

Given that the Law only applies on that player's turn, even the more general Laws could be phrased more like Actions / Events, with the effect happening when you moved your token onto it. Thus, one of my submissions would be:

Quote
Primogeniture - Law*
This turn, Duchies are also Actions with "Play one of your set aside cards, leaving it there."

This could make the language cleaner and remove the need for the specific "at the beginning of the start of your turn" rule.



I did come up with one other set of Laws. This was actually the first idea I came up with, and while I realize it has a lot of problems, it got kind of stuck in my head. I do potentially like the idea of a negative/restrictive set of Laws, but this is probably not it.

       
       

Quote from: Three Wise Monkeys
Three Wise Monkeys - Law
At the start of your turn, reveal the top card of your deck. Move the Evil token to its pile (cards from that pile are Evil cards).

Quote from: See No Evil
See No Evil - Law*
On your turn, you may not gain Evil cards.

Quote from: Hear No Evil
Hear No Evil - Law*
At the start of your turn, discard an Evil card (or reveal a hand without one).

Quote from: Speak No Evil
Speak No Evil - Law*
On your turn, you may not play Evil cards.
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Thanks to Shard of Honor for his Extended Version of the Dominion Card Image Generator, which I use to mock up my fan cards, and to Violet CLM, who made the original.
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