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[Diving Pikachu]

This winter I had the idea for a fan expansion which incorporated alternative curses as a potion-like treasure:

Taboo $3
(Treasure)
-1VP
***

I know "taboo" might be a bit too abstract to visualize as a treasure, but it could be a ruler's willingness to accumulate a bad reputation in order to advance his kingdom. The theme of this whole expansion plays along those lines as well: these are all "tricky" cards whose advantages must be carefully weighed with their disadvantages. Anyways, without further ado, here's the rest of the cards I made when I had the momentum going:


Blackmail $2, 1 Taboo
(Action)
Trash this and another blackmail. If you do, gain 2 gold and a blackmail on top of your deck, in any order, and +5 VP.
-1VP

I meant this as a sort of modified Treasure Map, with more dire consequences if you fail to trash it with another. But even if you manage to get rid of the two in your deck, you get stuck with one more. It's a vicious circle unless you have a Watchtower or Chapel. Yet the Taboo cost gums up Forge and Upgrade, and makes it tepid fodder for Savager. There is, however, the rare chance that someone might buy four, gain two, and use all three sets of two. But that's at the lost opportunity to buy 4 $5 cards. The 5 victory tokens seems like a fair reward for such a risky endeavor, but what do you guys think?
***


Cultist $3, 1 Taboo (New version)
(Action [Attack])
+$2
+1 buy
At the end of your turn, all other players with more than 4 cards in their hands discard 1 card for every Cultist or Taboo you played this turn. This cannot happen more than once per turn.
-1VP

Old Cultist $3, 1 Taboo
(Action)
+$2
+1 buy
When this is in play, reveal your hand on your buy phase. +1 coin for every card with Taboo in its cost, either in play or in your hand, including this one.
-1VP

I'll admit right here that this card is inspired by the Cultist class in Munchkin Cthulhu. But it fits thematically and mechanically. This card encourages you to keep Taboo-costing cards as far into the endgame as possible, which, of course, risks taking a big hit on your VP total. This card definitely needs a lot of playtesting, because I can't tell just how much money this card can yield in the wild. I stuck to the "while this is in play" wording a la Goons, because King's Courting this would be monstrously broken. I've thought about including Taboo cards themselves as $-boosters, but a Cultist (~$5 card) plus a Taboo in your hand would yield $4 and 1 buy, which is too powerful for something that can happen so early. I still want a card that encourages you to keep even your Taboos late without trashing them too fast, though. Alternatively, the Cultist could be an attack, and each cultist played, including the first one, forces everyone else to discard one card if they have 4 or more in their hands. A three-Cultist string could be pretty vicious, leaving everyone else with just 2 cards, but a single cultist play would immunize everyone else in 3+ from subsequent Cultists.
***


Port Tax $6, 1 Taboo (New Version)
(Action [Duration])
+$4
Until your next turn, +1 Buy for all players including yourself. All other players gain a curse for every buy made beyond their first one.

Privateer (Old Port Tax) $6, 1 Taboo
(Action [Duration])
+$4
Until your next turn, no one can use more than one buy per turn.

Privateer is essentially the cost of a Province, but it can give you a lot of control over the game, plus a practically guaranteed Province each turn you use it. It can help you maintain an early lead, and cockblocks Goons. Horn of Plenty and other gaining cards, of course, would get around this. Although this can't be blocked by any reaction, its usage by multiple players won't stack, just overlap.
***


Seigniorage/Fiat $3, 1 Taboo
(Action [Attack])
+$2
All other players with 4 or more cards in their hand discards down to 3 cards, and gains a copper in hand.
-1VP

Is "seigniorage" too obscure a term? Ha, I know this card's inclusion in a set named "Infamy" makes me seem like an anti-Fed Hayek-lover, but I'm Keynesian all the way. Normally this is a weak Militia + half a Mountebank, but with enough +actions and multiples of these, you can swell opponents' decks with coppers and leave them with horrible hands... But maybe it's too strong and everyone only discards down to 4 cards before gaining copper?
***


Burial Mound/Mausoleum $2, 1 Taboo
(Victory)
When you buy this card, trash all treasures in play, except for Taboos. Worth 2 VP for every 4 treasure cards in your Burial Mound Mat.

When this card is part of the kingdom set, everyone keeps their own trashed treasure cards in their Burial Mound Mat. I guess this is a tricky card to play with, since it helps early buyers by clearing away coppers, but will eat up your silvers and golds later on, if you don't use +$ cards. And even if you trash all your Coppers, you need to sacrifice one more treasure to push it over to the 4VP mark, which makes it a boosted Duchy. Buying this without crippling yourself would be tricky. Perhaps when decks become large and redundant towards the end, people won't care about losing their golds and silvers, and will happily feed into the value of the Burial Mound. This would definitely synergize with a Goons' extra coppers, and make a Counting House-focused deck monstrous. We might run into problems with cards like Mint and Salvager, however.
***


Census/Charter $3, 1 Taboo
(Treasure)

Reveal the top card of your deck. If it is an action card, gain an estate. If it is any treasure card other than a Taboo, +$3. If it is a victory card, trash it, and gain V equal to half its cost in $, rounded down, but at a minimum of 1V. If it is a curse or Taboo, trash Census and gain any card worth up to $6. Discard the card if it hasn't been trashed. If there are no cards left to draw, gain an estate.
-1VP

For the flavor of Charter, I had in mind the the censuses kings would take in order to properly tax their citizens, like the incredibly detailed account of everyone's property in the Domesday Book. To the active vassals, kings would grant land. But if it pleased a ruler he could seize any property for himself, sometimes in spite and in detriment to the productivity of the land. And of course, if you had coin, the king would take it.

[minced]

First, you could simply require reveal a curse in hand, instead of buying a "taboo." That would give the cards some interesting interactions with curse attacks and decrease the similarities to Alchemy. Furthermore, a lot of these cards *need* to be bought in quantity to be useful (blackmail), and it is very very difficult to do so if you need one taboo per card bought.

As for specific cards:

Blackmail: With +buy and a thin deck this card is very, very good - 25 VP for the pile means these are better than duchies (24 vp for the pile) and don't take up room in your deck during late game. Admittedly, it's so much trouble to get these in some decks that they *need* to be valuable. However, I feel the extra gold is unnecessary.

Cultist: I suspect in most games, players will only buy a single taboo, making this card a woodcutter that gives -1 VP in most cases. You could possibly extend the effect to *all* curse-type cards in your hand, which might actually give the card some use.

Privateer: I tend to dislike cards that shut down an opposing strategy outright instead of making it difficult. Militia makes big money difficult, but can still be countered by having a mix of really good cards (gold) and really bad ones (green) instead of a bunch of silvers, or by buying library. Witch slows down every strategy but around half the game's cards are soft counters in some way. I think that "Each time an opponent buys next turn, he/she gains a curse" would fit more with existing attacks.

That's all for now. Making new cards is really hard, so keep up the good work!

[Diving Pikachu]

If you read again, the cultist's bonus is for every Taboo-costing card in play or in your hand, including the cultist itself. That means just by itself it's +$3, +1 buy, and with another played, it's +8, +2 buy. I'm actually worried that it's overpowered, since this is about equal to a $5 card, even if it's got the VP penalty. I must admit, I still do have reservations about this whole "gain an advantage now, pay only later" mechanic which can be far too easily exploited. I see two options here: Actually change the VP penalty into a negative VP token you gain upon being it (which prevents too clean a getaway with trashing), or change the cumulative effects to something in another direction. I'm starting to like the idea of Cultist as an attack card:

Alternate Cultist $3, 1 Taboo
(Action [Attack])
+$2
+1 buy
At the end of your turn, all other players with more than 4 cards in their hands discards 1 card for every Cultist or Taboo you played this turn. This cannot happen more than once per turn.
-1VP

With no + Actions and one Taboo, this is a Militia. With more Taboos and multiple played Cultists, you could potentially get everyone to discard down to 5 cards. But in Multiplayer, any previous hand-reducing attack, including this one, would immunize you from a Cultist attack. And anyways, the dependence on other Cultists and Taboos ensures you keep them as long as possible.

As for the Privateer, I guess that curse mechanic definitely works, and slows down multiple buys while leaving it within the other players' choice. Ooh, I know a way to make it even better! Until your next turn, everyone, including yourself, gets +1 buy. But for every buy used past the first, they gain a curse. This would shift the flavor definitely more to Port Tax. This slows down buys but is still interesting in a game with no other source of buys.

EDIT: Added the new versions of Port Tax and Cultist. I also added Charter, a treasure card! Yay! That makes 6 kingdom cards plus taboo! Maybe I should aim for an Alchemy-sized expansion?

[KuulGryphun]

Taboo $3
(Treasure)
-1VP

Like the last poster suggested, this seems too similar to Potion.  Why not just make these cards cost Potion, and tack on some more -VP to increase the drawback if they really need it?

Blackmail $2, 1 Taboo
(Action)
Trash this and another blackmail. If you do, gain 2 gold and a blackmail on top of your deck, in any order, and +5 VP.
-1VP

An interesting take on Treasure Map that encourages repeats.  I like it.

Cultist $3, 1 Taboo (New version)
(Action [Attack])
+$2
+1 buy
At the end of your turn, all other players with more than 4 cards in their hands discard 1 card for every Cultist or Taboo you played this turn. This cannot happen more than once per turn.
-1VP

This card can lead to degenerate game states really fast.  All it takes is either a set with good trashing (Chapel), a way to draw your deck (like Lab chains), or some Villages to play a bunch of Cultists and/or Taboos every turn and preventing your opponents from ever doing anything again.  And whoever gets their mass Cultist/Taboo engine going first prevents everyone else from getting theirs, so it'll just be game over.

Port Tax $6, 1 Taboo (New Version)
(Action [Duration])
+$4
Until your next turn, +1 Buy for all players including yourself. All other players gain a curse for every buy made beyond their first one.

This seems too expensive for its effect, especially since you're just giving your opponents free buys if the curse pile is empty.  +$4 and nothing else really isn't that impressive on an action: think Baron.

Seigniorage/Fiat $3, 1 Taboo
(Action [Attack])
+$2
All other players with 4 or more cards in their hand discards down to 3 cards, and gains a copper in hand.
-1VP

It's Militia, but you give them $1, but it's a copper they keep forever.  Probably marginally stronger than Militia.  Not sure if that makes it worth its current price of 3+T (and all the -VP that comes with that).

Burial Mound/Mausoleum $2, 1 Taboo
(Victory)
When you buy this card, trash all treasures in play, except for Taboos. Worth 2 VP for every 4 treasure cards in your Burial Mound Mat.

So if this card is in the supply, all treasure you "trash" go to your Burial Mound Mat instead of to the trash?  Seems like it would normally be worth 4 VP, but you'd rarely want to buy a bunch of these.  Could lead to some interesting plays with buying a bunch of copper for the purpose of trashing it and powering up your Burial Mounds.  Could be interesting actually!

Census/Charter $3, 1 Taboo
(Treasure)
Reveal the top card of your deck. If it is an action card, gain an estate. If it is any treasure card other than a Taboo, +$3. If it is a victory card, trash it, and gain V equal to half its cost in $, rounded down, but at a minimum of 1V. If it is a curse or Taboo, trash Census and gain any card worth up to $6. Discard the card if it hasn't been trashed. If there are no cards left to draw, gain an estate.
-1VP

This card is all over the place.  I think its sacrificing too much function for flavor.  Revealing an action punishes you.  Revealing a victory card other than estate and arguably duchy punishes you.  Revealing a treasure means its a Gold, which is probably what I'd buy instead of this card.  Revealing a curse or taboo lets you replace this card with the Gold you should have bought in the first place.


Honestly, I think tacking -1 VP on here and there isn't a very interesting thing about these cards.  Either its almost irrelevant because the board has good trashing, or its an annoying detriment.  As it is, few of these cards individually would convince me to buy a Taboo: possibly Burial Mound depending on the kingdom set, and maybe Blackmail (also possibly Cultist, but that's because its incredibly broken in the right kingdom set).  If all these cost Potion instead of Taboo I'd be more apt to try them.

[Diving Pikachu]

I see your point about Cultist 2.0. Cultist 1.0 had problems too... How about instead of potentially crippling other people's engines, every cultist you've played forces other players to discard 1 treasure from their hands, or reveal their hands if they have no treasures left? That way, most action chains are immune, and it punishes Big Money. And Cultist provides money so it's a good counter to itself.

As for Port Tax, how about I remove the VP penalty, and boost it to a +$5? And everyone gains "a curse or copper, your choice" when they make any buys beyond their first?

For Census I actually thought of the flavor to fit the function. I had cards like Transmute in mind when I decided to make this one "all over the place". Revealing an action gives you an estate, which initially bloats your deck by a little, but if the Census reveals the estate you gained, it's a free, action-less VP token (plus, in the endgame, who can argue with a free victory card?). Revealing a treasure gives you a gold, which is worth more than the ~$5 this would have cost. All the while it helps you cycle through the deck a little. In the end game, it gets risky with Provinces, but can help you grab a win-defining Duchy if you keep a Curse or Taboo. In the earlier game, the self-trashing function is more like a $5 feast to grab $6's.

[minced]

I see your point about Cultist 2.0. Cultist 1.0 had problems too... How about instead of potentially crippling other people's engines, every cultist you've played forces other players to discard 1 treasure from their hands, or reveal their hands if they have no treasures left? That way, most action chains are immune, and it punishes Big Money. And Cultist provides money so it's a good counter to itself.

Dominion steers clear of attacks that, even in fringe cases, completely lock an opponent out of the game. The only case I can recall is a KC x2, masqueradex2, goons combo. In this case, if you can throne room or KC a cultist your opponent loses a turn, end of story, unless he also goes cultists or has some sort of conspirator/minion thing going for him. Also note that Cutpurse v. 1.0 had a similar attack and got very annoying very fast. From Donald X's notes on the seaside cards:

"Cutpurse: This started out as "Cards cost $1 less this turn, then $1 more until your next turn." That doesn't have the same timing as the other duration cards - it goes away at the end of the previous player's turn, rather than at the end of your turn. The developers didn't like that. I replaced it with "+$2, name a treasure card, each other player discards it." That was quite strong. You don't have to discard Gold very many times before you're sick of it. I reined it in by having it only hit Copper. It's still quite annoying if multiples get played against you early on."

That said, it may well take an attack that strong to convince someone to buy curses. At least it doesn't target a specific treasure like the Cutpurse beta did, and it's very difficult to buy early - $3 + (potion equivalent) is roughly a $5 buy.

As for Port Tax, how about I remove the VP penalty, and boost it to a +$5? And everyone gains "a curse or copper, your choice" when they make any buys beyond their first?

Penalizing +buy essentially punishes players who aren't going big money, and +buy cards like market and woodcutter are already rather weak. Note that $6 + (potion) has more opportunity cost than a *province* so this card is also wickedly expensive for a curse-giver that almost never curses.

For Census I actually thought of the flavor to fit the function. I had cards like Transmute in mind when I decided to make this one "all over the place". Revealing an action gives you an estate, which initially bloats your deck by a little, but if the Census reveals the estate you gained, it's a free, action-less VP token (plus, in the endgame, who can argue with a free victory card?). Revealing a treasure gives you a gold, which is worth more than the ~$5 this would have cost. All the while it helps you cycle through the deck a little. In the end game, it gets risky with Provinces, but can help you grab a win-defining Duchy if you keep a Curse or Taboo. In the earlier game, the self-trashing function is more like a $5 feast to grab $6's.

First off, Census's text doesn't actually fit on a dominion card. Second, a card that can trash multiple provinces into duchies is not going to get bought in the endgame, ever, and a card that gives you estates in early game for drawing actions isn't really worth it - your deck is *already* going to be bloated because you got curses, and estates make that effect even worse. Third, transmute is entirely unlike this card because it gives you a choice, and this one doesn't.

That said, I really like the idea of playing russian roulette with your own deck, but this card is way too expensive and comes way too late in the game to be worth it.

[Diving Pikachu]

Thanks for the feedback, minced. I really appreciate it. Here's Cultist 3.5, which borrows from--of all things--Possession and Smugglers:

Cultist $3, 1 Taboo
(Action [Attack])
+$2
At the end of this turn, the player to your left sets aside one treasure card of his choosing for every Cultist or Taboo in play, or reveals a hand with no treasure cards left. He immediately takes one extra turn with these cards as his hand. Gain a copy of all cards the player gained on that turn. Cultist cannot cause him to take more than one extra turn.

This version forces the victim to choose between hurting himself and helping you, more or less. Sometimes it's a Cutpurse. Other times, if the victim has stronger trashing than you or is pursuing a different strategy, it's a chance for him to actually sabotage your deck. If it diminishes his hand by anymore than a militia would, then he can still probably make a decent buy with the diverted treasure hand. If it splits his treasure 2/3, or 3/3 it might actually help him pick up an important card he neglected but can't pick up now due to lack of buys. I know this can get pretty weird with duration cards, especially if it gives him a minion, but the way it affects you in the end (gain a copy of every card he gains) remains the same. The only problem I see here is that this creates a very intimate interaction between two adjacent players, which diverges from the "affect everyone equally" formula. And also, Possession gets balanced out by the fact that the player still gets a fresh hand to play from, however subtly you might have sabotaged it with Alchemist, Treasury, or dead draws/unwanted reshuffles.

[minced]

Thanks for the feedback, minced. I really appreciate it. Here's Cultist 3.5, which borrows from--of all things--Possession and Smugglers:

Cultist $3, 1 Taboo
(Action [Attack])
+$2
At the end of this turn, the player to your left sets aside one treasure card of his choosing for every Cultist or Taboo in play, or reveals a hand with no treasure cards left. He immediately takes one extra turn with these cards as his hand. Gain a copy of all cards the player gained on that turn. Cultist cannot cause him to take more than one extra turn.

This version forces the victim to choose between hurting himself and helping you, more or less. Sometimes it's a Cutpurse. Other times, if the victim has stronger trashing than you or is pursuing a different strategy, it's a chance for him to actually sabotage your deck. If it diminishes his hand by anymore than a militia would, then he can still probably make a decent buy with the diverted treasure hand. If it splits his treasure 2/3, or 3/3 it might actually help him pick up an important card he neglected but can't pick up now due to lack of buys. I know this can get pretty weird with duration cards, especially if it gives him a minion, but the way it affects you in the end (gain a copy of every card he gains) remains the same. The only problem I see here is that this creates a very intimate interaction between two adjacent players, which diverges from the "affect everyone equally" formula. And also, Possession gets balanced out by the fact that the player still gets a fresh hand to play from, however subtly you might have sabotaged it with Alchemist, Treasury, or dead draws/unwanted reshuffles.

I'm not sure i follow - couldn't the other player just buy a curse and have you gain it?