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[Hertz_Doughnut]

Does anyone have a standard kingdom they like to play with friends new to the game?

It's an interesting balance to try to find something that has easily understandable cards, but still has enough interesting ones to make the experienced player enjoy the game (multiple strategies, fun cards, not likely to go Big-Money).  I find that with a new player, instead of doing new kingdoms, we end up playing the same one multiple times... so I want something that has multiple layers of strategy.  (To handicap myself, I start with x number of curse cards in my deck... every time I win a game, add one to x... when I lose... subtract one.)   After spending a couple hours on this I settled on:

$7 - King's Court
$5 - Wharf, Witch, Ghost Ship
$4 - Militia, Treasure Map, Worker's Village
$3 - Masquerade, Warehouse
$2 - Lighthouse

No platinums or colonies.

Thoughts?

[Powerman]

Troll?  Or just bad at making kingdom's for beginners?

[Morgrim7]

You should add Possession and Ambassador and Scrying Pool!

[sparky5856]

In this regard, there's one thing I can't get around: the Curses. Cursers tend to dominate most games, yet if you don't include such a card in a beginner's first game, then they're gonna question "...what's the point of those purple cards? Why do you ever want to buy those?". Personally, Jester is my favorite curser (because it deals out the curses much more slowly, and is not as game-dominating), but for introductory purposes Witch is fine I suppose. I dunno, I would like some more feedback on this.

I'm more concerned about the Ghost Ship than anything. X_X At least you included Lighthouse. To highlight the essence of multiple strategies I would probably include Gardens.

Lastly, lol @ King's Court

[shMerker]

I just leave them off the table entirely if it's a game with new people. It's base anyway (another thing I always do for new people) so it's not like there's going to be an opportunity or a reason to try piling them out. And really, there are lots of things that aren't always in play (VP chips, various mats, even whole pretty basic stuff like +buy or +action are not relevant to every kingdom) so leaving the curses out even though they technically are always there isn't too far from the spirit of the game. Even though, strictly speaking, this makes it a variant.

Since I see topics about this whole issue kinda frequently I always think answering the direct question "which cards are good for beginners" is not really addressing the real concern, which is "what if my friends don't like Dominion". And I can relate. It sucks to really enjoy something and not be able to share it with the people around you. To the point where it can be tempting to believe that people don't like something you do because "they don't get it", which, sure, is the case sometimes. But also sometimes things just don't click and there's nothing you can do about that unfortunately. But what you can do is not drive yourself mad with worry that this particular thing is not going to work out. And respect people enough to not treat them like they're dumber than you when all you're trying to do is teach them a game that you had to learn once too.

I dunno maybe I'm reading too much into things. This just seems like a subject that comes up an awful lot when there are two answers, the "first kingdom" listed in the manual and your own experiences learning the game, that are basically within easy reach of anyone asking.

[brokoli]

Tactician is a very good card for new players : you know right away its power, and after some games you try Double-Tacitician.
It was one of my favourite when I started Seaside (and I still really like it).

[ST218]

I'd say Curses are fine to leave out for a first game, because their entire point is to not "add" to the gameplay, but to "subtract" from it, and that's just not the kind of new experience you want to give a new player-it's like telling the them the rules of football, handing them a ball, then tackling them to the ground.

I'd say the key things to introduce a new player two are the four types of plusses, attacks, reactions, and trashing. For that, the standard "First Game" set does well...

...but hey, we have all these sets out, let's see what else we can come up with.

First, the standard intro gets one thing right, definitely. Market and Village are fantastic introductions, both due to being so vanilla, but because of the different roles they serve. Both are spammable, but having each out leads to the introduction of the difference between +1 Action and +2 Action.

So, Market and Village.

We need an Attack, in order to teach that Dominion isn't just multiplayer Solitaire (just quite close to it, but with prettier pictures). Militia is a fine one, of course, but we're looking for something different. Spy is way too annoying, the trashing attacks don't sit right, and like hell we're inflicting something like Ghost Ship on a new player. So, I'd say it's between Cutpurse and Bureaucrat. Cutpurse is annoying in multiplayer games if everyone jumps on the train-by comparison, Bureaucrat is about as nonthreatening as Attacks get. In addition, Bureaucrat teaches another lesson: Silver is a nice card. An absolute beginner will look at it and think "Yay, I can deprive them of a card in hand!", transition to "eh, what does this card even do?", before having a "a-ha!" moment and realizing that every usage of Bureaucrat is like buying a Silver and putting it on top! And you still get to buy something else! Really, there's a lot to learn for a new player all in that one card.

So, we're up to Market, Village, and Bureaucrat.

We have an Attack, so we need a Reaction. The canon example is Moat, and indeed there's only a few Reactions that make a nice contrast with our Bureaucrat. Bureaucrat is way too weak to justify Moat, but Secret Chamber is plenty sucky to combine with it ("They play Bureaucrat, I can move all my victory cards to the top of my deck! Take that!"). It does lead into another thought, though...

Market, Village, Bureaucrat, and Secret Chamber.

Why not a three card combo? Village plus handsize reducers plus "draw up to" is a combo, and an easy enough one to see. In addition, a draw until card is a counter to Bureaucrat, also leading to the lesson that a counter to an attack needn't be blue with different words. So, we get Library, filling out our draw role quite well.

Market, Village, Bureaucrat, Secret Chamber, Library.

I'd say some trashing is in order. Remodel and Mine we're trying to avoid, and you know what? That's fine! We need a strong opener as well, something that dares a player "look at me, see what I can do for you" from the start of the game. An absolute new games player will skip over this one, but someone a bit more savvy will think "what is the point of this card? Let me try it." and they'll find out that opening Remake and getting rid of Copper and changing Estates into Silver is a nice springboard. Additionally, we score some interaction with Bureaucrat here...someone who's dedicated to Remaking their Estates will find that hard to do when they keep being sent to the top of their deck. It seems mean, but I can't really find it in myself to feel bad for buffing Bureaucrat. Remake is a powerful card that will reward a daring player, and a worthy lesson to be on this board.

So, we have Market, Village, Library, Secret Chamber, Bureaucrat, and Remake. We have four slots left, and many lessons to teach. We're skipping Cursegivers due to being newbie unfriendly (we want to encourage players to play cards, not disallow them from doing so), we don't want VP chips or mats or anything, and we don't want any Alchemy or on-gain. So, what else can we put down?

Well, alternate treasures, for one. Something a little shinier than Gold/Silver/Copper, to hint at the lesson that treasure is a thing to buy too and not just when you don't feel like buying your eighth Village. The best one for this is easily Royal Seal, as it's basically Silver with an upside, and it's a pretty neat effect, too!

With Royal Seal added, we have three fives, two fours, a three, and a two. We need a bit more low cost in there.

First Game has Workshop and Woodcutter. We already have a Workshop-like effect in Bureaucrat, so there's no need there. Woodcutter, though....there's really no replacing it, and it's an interesting contrast with Silver. The difference between the two is a lesson core to Dominion's gameplay, so we'll keep this one in.

As for other simple effects, I'm thinking Oasis. It's a simple enough card, it's a soft counter to Bureaucrat (see that again? It's our only attack, so if people just see the attack bit and buy and play it a bunch, it's best to have everything else respond to it to match how a new player would feel), and it also combos with Library. Additionally, it can be spammed like Market but without the annoying decision paralysis that comes from playing four Markets in a turn and having five buys with six coins to agonize over.

This leaves us one more slot to be filled, and I can't find myself not wanting another two cost. Our options are limited, though. Taking out complex, redundant, and new player unfriendly cards, we leave ourselves with Courtyard, Crossroads, and Duchess. Now, it's a little complex compared to the others, but it's not impossible to parse, and it resonates with all of our set's themes (Silvers are to be noticed and compared to, Bureaucrat is a thing, teach fundamental lessons), so I feel Duchess is a great card here. Additionally, new players will find it a nice moment of discovery when they realize they can "improve" their deck buy snagging a Duchess along with the Duchy compared to not doing so. Additionally, this will hopefully push newbies away from buying Estates willy nilly which is always a noble cause.

So, our final set of ten:

$5: Market, Library, Royal Seal
$4: Bureaucrat, Remake
$3: Woodcutter, Village, Oasis
$2: Secret Chamber, Duchess

Is this the absolute best board for a new player? Honestly, no, not really. The canonical "First Game" set is hard to top. However, I'd say this comes fairly close. It's a better bet if whoever you're teaching isn't afraid of a little complexity, as I feel my board sacrifices some of the initial elegance of "First Game" in exchange for more interaction between the cards and rewarding a keen eye to details.

[Tables]

I'm very hesitant to consider any kingdom with the single most gamebreaking combo available a good starting kingdom. Asides from the fact it gives a totally wrong impression of the game and makes the game entirely unfun for at least one person, it's also simple enough to set up with that board and isn't (really) countered by anything there.

In terms of the card's you've chosen... KC is one of the hardest cards to wrap your head around. To any logician or mathematician, it's fairly easy to follow playing a card three times, and even playing a KC 3 times is easy. But to most non gamers, the difference between 'play it three times' and 'triple it' is one that takes a while to grasp - especially with regards to KC itself. Switching out KC solves at least three issues your game would have straight away.

Duration cards are another card I'd consider avoiding. On top of being an extra cumbersome thing to track when how you treat your deck and discard pile and play areas is confusing enough for beginners (seriously... discard face down, never shuffle into your deck until necessary, play cards not into your discard pile, those three alone are enough to stump even some non-gamer mathematicians I know for their first game or two). Having durations also stay out is, well, it depends on the players, but it's extra complexity that can be avoided.

Cursing attacks. In fact, strong attacks in general. They... don't really add to the experience, especially not in multiplayer. Ghost Ship is a really miserable card in multiplayer, and one I try to avoid completely in a 4 player game. Cursing attacks are worse. Attacks are an integral part of Dominion, so you certainly shouldn't avoid them, but it's probably best to keep them out of the deep end and avoid attacks that get progressively worse as played, and look for ones that are fun for the attacker, and inconvenient rather than frustrating for the victims. Oracle might just be perfect in that role, but there are many options. Cursing attacks and Ghost Ship are not two of them.

Strategic variety. You said you wanted to encourage various possible paths, but your set currently totally obliterates any chance of BM (Big Money) being viable. A good BM deck need not be boring! Look at the first game set, for example. You can happily go BM with lots of Markets and a Militia or two. It's not flashy, but it's fairly fun as a first game and is a decent BM deck. You can also compete and compare to say double Smithy, or Smithy+Militia, with or without Markets. That's a lot of BM options! Just because you want engines of some kind to be viable, don't neglect the other primary strategy of the game. Of course, this might be a problem because of...

Power cards. What one defines as a power card does depend, but certainly going through the win rate with downwards is very likely to pick them out! I'd say of the cards you've picked, they're some of the most powerful cards in Dominion. That's not terrible, but it's almost certainly going to make Engines the best strategy, and make money pretty much an after-thought, which is a pretty bad into to the strategy of the game. Compare to e.g. the first game setup or ST's set, and it's clear they don't try and throw the best cards at you quickly. For example, the best card for it's price in the first game is probably... Militia, and that's only scraping the top quarter of the $4 cards.

So, in short, I think these probably weren't the best cards to start with. It depends, of course, on the person you played against and the level of skill/experience they have, but for a generic first game introduction, this is the kind of set I'd take one look at and immediately discard.

[dondon151]

After giving this very little thought:

Trading Post, Worker's Village, Oracle, Cutpurse, Throne Room, Jester, Watchtower, Bank, Laboratory, Masquerade

[Powerman]

My suggestion:

$2: Courtyard
$3: Oracle, Village
$4: Envoy, Bureaucrat, Silk Road, Horse Traders
$5: Council Room, Mine
$6: Hoard

[Morgrim7]

$2 Embargo
$3 Oracle, Oasis
$4 Remodel, Bureaucrat, Smithy
$5 Bazzar, Market, Council Room,
$6 Fairgrounds
Embargo:
I wanted to introduce Curses mildly and show them how bad they are. I didn't want to choose a curser.

Oracle, Bureaucrat:
A waeak attack. Perfect for newbs.

Oasis, Smithy, Market:
Simple.

Council Room:
Decent card draw.

Bazzar:
I chose Bazzar because it is a simple, expensive village. I need it to be expensive to discourage the village idiot.

Fairgrounds:
A simple alt vp that doesn't cause rushes.

[brokoli]

To avoid (difficult cards for beginners) : Trade route, Horn of Plenty, Inn, Outpost, Scrying pool, Chancellor, Mandarin, Duchess, Develop.

My suggestion :

$2 : Pawn
$3 : Village, Warehouse, Masquerade
$4 : Monument, Island
$5 : Market, Tactician, Tribute, Duke

[chwhite]

I don't know what the best kingdom for new players is overall, but I'm pretty sure that you want one attack, and that Rabble and Militia (which, hey, is in the actual First Game setup) are by far the two best choices.  I guess you could go with Margrave, too, except that chaining Margraves might slow the game down too much.

If you feel the need to introduce Curses in the first game, Jester is probably the best option.  Better to hold off on Witch until the second or third game.

[ftl]

My assumption is that high "Win Rate with" = "fun for experienced players" because low "Win Rate with" cards are the most ignore-able ones (Thief, Counting House, Transmute, etc).   

No, I think this is wrong! Why are ignorable cards less fun? It means they're not as *good*. It doesn't mean they any less *fun*. All those cards you mentioned - Thief, CH, Transmute - they're fun cards! They're just bad most of the time.

I also think that it doesn't give the rook a good feel of the game to have them ponder the cost/benefits of purchasing cards like Bureaucrat, Royal Seal, Library, Secret Chamber, Woodcutter, and Duchess ... when at the experienced level these cards are ignored entirely 2/3 of the time (see the "% +" column).  Again... the first few times playing the game is going to create their impression of what's a good card.  If they're playing a board where Library is the 2nd best card... that's not at all representative of the larger Dominion universe.  Whereas, if they get hooked on Wharf or Witch that's not going to lead them too far astray.

I think that's worse, though. Look, part of the learning process is seeing how cards that seemed powerful at first end up being not so good. People go through a period where they think Thief is really scary. I don't particularly want to get someone hooked on specific cards, rather than the PROCESS of looking at a bunch of cards, trying them out and figuring out what's good.

They're not going to be led astray by finding out that cards that were good in their first game aren't necessarily going to be good in their next game. That's not being led astray, that's the whole point of Dominion!

[brokoli]

My assumption is that high "Win Rate with" = "fun for experienced players" because low "Win Rate with" cards are the most ignore-able ones (Thief, Counting House, Transmute, etc).   

No, I think this is wrong! Why are ignorable cards less fun? It means they're not as *good*. It doesn't mean they any less *fun*. All those cards you mentioned - Thief, CH, Transmute - they're fun cards! They're just bad most of the time.

+1.
I would even say that much of my favorite cards are the "weak" cards like Outpost, harvest, Explorer and Counting house... I quite like Thief, Duchess, Secret chamber and Adventurer too. The only ones I don't like are Transmute and Scout.

Conversely, I'm not a big fan of Witch, Mountebank and Jack...

[Kuildeous]

Envoy is a good one, though.  That has nice interaction between players without attacking.

I think the tricky thing about Envoy for beginning players is that they wouldn't have the experience to know which card to discard.

I'd wager that at least 95% of the time, it's very simple, though you may need to remind a player when the person playing Envoy has no actions left so he can focus on discarding treasure cards instead of action cards.

In games with +Actions, the analysis paralysis can start to kick in when someone plays an Envoy with an action left over. Does the player discard the Gold? The other Envoy? The Village? What if that player has a duplicate card in his hand which makes the discard useless?

I acknowledge that this a minority, but when it hits, it'll probably screw up an inexperienced player. Then you have something like the Puerto Rico where the winner is decided by who sits next to him (okay, gross exaggeration).

It is a fun card with interaction. I'd say it suffers less analysis paralysis than something like Bishop or Vault, so I’m not saying you shouldn't use it. Just be wary and warn the person before he instinctively chooses Smithy when there are no actions left.

[dondon151]

There is a "Modify" button that you can use so you don't have to make 6 posts to respond to 6 different people.

Bank and Watchtower seem a little complex to me... and I would take out Throne for the same reason as KC.  But I like the idea of Trading Post...

Bank is not very complex at all. It's worth more when you already have a lot of treasures. In most circumstances, if you'd be willing to buy Gold for $7, you'd buy Bank anyway. I wanted to include a card that would really make engine-building "worth it" in this set because Masquerade is such a strong BM card.

Watchtower isn't complex at all and defends against Cutpurse and Jester. Throne Room is not nearly as powerful as King's Court and is super fun to play with.

[AJD]

Bank is not very complex at all. It's worth more when you already have a lot of treasures. In most circumstances, if you'd be willing to buy Gold for $7, you'd buy Bank anyway.

I'm not sure that's true. Unlike Gold, Bank can whiff—if you're ever likely to have an endgame hand of three Victory cards, Silver, and X, you'd rather X were Gold than Bank. And conversely, in hands where Bank is worth more than Gold, without +Buy you don't always need the extra money. (The most common example where Bank is a concrete improvement is probably the dreaded Gold-Silver-Copper-Copper hand.)

[ftl]

You know, the more I think about it, the more think that this discussion is just focusing on entirely the wrong things, and I've made the same mistakes too in it.

I'll make a bold statement which shouldn't be bold at all - it's completely useless for the first kingdom to try to be a "teaching" kingdom which would teach good dominion. You should NOT worry in the slightest as to whether the "lessons" someone learns form their first game apply to future games. It doesn't matter whether the people playing the kingdom get the impression that [X Card] is unbeatably good or that Silver is useless or whatever. There will be time later to learn good strategy - but only if they enjoy the game and think it's worth giving it a second play! If they keep playing dominion, they'll figure out whether their first impressions about strategy were right or wrong or whatever. But if they don't, it doesn't matter whether they got it right or not.

Likewise, I think that focusing on whether cards are good or not is wrong. There should be a bunch of things for a new player to do, but there's no particular need for them to be balanced - a new player won't really figure out what's good or not in their first game or two anyway, nor is there any need for them to.

I think the focus should be on a few things:
1) Variety. There should be a lot of different things to do that showcase the variety of Dominion - the cards should cover lots of different aspects. Cards at different costs, of different effects and so on.
2) Fast play. There should not be cards that make your opponent wait for a long time to resolve, there'll be enough waiting as new players figure out the game.
 3) Simplicity. You should select cards where what they do is obvious from reading the cards, and you should never have to refer the newbie back to the FAQ (or to "trust me, it works like this") to figure clever card interactions. Remember, even if individual cards are simple, there are 16(!) cards for a new player to figure out (and yes, that counts copper/silver/gold/estate/duchy/province, those are new cards too in your first game!)
4) Fun! Put in cards which are cool but still match the previous criteria. I think it's important to focus on whether the CARD is fun rather than whether the strategies it enables are fun because, again, first game, newbie won't necessarily put together the right strategy but will sure play around with a bunch of different cards.

[dondon151]

I'm not sure that's true. Unlike Gold, Bank can whiff—

And unlike Bank, Gold can whiff with that exact example that you provided. Obviously there's the chance that your Bank is only worth $2, but it's far more likely to be worth $3 or $4.

[sparky5856]

I actually want to bring Dominion to a game group for the first time, so good thing this thread exists lol. I need a good first kingdom, but 1). this subject is entirely subjective, so of course what I come up with isn't going to be 100% perfect, and 2). I am limited to Base, Intrigue, Seaside, and Prosperity. I wish I could include Jester as it's my favorite curser as I've mentioned earlier.

First, the standard intro gets one thing right, definitely. Market and Village are fantastic introductions, both due to being so vanilla, but because of the different roles they serve. Both are spammable, but having each out leads to the introduction of the difference between +1 Action and +2 Action.

So, Market and Village.

I see no way around not including these. These are THE vanilla cards imo, along with Smithy. So there's 3 cards that I want to include.

We need an Attack, in order to teach that Dominion isn't just multiplayer Solitaire (just quite close to it, but with prettier pictures). Militia is a fine one, of course, but we're looking for something different. Spy is way too annoying, the trashing attacks don't sit right, and like hell we're inflicting something like Ghost Ship on a new player. So, I'd say it's between Cutpurse and Bureaucrat. Cutpurse is annoying in multiplayer games if everyone jumps on the train-by comparison, Bureaucrat is about as nonthreatening as Attacks get. In addition, Bureaucrat teaches another lesson: Silver is a nice card. An absolute beginner will look at it and think "Yay, I can deprive them of a card in hand!", transition to "eh, what does this card even do?", before having a "a-ha!" moment and realizing that every usage of Bureaucrat is like buying a Silver and putting it on top! And you still get to buy something else! Really, there's a lot to learn for a new player all in that one card.

Bureaucrat is a very nice newbie card for all the reasons you mentioned. I'm including that as well. Cutpurse I'm not too fond of, it leads to a lot of FFFFUUUUUUUU moments when I'm playing 3-player on Isotropic (and I play 3-player much more than 2).

We have an Attack, so we need a Reaction. The canon example is Moat, and indeed there's only a few Reactions that make a nice contrast with our Bureaucrat. Bureaucrat is way too weak to justify Moat, but Secret Chamber is plenty sucky to combine with it ("They play Bureaucrat, I can move all my victory cards to the top of my deck! Take that!"). It does lead into another thought, though...

Well, subjective opinion here, but Secret Chamber is my absolute least favorite card. X_X It takes way too long to resolve, plus its uses are limited imo.

Why not a three card combo? Village plus handsize reducers plus "draw up to" is a combo, and an easy enough one to see. In addition, a draw until card is a counter to Bureaucrat, also leading to the lesson that a counter to an attack needn't be blue with different words. So, we get Library, filling out our draw role quite well.

The non-blue counter point is a very fine idea. Library is not bad but is more text-filled compared to something like Smithy which I'm already including as a drawer.

I'd say some trashing is in order. Remodel and Mine we're trying to avoid, and you know what? That's fine! We need a strong opener as well, something that dares a player "look at me, see what I can do for you" from the start of the game. An absolute new games player will skip over this one, but someone a bit more savvy will think "what is the point of this card? Let me try it." and they'll find out that opening Remake and getting rid of Copper and changing Estates into Silver is a nice springboard. Additionally, we score some interaction with Bureaucrat here...someone who's dedicated to Remaking their Estates will find that hard to do when they keep being sent to the top of their deck. It seems mean, but I can't really find it in myself to feel bad for buffing Bureaucrat. Remake is a powerful card that will reward a daring player, and a worthy lesson to be on this board.

Remake is one of the best trashers out there... but I physically do not have Remake as I do not own Cornucopia. X_X Something I've thought of... why not Salvager? It's a nice alternate source of +Buy besides Market, and it's great for trashing Estates. It's very experimental too; for instance do I trash the gold for three extra dollars and an extra buy but at the cost of losing it? (Near the end of the game it's not a bad idea.)

So, we have Market, Village, Library, Secret Chamber, Bureaucrat, and Remake. We have four slots left, and many lessons to teach. We're skipping Cursegivers due to being newbie unfriendly (we want to encourage players to play cards, not disallow them from doing so), we don't want VP chips or mats or anything, and we don't want any Alchemy or on-gain. So, what else can we put down?

I believe that Cursers are impossible to avoid for a first game. This is speaking from experience; when I played a first game in the past the others were asking "What's the point of the Curses?" as there were no Cursers. As far as simplicity goes Witch is nice. I don't want to include it but I see no way around it. I'm also including Warehouse for a counter, plus it's a simple card to grasp. I need another defense though. I wanted Lighthouse, because I want a $2 card, plus it's a nice introduction to Durations. But should I swap it out for Moat or Watchtower instead?

That leaves two extra slots. I'm thinking about Expand as a second trasher, better than Salvager because it can turn a curse into a Silver! (With Witch in the game I want plenty of defenses.) I mentioned in my last post too that Gardens is a very nice alternative-strategy card, so that's going in too. So here it is:

$2: Lighthouse
$3: Village, Warehouse
$4: Bureaucrat, Gardens, Salvager, Smithy
$5: Market, Witch
$7: Expand

Keep in mind that I don't yet own Cornucopia, Hinterlands, or Alchemy. Although I would have completely ignored Alchemy anyway.

Other thoughts:

Bank is not very complex at all. It's worth more when you already have a lot of treasures. In most circumstances, if you'd be willing to buy Gold for $7, you'd buy Bank anyway.

So, what else can we put down?

Well, alternate treasures, for one. Something a little shinier than Gold/Silver/Copper, to hint at the lesson that treasure is a thing to buy too and not just when you don't feel like buying your eighth Village.

In which case, maybe I should swap out Expand for Bank? What do you all think of this?

-Witch... I went with Yes.  It is a very simple card.  As the experienced guy, I don't have to take her in the first few games... and if my opp does... then it's like a self-imposed handicap.  However, if it were multiplayer, with multiple newbs, then I could see Witch causing frustration.

You played 2-player right? I'm pretty sure I'll be playing multiplayer for my kingdom. That's gonna make Witch even worse. X_X

-Masquerade... why not?  The text on the card is not hard to follow and it's interactive (we're not playing solitaire).  Sure, the power of it is subtle, and the first time I passed an estate for an estate... he thought "What's the point?"  But eventually he caught on and started using it to pass me curses and improve his deck.

This is one of my favorite cards because of how beautifully it interacts with other players. But with Witch on the board, this card is just gonna cause rage. I'll pass on this card.

-Torturer... don't need rage-quitting on game 1

Best decision you made. XD

An with respect to King's Court... what I had forgotten about it was that KC-KC is not all that simple.  So in the last game when I was drawing 2 in my hand, I chose not to chain them, just so I wouldn't have to whip out the rule book to prove I was doing it right.  That... and after I get those fantastic KC combos going... it no longer feels like a close game anymore.  Even when he hit his (second pair of) Treasure Maps... I was drawing all my deck and buying 2 provinces and a duchy.

This is why King's Court isn't a very newb-friendly card. Often, the first to King's Court wins the game, and newbies won't recognize that at first.

That's all my thoughts for now.

[dondon151]

Bureaucrat is a very nice newbie card for all the reasons you mentioned. I'm including that as well. Cutpurse I'm not too fond of, it leads to a lot of FFFFUUUUUUUU moments when I'm playing 3-player on Isotropic (and I play 3-player much more than 2).

I don't like Bureaucrat as an attack, and I don't think it is a good card for a first game because it is just so weak.

I believe that Cursers are impossible to avoid for a first game. This is speaking from experience; when I played a first game in the past the others were asking "What's the point of the Curses?" as there were no Cursers. As far as simplicity goes Witch is nice. I don't want to include it but I see no way around it. I'm also including Warehouse for a counter, plus it's a simple card to grasp. I need another defense though. I wanted Lighthouse, because I want a $2 card, plus it's a nice introduction to Durations. But should I swap it out for Moat or Watchtower instead?

Any card that floods the game with Curses is not a good choice for a first game. You want to show them that Dominion is fun. Witch does not do that. Unless you have a way to trickle Curses into the game, just don't bother with them.

[philosophyguy]

I teach a simplified version of Dominion for the first couple of games. Game 1, there are no Curses and the game ends when Provinces are gone. Only in later games do I introduce the concepts of Curses and three-pile endings. There's simply too much going on for newbies otherwise.

I've introduced the game to a decent number of players in real life, and no one has been overwhelmed when I slowly added in rules later. As long as I explained the rule before a game where it might matter, they've been happy.

My starting Kingdom usually includes Village, Market, and Smithy. I generally have one of Militia or Cutpurse. Lab and Mine have always been safe options; Council Room usually works as long as I don't go for a CR-Militia engine that pins them to three card hands. Remodel is ok, Salvager is ok, Chapel is generally not good for a new player to think about. I've used Moat and Horse Traders in the past; Watchtower is a bit complicated in my experience.

[shraeye]

Bureaucrat is a very nice newbie card for all the reasons you mentioned. I'm including that as well. Cutpurse I'm not too fond of, it leads to a lot of FFFFUUUUUUUU moments when I'm playing 3-player on Isotropic (and I play 3-player much more than 2).

I don't think that Bureaucrat is that good of a newbie attack.  When I first started playing, I immediately disliked Bureaucrat because it felt like too weak of an attack to waste actions on, and the Silver on deck doesn't feel as good as the immediate payoff of a +$2 (I'm not talking good as in strategically good, I'm talking good as in "hey I did something neat; I'm feeling good").  I really like Militia in the first game, as the attack feels malicious enough that I want to play it, and the pain of discarding makes the use of Moats apparent.  If Militia feels too boring to you, Cutpurse feels like a great substitute.  You want your first attack to have real teeth, moments where someone says "if you hadn't have played that, I'd have a gold/province. curse you!!"  Bureaucrat's teeth are too hidden, because it affects a hand you haven't even seen yet.

I believe that Cursers are impossible to avoid for a first game. This is speaking from experience; when I played a first game in the past the others were asking "What's the point of the Curses?" as there were no Cursers.

I agree with philosophyguy here.  I don't even pull the curses out of the box in the first game; if someone sees them, and asks "what are those?", I answer "ooohh boy...we'll get to THOSE later" in a tone of voice that says, you can not wait to play another round using those things.

In which case, maybe I should swap out Expand for Bank? What do you all think of this?

Oh yeah definitely swap Bank in.  You already have a trasher with salvager, and an interesting one at that.  With Expand, I suspect first-time players will end up using it as a more expensive (and worse) Mine if at all.  Use Bank instead, it looks super cool, because with smithy on the board people will have seen turns with 5 or 6 treasures being played and think "a treasure worth 5??? Yes."

[sparky5856]

Alright thanks for the responses guys, here's what I'm seeing:

1). Biggest priority, GET RID OF THE WITCH. Having newbies question the existence of the curses is much better than them getting bombarded by them every turn. So, that is gone. I could replace it with Militia, but then I'll have too many $4 cards. Rabble seems like an excellent choice, but it's too similar to Smithy. So now I'll scratch the Smithy, but now what replaces that? Not Cellar, since I already have Warehouse. I was thinking either Tactician or Mine, probably Mine. Or should I just leave Smithy in there?
2). Get rid of the Bureaucrat. I'll replace this with Militia. Honestly it IS one of the simplest attacks out there.
3). Get rid of the Expand, replace it with Bank. I actually really like this move. If Mine is gonna be on the board, then Expand's existence is pointless. Plus I need that extra Kingdom treasure.