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[4est]

Hello friends!

Before I share the prompt, a quick intro:

Whether you're brand new to the forums or have been around since the Isotropic days, all of us likely first stumbled upon this curious little community for the same reason: We wanted to get better at this cool game we'd just discovered called Dominion.

For this week's contest, I want to try something a little different. Let's hone in on that specific drive of wanting to grow our personal skill, experience, and enjoyment in actually playing Dominion, while tying it into a tradition that often comes up this time of year.


WDC #173: New Year's Resolutions

This challenge has two parts:

1) Share your "Dominion New Year's resolution."

2) Design a card or card-shaped-thing that might help you achieve that resolution.

For part one, I won't really be judging the resolutions, so have fun with this! It can be something based on a specific Dominion skill/mechanic you're trying to improve in, or on how you personally play or enjoy Dominion. Some examples of resolutions include (and feel free to steal any of these if you want):

• To learn how to trash down more quickly.
• To not trigger so many bad reshuffles.
• To get better at spotting three pile endings.
• To play more multiplayer games.
• To finally play expansions after Dark Ages.
• To not hate attacks so much anymore.

For part two and the design piece, obviously this week's contest is super open-ended, so there aren't necessarily any rules or restrictions apart from ensuring your card/landscape is somehow tied into your resolution. Take this however you like

Split piles, non-Supply cards, and other components are allowed, just try not to go too crazy here (like maybe don't give me a brand new set of 15 Loots to judge or something). As always: Don't make me squint. Eliminate unnecessary words and complexity where possible.


Judgement Details:

• Resolutions, entries, and revisions must be submitted by 5:00 PM CT (11:00 PM UTC) on Friday, January 6. I'll have results posted on or before Sunday, January 8.
• Entries will be judged on ingenuity, balance, simplicity, and creative/appropriate connection to their Dominion New Year's resolution

Have fun! I hope everyone can spend a moment reflecting on the specific ways you'd like to enhance your Dominion skill and experience in 2023 and channel that inspiration into some creative submissions. Excited to see your resolutions and designs!

Happy New Year!


Entries:

Eventful by Will(ow|iam)
Balance by arowdok
Early Wakeup by majiponi
Gold Mine by NoMoreFun
Hibiscus by BryGuy
Continents by Aquila
Diet by xyz123
Mansion by JW
Cutter by emtzalex
Temptation by fika monster
Covenant by czzzz
Strategy by LordBaphomet
Amateur by D782802859
Gateway by SignError
The Drunken Sinner by sumrex

[Will(ow|iam)]

My New Year's Resolution is to finish the all-landscapes expansion I'm working on. Designing this Trait automatically pushes towards that goal because it's another landscape in the expansion, but also it needs to help me playtest my other landscape cards:

Eventful - Trait

After playing an Eventful card on your turn, you may play a Treasure and you may buy the set-aside event (spending the associated $ but not the buy).

Setup: Set aside an unused Event

EDIT: Changed in later post.

[Gubump]

My New Year's Resolution is to finish the all-landscapes expansion I'm working on. Designing this Trait automatically pushes towards that goal because it's another landscape in the expansion, but also it needs to help me playtest my other landscape cards:

Eventful - Trait

After playing an Eventful card on your turn, you may play a Treasure and you may buy the set-aside event (spending the associated $ but not the buy).

Setup: Set aside an unused Event

Needs to specify that the Treasure is played from hand, and the parenthetical is unnecessary. Cards like BM that say "you may buy a..." automatically don't spend any of your Buys.

[Will(ow|iam)]

My New Year's Resolution is to finish the all-landscapes expansion I'm working on. Designing this Trait automatically pushes towards that goal because it's another landscape in the expansion, but also it needs to help me playtest my other landscape cards:

Eventful - Trait

After playing an Eventful card on your turn, you may play a Treasure and you may buy the set-aside event (spending the associated $ but not the buy).

Setup: Set aside an unused Event

Needs to specify that the Treasure is played from hand, and the parenthetical is unnecessary. Cards like BM that say "you may buy a..." automatically don't spend any of your Buys.

Makes sense.

Eventful - Trait

After playing an Eventful card on your turn, you may play a Treasure from your hand and you may buy the set-aside event.

Setup: Set aside an unused Event

[arowdok]

My entry this week is a Prophecy, these landscape cards always trigger around the 8th turn, (ignoring extra turns). These cards effect everyone, similar to Edicts but due to the distinct timing element it felt like best to make them a new type. The 8th turn was chosen as the point where the early game ends and the game's tempo either shifts into a long game or quickly starts the end game. Expect to see more of these from me.

Balance
Prophecy
After each player has had eight turns, reverse the game’s turn order. (For example, if play had proceeded clockwise around the table, it now goes counterclockwise.)

One of my many issues as a Dominion player and really player of most games is complaining about apparent uneven starts. This card is my way of addressing the well documented inherent unbalance of Dominion where the start player gets 1st cracks at piles, is less effected by early attack cards, and most importantly always get more total turns then player late in turn order. This Prophecy aim to fix this with the 1st player get the early advantages but later last player gets that powerful extra/final turn advantage come late game. I hope that with the "Balanced" achieved I can focus on game skill over just saying to my opponents "You only won because you ended the game and I didn't get a chance to buy a Province during my last turn like you did."

Rules clarification: The last player in turn order will "Trigger "this card and start the new turn order, so this card effectively means the last player will take two turns in a row.

[majiponi]

Early wakeup
cost $2 - Treasure
Worth $1 per 2 copies of this left in its pile.

[NoMoreFun]

My entry this week is a Prophecy, these landscape cards always trigger around the 8th turn, (ignoring extra turns). These cards effect everyone, similar to Edicts but due to the distinct timing element it felt like best to make them a new type. The 8th turn was chosen as the point where the early game ends and the game's tempo either shifts into a long game or quickly starts the end game. Expect to see more of these from me.

Balance
Prophecy
After each player has had eight turns, reverse the game’s turn order. (For example, if play had proceeded clockwise around the table, it now goes counterclockwise.)

One of my many issues as a Dominion player and really player of most games is complaining about apparent uneven starts. This card is my way of addressing the well documented inherent unbalance of Dominion where the start player gets 1st cracks at piles, is less effected by early attack cards, and most importantly always get more total turns then player late in turn order. This Prophecy aim to fix this with the 1st player get the early advantages but later last player gets that powerful extra/final turn advantage come late game. I hope that with the "Balanced" achieved I can focus on game skill over just saying to my opponents "You only won because you ended the game and I didn't get a chance to buy a Province during my last turn like you did."

Rules clarification: The last player in turn order will "Trigger "this card and start the new turn order, so this card effectively means the last player will take two turns in a row.

You may be interested in week 44 of the Fan Card Mechanics contest http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=21468

[NoMoreFun]

I've been meaning to post "3rd editions" of all the sets for some time - incorporating my own designs as well as other fan cards as a tribute to this community where I've spent the last 11 years

The year of Dominion that was 2022 kept pushing back my plans, especially with the new 2nd editions. But 2023 looks like a good year to get it together.

The premise is that each set would have exactly 500 cards. Most sets would expand. Each set has at least one type of landscape in it to fill out the box. For example Events are now in the base set. I also want to include everything in the base set you would need that isn't a card - so there are cubes and tokens which are used for some base set Events (cubes for tracking "once per game" events). Some cards are removed, and their "replacements" (in the vein of the official 2nd editions) might not be in the same set.

There are a few other rule changes. One of them is that games with a Prosperity card are guaranteed to have Colonies and Platinums in them. So here's my "fix" for Mine (remembering that every game with this card in it includes Platinums)

[segura]

Mine would perhaps work at $4 or if it were non-terminal, or both. Does being able to Mine Actions really push it from $4/$5 into $6 territory? I seriously doubt it, that is an edge case.
I would try this at $4 and $5.

[NoMoreFun]

Mine would perhaps work at $4 or if it were non-terminal, or both. Does being able to Mine Actions really push it from $4/$5 into $6 territory? I seriously doubt it, that is an edge case.
I would try this at $4 and $5.

Mine is a decent card when Platinum is available. $6 makes it harder to get your first Gold Mine but you can turn Silvers into Gold Mines and Gold Mines into Platinum. I added the Action trashing so it's more useful late game. Silver Mine is a $5 card that gains silvers to hand in most games without copper trashing. If it's too weak at $6 I'd add +$1 and/or allow it to trash any card.

[BryGuy]

My resolution is to finish the Alchemy 2nd Edition (A2e) my 4th set. One of the issues i see with Alchemy is the lack of Treasures to support Potion. So here is one such card.


update 20230103: removed Mystic's Mixture, removed Mage's Potion since it makes little since without showing several other double potion costing cards.

[segura]

Mine would perhaps work at $4 or if it were non-terminal, or both. Does being able to Mine Actions really push it from $4/$5 into $6 territory? I seriously doubt it, that is an edge case.
I would try this at $4 and $5.

Mine is a decent card when Platinum is available.

Not in my experience. The jump from Gold to Platinum is nice when you can pull it off but most trashers beat Mine tempo-wise, i.e. trashing down and then buying Platinum is just quicker.
$6 is definitely too expensive for a card that needs a serious buff to be viable at all.

[Aquila]

If I were to make a resolution to improve my Dominion, it would have to involve the 4-player IRL games I nearly always play. There are plenty of flaws and fixes to these games this forum has already covered: they're too short to make satisfying decks; three-pile endings are unpleasantly common; certain cards like Cursing Attacks get unpleasantly strong.
I thought of which fix to focus on, and ended up grouping the lot together in one mechanic:

Continents

Landscape cards that enlarge the kingdom to a continent, and make the game longer. When a Continent is added to the game:

• Add 1 more of each base Victory card to the Supply per player (including Colonies if in the game)
• Add an extra Kingdom pile
• One more pile will need to empty for the game to end (typically 4)

The recommended rules for inclusion: if there are 4 or more players in a game, after setup, add a Continent; this can be random selection, or chosen to suit the game and/or players' mood. It could be a 3rd landscape card.
They could alternatively be included in just the same way as TWELPs, even in 2- or 3-player, if players want a randomly decided big long game.
I designed these assuming one Continent per game, but...they could stack up in multiples?

Individual Continents can fix specific issues, or just add fun passive effects like Edicts.



Paradisaic limits Attacks to one hit on each player between their turns, but in exchange gives them an extra ability to be trashed for draw when discarded from play (whoever's turn in the case of Black Cat). Hopefully this addresses repeatable Attacks like junking or Knights. Cultist though...
Cavernous sorts out opening turns when they're crucial, giving each player two shots of +5 Cards then put 5 cards onto deck at start of turn.
Volcanic is a crazy thing that a lengthened game might get away with; when you gain a card, trash a card from hand, mandatory.

The flavour and convenience of these might help motivate me to try them someday.

[segura]

My resolution is to finish the Alchemy 2nd Edition (A2e) set i am working on. One of the issues i see with Alchemy is the lack of Treasures to support Potion. So here was the first card i made to address this issue. This card is intended to be added to the base cards.


Here is another card intended to replace a Copper or two.

I think Mystic's Mixture makes it too easy to access Potion cards. You could roll with just one University or you could open with Apothecary without striving to get another one.
Mage Potion, well, sure, if you got two buys you can sometimes afford two Potion cards, but I think it is either irrelevant or again too good. Imagine Vineyard, that becomes pretty crazy.

Potion cards are well designed to compensate for the downside of an extra stop card in your deck as well as the opportunity cost of getting that very stop card. I don't think it is necessary to mess with the fundamentals here.

[arowdok]

If I were to make a resolution to improve my Dominion, it would have to involve the 4-player IRL games I nearly always play. There are plenty of flaws and fixes to these games this forum has already covered: they're too short to make satisfying decks; three-pile endings are unpleasantly common; certain cards like Cursing Attacks get unpleasantly strong.
I thought of which fix to focus on, and ended up grouping the lot together in one mechanic:

Continents

Landscape cards that enlarge the kingdom to a continent, and make the game longer. When a Continent is added to the game:

• Add 1 more of each base Victory card to the Supply per player (including Colonies if in the game)
• Add an extra Kingdom pile
• One more pile will need to empty for the game to end (typically 4)

The recommended rules for inclusion: if there are 4 or more players in a game, after setup, add a Continent; this can be random selection, or chosen to suit the game and/or players' mood. It could be a 3rd landscape card.
They could alternatively be included in just the same way as TWELPs, even in 2- or 3-player, if players want a randomly decided big long game.
I designed these assuming one Continent per game, but...they could stack up in multiples?

Individual Continents can fix specific issues, or just add fun passive effects like Edicts.



Paradisaic limits Attacks to one hit on each player between their turns, but in exchange gives them an extra ability to be trashed for draw when discarded from play (whoever's turn in the case of Black Cat). Hopefully this addresses repeatable Attacks like junking or Knights. Cultist though...
Cavernous sorts out opening turns when they're crucial, giving each player two shots of +5 Cards then put 5 cards onto deck at start of turn.
Volcanic is a crazy thing that a lengthened game might get away with; when you gain a card, trash a card from hand, mandatory.

The flavour and convenience of these might help motivate me to try them someday.

I have found doing 4 extra Provinces for (12+4=16) is great for 4 player games as each player only getting 3 is quite lacking. I haven't felt the need to increase the Duchy or Colony piles. The extra supply pile feels fine but only necessary at 5 or 6 player games too me. I really wish each pile was like Green piles and 2 player games had 8 copies and 3+ player games had 12 copies personally it make the math feel more even out better. Also spilt pile would unlock at four copies for 2 players game which seems nice. I understand owning 2 extra copies of each card would be unnecessary and make setup even more annoying so I don't change my personal copy. It would be nice as a online only variant as it would not cost much to do that.

[xyz123]

Diet
Action $4

Trash this and up to 2 cards from your hand.

Gain a card costing up the total cost of the trashed cards that isn't a Diet.

Notes
- After feasting at Christmas a common new year's resolution is to lose weight, so I decided to create a card based on Feast that can help to thin your deck.
- Keeping the one shot nature of Feast is thematic as most resolutions don't last very long.
- When gaining a card, I have considered the impact of potion or debt cost cards. It will very rarely make a difference but it makes it slightly more interesting to allow the edge cases when they may crop up.

Updates
- Following feedback to weaken the card it now trashes 2 cards from your hand instead of 3 and the gained card cannot be another diet.

[segura]

This looks too good. You will either get another Diet, which you need anyway, or a $5 or a Gold. Chapel at least creates the trap of early overthinning.

[JW]

Mansion
$5 - Action Victory
+2 Actions
You may discard an Action card for +2 Cards.
2
 
Notes: Intended to replace Harem. A Village that gave 2 VP for $5 would be a bit too obvious to buy at a time when you’d consider buying Duchy for $5.
 
My Dominion resolution is to teach someone new to play the game. And for new players starting with simple cards is best. The second editions of Base and Intrigue are great for that, with a few cards as exceptions.
 
Harem is simple but it is weak and many people (myself included) dislike the flavor. And Intrigue could use another source of +Actions, due to the weakness or conditionality of most of the current sources. (Base is also light on +Actions relative to later expansions, but the sources of +Actions are stronger).

[arowdok]

Mansion
$5 - Action Victory
+2 Actions
You may discard an Action card for +2 Cards.
2
 
Notes: Intended to replace Harem. A Village that gave 2 VP for $5 would be a bit too obvious to buy at a time when you’d consider buying Duchy for $5.
 
My Dominion resolution is to teach someone new to play the game. And for new players starting with simple cards is best. The second editions of Base and Intrigue are great for that, with a few cards as exceptions.
 
Harem is simple but it is weak and many people (myself included) dislike the flavor. And Intrigue could use another source of +Actions, due to the weakness or conditionality of most of the current sources. (Base is also light on +Actions relative to later expansions, but the sources of +Actions are stronger).

I love your goal to make a card designed to help new players learn and enjoy dominion. I disagree that a new player would enjoy your current design. Discarding the cool interesting looking action cards is something newer players would shy away from. In my experience newer players try to sample too many unique cards and do not value deck constancy cards like, trashes, shifters, and +Actions cards. Though they tend to quickly learn to love +actions cards. Though your card does have the its green and does something part which newer players overvalue (imo) as they see VP which they know is important but they never grab Duchies very often. Maybe if it your are replacing Harem try to make a simple but decent Treasure Victory card.

[emtzalex]

My Dominion resolution is not to default to playing an engine on boards when Big Money Plus is clearly a better strategy. My submission, Cutter, is a card which would definitely tempt me to try to play some sort of fancy engine or other trick deck, but might well be best in a BM+.

My Submission:

Cutter • $3 • Action - Duration - Reaction Either now or at the start of your next turn, +2 Cards, +$2, return this to the Supply at the start of Clean-up. When any player gains a Cutter, you may play this from your hand.

My submission is Cutter. It's a one-shot that gives both +Cards and payload, and either this turn or next. Waiting makes it non-terminal (when you get the cards), but delays the payoff. It also has a Reaction, allowing you to play it when any player gains a copy. This lets you play it when your opponent gains one (getting both bonuses non-terminally on your next turn). Alternatively, if you draw it dead you can buy another copy, playing the one you have while replacing it.

The return to the Supply is delayed both to help with tracking the $ and to avoid endless loops where a player buys one, plays the one already in their hand, draws the one they just gained, then repeats the process (this would require both discounting and a source of +Buy, but it is still pretty doable).

[segura]

Mansion
$5 - Action Victory
+2 Actions
You may discard an Action card for +2 Cards.
2
 
Notes: Intended to replace Harem. A Village that gave 2 VP for $5 would be a bit too obvious to buy at a time when you’d consider buying Duchy for $5.
 
My Dominion resolution is to teach someone new to play the game. And for new players starting with simple cards is best. The second editions of Base and Intrigue are great for that, with a few cards as exceptions.
 
Harem is simple but it is weak and many people (myself included) dislike the flavor. And Intrigue could use another source of +Actions, due to the weakness or conditionality of most of the current sources. (Base is also light on +Actions relative to later expansions, but the sources of +Actions are stronger).

I love your goal to make a card designed to help new players learn and enjoy dominion. I disagree that a new player would enjoy your current design. Discarding the cool interesting looking action cards is something newer players would shy away from. In my experience newer players try to sample too many unique cards and do not value deck constancy cards like, trashes, shifters, and +Actions cards. Though they tend to quickly learn to love +actions cards. Though your card does have the its green and does something part which newer players overvalue (imo) as they see VP which they know is important but they never grab Duchies very often. Maybe if it your are replacing Harem try to make a simple but decent Treasure Victory card.

Sure, it is not a simple card. But it covers a similar timing spot as Harem, late game Duchy alternative, and it does something more useful for most decks than a 2 VP Silver.
Obviously it is not an engine enabler, i.e. if it is the only splitter BM dominates, but a support card for an already running engine.

[fika monster]

My new years resolution is to not play dominion after 22.00 in the evening.
Thus, this card
Edit: version 2:


Removed special back: in games with this, players must reveal their hand at the start of the buy phase to compensate, which should be fine most of the time. additionally, you cant infini-gane with this anymore i think. (also added "may gain" to remove the attack part of this)



THis card has a special back, so everyone knows you have it in your hand and you can't pretend it isnt there.

My gameplay idea with this card is that you may want to get an extra super valuable card, but then you have to handle this in your deck and other players potentially getting a silver or something better to their hand.  But gettin -2 vp is bad too... whatcha wanna do?

You have 5 cards of this per player in the game. so 10 for 2p, 15 3p, 20 4p

[czzzz]

I tend to want to buy a variety of Action cards, and try to build an engine. Needless to say, that's not the optimal strategy for every kingdom. 
So I thought, what's the opposite of that? A Treasure that rewards having little variety and few Action cards.

Covenant is the Treasure counterpart for Vassal. A fun, but perhaps gimmicky Treasure... yet it might be enough to pull me away from my normal route. 

[LordBaphomet]

My new year's dominion resolution is to formulate a game plan in advance and to stop being enticed w fancy new cards.
I feel like sometimes if I'm playing with a card I haven't played much of before from a more recent expansion, I'll grab one or two even if I don't need it for the type of deck I am running. Anyways, Strategy is an insanely game-warping card. If there are powerful attacks, or things such as Looters, Spirits, Liason, Travellers, etc, Strategy will pit players against each other: those who take the dual-type and those who don't. Either way, it massively boosts their power. In other kingdoms, Strategy might yell at you to stop gawking at the fancy new attack and just play a normal deck godamnedit.

[D782802859]

Amateur
$1 Action
+1 Buy
+1 Villager
-
The first time you gain an Amateur each turn, play it.

My new year's resolution is to do more custom card design, really fell off the wagon as of late. To that end, here's a card from a project I'm working on with a few cards representing each set, in this case Renaissance.