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Author Topic: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?  (Read 35094 times)

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rinkworks

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Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« on: July 29, 2011, 01:19:25 pm »
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Lots of discussion here about proposed "good" cards that have a -VP penalty and arguments about why these are broken cards.  The arguments basically boil down to them unbalancing a game with trashing, because they let you reap the benefits of the card and trash them before you incur the penalty.

How about this?

Something
$6 - Action
+3 Cards, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +$1.
When you play this card, gain a Curse token.  At the end of the game, each Curse token is worth -1 VP.

Now not only is the penalty unavoidable -- once you gain a Curse token, you can't get rid of it -- but the damage escalates as you reap the benefits of the card.

Keep in mind, this specific card is not necessarily balanced, but let's think about it anyway.  It's essentially a Market with Super Laboratory powers, which will be good in singles or spammed.  As a single, the penalty may or may not be worth incurring on any given turn.  On the other hand, spamming them might be the fastest way to get to double-Province turns and then sustain that momentum even as your deck greens.  But if you incur an inescapable -5 VP (or so) every time you do it (especially if you don't reach $16 on any given attempt), it may or may not be the best strategy on the board.
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minced

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #1 on: July 29, 2011, 02:55:48 pm »
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It would actually be very interesting to see a card like this one in three/four player curse games, where one province actually *is* enough to win. You play your deal with the devil in endgame, get a single province, win by a single point.
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play2draw

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #2 on: July 29, 2011, 11:12:20 pm »
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Yeah, this seems like the only way to have a vp penalty card (unless you have the player gain a curse. But once those curses run out in a game with easy trashing...). There is a fan expansion using this concept on BGG, but I think too many of the cards are either too gimmicky or depend on more than one card in the set being in the supply. I like the idea of making the +curse cards easily spammable. If you're too afraid to play the card, it might as well be a curse in your deck.
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rinkworks

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2011, 11:25:04 am »
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So I did some playtesting on this, and not only does the mechanic seem to work well, but -- somewhat to my surprise -- the card I suggested, which I named Valkyrie, seems to work, too.  Appropriately, sometimes it's the thing to do, and sometimes it isn't.  If you're on a board where you can set up a deck that draws itself every turn (i.e., Hunting Party, Laboratory) without incurring curse tokens, it's probably a huge mistake to use it -- unless you can get it running a whole lot faster.  If you can capture a sufficient lead, you're probably all set, because the +3 Cards keep the deck more resilient as it greens than, say, a Laboratory engine.  But by and large, Valkyrie is a mistake in such kingdoms, as the curses just prove too much of a deficit to overcome.

However, it works very well in kingdoms with limited action chain alternatives.  I've tried spamming them, and I've tried using small numbers strategically.  Both seem to be viable strategies sometimes.  Spamming seems to carry considerably more risk, as you'd expect.  I can't tell yet, but it seems like strategic uses of the card performs a little better than spamming them, but I suppose it depends on the situation.

I also tried another such card, this one not yet tested quite as much:

Chimera
$6
+2 Cards, +2 Actions, +$2.  When you play this, gain a curse token.

Similarly, this works best in kingdoms without an alternate source of extra actions.  It's also even more important than with Valkyrie to make the decision about using them sparingly or spammingly.  Without another source of +Buy, extra money is wasted; with +Buy in the mix, it's a powerhouse.  But it still probably loses to sufficiently powerful curse-free-token alternatives, if any.  Even if not, there are still interesting decisions to make about how many to buy, what to flesh the rest of your deck out with, and when to actually play the ones you draw in your hand.  (And if you don't play them, as play2draw points out, there's a cost to that, too.)

The interesting thing to me about these cards is you really do have to think before playing them.  Whereas playing Markets and Laboratories are no-brainers -- it's rare that automatically and unthinkingly playing those cards is a mistake (or a very big one if so) -- but with these cards, you really have to think about whether you have any alternatives to playing them, or if earning what they give you is going to mean buying better engine/VP cards or just supplying extra cash beyond what you can use.

So, to sum up, I really like the flavor this idea adds to the game.
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Young Nick

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2011, 12:00:51 pm »
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I think the concept looks great. I've also wondered about cards that couldn't be trashed. Say (off the top of my head)
Cursed Market - 3
+1 card
+$1
+1 Buy
+1 Action
-2VP
-----
You cannot trash this card. If this card would be trashed for any reason, place it in its owner's discard pile.

I know this seems a little complicated for Dominion. It definitely feels more like a M:tG card to me in some senses. I wonder how this type of card would play out, though.

edit: grammar
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rinkworks

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2011, 12:53:46 pm »
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Forbidding trashing is an improvement, but I dunno.  I think the problem of any one-time VP penalty for a card like this is roughly the same problem as trying to compensate for the first-turn advantage with a one-time VP penalty (or bonus, depending on how you look at it), which has been discussed here before too.  In some set-ups, the VP penalty is a pittance, scarcely correcting the problem at all.  In others, it grossly overcompensates.

That problem isn't as bad in a kingdom card, since you can always choose to buy it or not -- and let's face it, (almost) every kingdom card is a great buy in some kingdoms and a poor one in others.  Still, a strong card with a one-time VP penalty probably isn't doing what you want it to do often enough, which is to be a difficult choice most of the time, instead of a trivial choice (one way or the other) most of the time.  For example, on a board with heavy trashing and no alternate source of +Buys, opening double Cursed Markets is probably a no-brainer:  by opening with them, you get to play them more often over the course of the game; ditto with heavy trashing (you can't trash Cursed Market, but by slimming your deck, you can play them more often).  Mid-game with cursing attacks, Gardens, and/or Goons, and no trashing, and it's a no-brainer to avoid them.

This is what got me thinking about putting the penalty on the use of the card, rather than on the purchase of it.  Then it's a play-by-play decision instead of an often easy one-time buy decision.
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rogerclee

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2011, 01:01:32 pm »
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You cannot trash this card. If this card would be trashed for any reason, place it in its owner's discard pile.
1) Masquerade/Ambassador
2) If it was more expensive, this could potentially become a big issue with trash-for-benefit cards, especially apprentice/expand.
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Young Nick

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2011, 01:18:10 pm »
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I agree with the OP's point here about usage. I don't think that either option is right or wrong. I could see an even more powerful card that gives out -1VP tokens in addition to having negative VP's attached to the card.

In response to the most recent post, yes, Masquerade and Ambassador do avoid the no-trashing aspect of the card. I would (as a game designer) be willing to let that slide. However, the second point is moot. How exactly does it become a big issue? Even if it makes the card somewhat weaker as a result, that is just a part of the card.
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #8 on: August 14, 2011, 01:20:37 pm »
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It doesn't make it weaker. It makes it much much stronger. "I'll trash my Cursed Market for +3 cards and I'll keep my Cursed Market because it can't be trashed so I can do it again next turn."
« Last Edit: August 14, 2011, 02:48:51 pm by Thisisnotasmile »
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Young Nick

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2011, 01:51:45 pm »
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I was thinking that because you could not trash it, it could not be the target for something like Salvager or Apprentice. I guess the way it is worded, it does not behave like that, but that was the goal in designing it, at least.
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tlloyd

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #10 on: August 15, 2011, 05:31:51 pm »
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How about this?

Something
$6 - Action
+3 Cards, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +$1.
When you play this card, gain a Curse token.  At the end of the game, each Curse token is worth -1 VP.

Now not only is the penalty unavoidable -- once you gain a Curse token, you can't get rid of it -- but the damage escalates as you reap the benefits of the card.

How about this?

Something
$6 - Action
+1 Card, +1 Action
"You may gain -1VP; if you do, +2 Cards, +1 Buy, +$1"

This way the penalty is attached to using the card in its strong form, but you can also play the card in its weak form without penalty.
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play2draw

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #11 on: August 15, 2011, 06:36:55 pm »
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I would almost prefer to not have any "you may" on it. I think it would make buying the card too much of a no-brainer. 
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sherwinpr

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #12 on: August 17, 2011, 02:51:01 am »
+1

Other than for perhaps thematic reasons, negative VP (curse) tokens are unnecessary; you could just give every other player the appropriate number of VP tokens.  Unless I'm missing something, or some future card lets you "spend" VP tokens for some benefit, it should be functionally equivalent.
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minced

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #13 on: August 17, 2011, 12:18:08 pm »
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A -1 VP malus may seem to suck, but it really doesn't. Keep in mind that any card gets used only 2-3 times in a thick deck, especially late game cards like gold. So a -1 VP malus in exchange for a card that nearly guarantees a province when used is, effectively, a negative duchy, which is moot unless you're tied for provinces - a 5-3 split gives a 12-point score gap.

What would balance a powerful card you want to spam? I'd say gaining a curse - or even an estate or copper - is actually much worse than a -1 VP malus would be, because it can prevent you from buying a province on a later turn. Trashing several curses is much harder than trashing a single ubercard with a VP penalty, especially in games where deck-drawing is poor.

Here's a card from an expansion I'm working on with precisely this penalty:

Workhouse
---
+$1
+1 buy
Gain a card of cost at most 0. All cards cost $2 less this turn.
---
Action (5)

Each turn you play this card, you gain a copper. It's not to be taken lightly, even though it's more powerful than bridge.
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Jack Rudd

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #14 on: August 17, 2011, 12:44:51 pm »
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Workhouse
---
+$1
+1 buy
Gain a card of cost at most 0. All cards cost $2 less this turn.
---
Action (5)

Each turn you play this card, you gain a copper. It's not to be taken lightly, even though it's more powerful than bridge.

And then someone goes King's Court - King's Court - Workhouse - Workhouse - Workhouse and gains a Copper, two Estates, a Duchy, two Provinces and three Colonies, and then uses his Buys to empty the rest of the Province and Colony piles.
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #15 on: August 17, 2011, 12:48:18 pm »
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King's Court - King's Court - Bridge - Bridge - Bridge has a similar effect, is cheaper -- and most important of all -- actually exists.
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rinkworks

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #16 on: August 17, 2011, 01:48:16 pm »
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A -1 VP malus may seem to suck, but it really doesn't. Keep in mind that any card gets used only 2-3 times in a thick deck, especially late game cards like gold.

I'm not sure which proposed cards you're talking about here, but I've playtested the two I proposed, and they're really not THAT strong.  Both need support to "virtually guarantee" a Province, which takes time to build up, which means that a player playing without these cards might already be buying Provinces without the penalty.  If not, then the question is not whether "probable Province in exchange for -1 VP" is a good trade or not (obviously it is) but whether the -1 VP card gave you a sufficient lead in Province-buying power to compensate.

The other point I'd contend is that they only get used 2-3 times.  On the contrary, both my cards tend to produce (and work best within) decks that draw themselves every turn or two,  which means that you're possibly playing them every single turn in the end game.  In my playtests, blindly playing them every time is frequently (though not always) suicide.  I've racked up -20 VP playing with them indiscriminately, and range anywhere from around -2 to -10 VP in more sensible games.  Sure, on any individual play that makes a Province possible, it's worth it, but sometimes you've got a Province already and wonder if you can rack up a Duchy too.  And sometimes you still fall short of the Province mark.  Sometimes you're trying to draw into your other engine cards, which might yield a double-Province turn but nothing at all if it fails.

Lastly, I'd say that IF you're playing in a fat, clogged deck that can't draw itself, you're also playing in exactly the type of deck that CANNOT guarantee a Province just by playing it, because the cards it's liable to draw will be junk.  And even if it does, that penalty can still be decisive:  If someone plays Valkyrie and jumps from $7 to $8 to afford a Province, maybe he still loses to an opponent who managed to pull that off with a Bazaar instead.
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minced

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #17 on: August 17, 2011, 01:56:24 pm »
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A -1 VP malus may seem to suck, but it really doesn't. Keep in mind that any card gets used only 2-3 times in a thick deck, especially late game cards like gold.

I'm not sure which proposed cards you're talking about here, but I've playtested the two I proposed, and they're really not THAT strong.  Both need support to "virtually guarantee" a Province, which takes time to build up, which means that a player playing without these cards might already be buying Provinces without the penalty.  If not, then the question is not whether "probable Province in exchange for -1 VP" is a good trade or not (obviously it is) but whether the -1 VP card gave you a sufficient lead in Province-buying power to compensate.

The other point I'd contend is that they only get used 2-3 times.  On the contrary, both my cards tend to produce (and work best within) decks that draw themselves every turn or two,  which means that you're possibly playing them every single turn in the end game.  In my playtests, blindly playing them every time is frequently (though not always) suicide.  I've racked up -20 VP playing with them indiscriminately, and range anywhere from around -2 to -10 VP in more sensible games.  Sure, on any individual play that makes a Province possible, it's worth it, but sometimes you've got a Province already and wonder if you can rack up a Duchy too.  And sometimes you still fall short of the Province mark.  Sometimes you're trying to draw into your other engine cards, which might yield a double-Province turn but nothing at all if it fails.

Lastly, I'd say that IF you're playing in a fat, clogged deck that can't draw itself, you're also playing in exactly the type of deck that CANNOT guarantee a Province just by playing it, because the cards it's liable to draw will be junk.  And even if it does, that penalty can still be decisive:  If someone plays Valkyrie and jumps from $7 to $8 to afford a Province, maybe he still loses to an opponent who managed to pull that off with a Bazaar instead.

That's really interesting news. Have you playtested the cards with an optional penalty (say, card acts as a cantrip if you don't want to use its uber-ability), or at a cheaper pricepoint? With the news you just shared, it sounds like the +3 cards, +1 action might be more tempting at $5.
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play2draw

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #18 on: August 17, 2011, 02:06:16 pm »
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Well, if your deck gets too clogged, you can always play...

Venturer - $6
+1 action
Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal three that are actions or treasures. Put two of the three cards in your hand and discard the other revealed cards. Gain a curse token.
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rinkworks

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #19 on: August 17, 2011, 03:11:44 pm »
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Quote
That's really interesting news.

I reported some playtesting results in my August 14, 2011, 11:25:04 am post farther up this page.

Quote
Have you playtested the cards with an optional penalty (say, card acts as a cantrip if you don't want to use its uber-ability), or at a cheaper pricepoint? With the news you just shared, it sounds like the +3 cards, +1 action might be more tempting at $5.

I haven't tested an optional version, no.  I would think that would take some of the strategy out of the card, as it makes buying it less of a conundrum.  It still preserves the on-play strategy, but I'm not sure what gameplay value it adds in exchange for what it takes away.

Anyway, the Valkyrie card, as I proposed it at the start of this thread, feels like it's on the strong side of reasonable at $6, but if you or anyone else wants to experiment with it, I'd be curious to hear other opinions.  Thing is, I can playtest a lot and feel confident about a card for myself, but other players will have other strategies and playing styles that might turn up a weakness in the card I'll never find on my own.
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mith

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #20 on: September 14, 2011, 02:37:25 pm »
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(unless you have the player gain a curse. But once those curses run out in a game with easy trashing...)

...if you do, +2 Cards, +1 Buy, +$1"

This way the penalty is attached to using the card in its strong form, but you can also play the card in its weak form without penalty.

Combining these ideas, you could have a card like:

[Benefit]
Gain a Curse. If you do, [Extra Benefit].
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roriconfan

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #21 on: September 14, 2011, 07:50:54 pm »
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As I proposed in my own topic, just go for curse tokens instead of curse cards.
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guided

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #22 on: September 14, 2011, 08:03:37 pm »
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"Gain a Curse. If you do," is actually another tenable mechanic. Possibly even more interesting than the curse token mechanic, though if you're not careful such cards might end up being too good in combination with Watchtower.
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AJD

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #23 on: September 14, 2011, 10:32:28 pm »
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How about "you may gain a Curse; if you do..."? Or would people then just be even more inclined to save them up for the endgame than they would with "gain a curse; if you do..."?
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roriconfan

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #24 on: September 15, 2011, 02:47:50 am »
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This optional cursing makes many mundane versions of cards from the core game even more expensive. The forced curse token I proposed is making them cheaper AND doesn't render the mundane cards useless. 
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guided

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #25 on: September 15, 2011, 07:38:27 am »
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This optional cursing makes many mundane versions of cards from the core game even more expensive.
Not if you design them correctly.
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AJD

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #26 on: September 15, 2011, 09:48:16 am »
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I'm not sure what you mean by "mundane versions of cards".
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roriconfan

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #27 on: September 15, 2011, 11:36:29 am »
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This optional cursing makes many mundane versions of cards from the core game even more expensive.
Not if you design them correctly.
If it offers more options, it is more expensive than if it didn't.

I'm not sure what you mean by "mundane versions of cards".
"Plain" cards from the first expansions.
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AJD

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #28 on: September 15, 2011, 01:39:20 pm »
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...Then what makes them more expensive? Expensive how? Clearly not in the sense of increasing the cost to buy them....
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roriconfan

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #29 on: September 15, 2011, 02:39:42 pm »
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"Draw 3 cards" is a card that is cheaper than a "Draw 3 cards. Gain a Curse, if you do, (benefit)".
The option alone makes it more expensive than if it was JUST "Draw 3 cards. Gain a Curse, if you do, (benefit)".
At the same time, nobody would bother getting the original "Draw 3 cards" anymore, if the optional card had the exact same cost with attached extra aid.   
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ftl

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #30 on: September 15, 2011, 03:14:34 pm »
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This isn't making the mundane cards more expensive; those are still the same price as they always were.

This is introducing a new card, which has the same power as a preexisting card AS WELL AS some extra potential benefit, at the expense of higher cost. There is nothing wrong with that.

Compare: Village to (Workers Village, Mining Village, City, etc.) Compare Market to Grand Market. Compare Throne Room to King's Court. Hell, compare copper to silver to gold to platinum, or estate to duchy to province to colony. Smithy to Nobles. And so on and so forth. This game is filled with examples where a more expensive card has a strictly better power than a cheaper card and yet they all get used, and work fine.

From this point of view, it is perfectly all right to have a card which is a cursing village, cost 4 or 5, +1 card +2 actions, you may gain a curse, if you do extra stuff happens.  Or a card that is +1 card +1 action, you may gain a curse for [some benefit]. Or, in general, a card that is "Some vanilla stuff, you may gain a curse for something more exciting."

There may or may not be balance issues with this, but that wasn't your point.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2011, 03:16:42 pm by ftl »
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Hamlet

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #31 on: September 23, 2011, 09:08:46 pm »
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I think this is actually something that is going to come up in Hinterlands, or something that could be in the immediacy set.
The actual curse of buying or gaining cursed cards is the moment you buy it. Use a chapel is a way to "repent" of this misdeed. So here is how I see it.
When you buy or gain the card, curse cards should come with it. If it's a Treasure/Curse, it should be powerful and take victory points by itself proportionate to its usefulness. It should also force the player gaining it to take at least two curse cards with it.
The VP chip solution would be funny, too, but that seems like a strictly Prosperity thing.
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Jack Rudd

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #32 on: September 24, 2011, 11:20:39 am »
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When you buy or gain the card, curse cards should come with it. If it's a Treasure/Curse, it should be powerful and take victory points by itself proportionate to its usefulness. It should also force the player gaining it to take at least two curse cards with it.
Because Watchtower needed to be even more powerful than it already is, obviously.
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rinkworks

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #33 on: September 24, 2011, 12:19:03 pm »
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I think this is actually something that is going to come up in Hinterlands, or something that could be in the immediacy set.
The actual curse of buying or gaining cursed cards is the moment you buy it. Use a chapel is a way to "repent" of this misdeed. So here is how I see it.
When you buy or gain the card, curse cards should come with it. If it's a Treasure/Curse, it should be powerful and take victory points by itself proportionate to its usefulness. It should also force the player gaining it to take at least two curse cards with it.
The VP chip solution would be funny, too, but that seems like a strictly Prosperity thing.

But what's "proportionate to its usefulness"?  If you pay a flat penalty on purchase at the beginning of the game, you may wind up using it lots of times, reaping great benefits; if not, then you may only play it once or twice, reaping a much smaller benefit.  But the cost in both cases is the same.  It's therefore mathematically impossible for the penalty to be proportionate to its usefulness.

It's entirely possible Hinterlands will come out with its on-gain effects and throw all this theory out the window.  But for the time being, consider what "powerful with a penalty" cards we already have:  Council Room, Bishop, Vault, Followers.  All four provide benefits more powerful than their costs alone can justify.  (In the case of Followers, obviously it isn't actually a monetary cost but rather its power relative to the other prizes.)  But all four incur a penalty of some kind upon use of the card.  In the case of the first three, it's the ability for your opponents to do something that might help them out.  In the case of Followers, gaining an Estate is ostensibly a reward but really a penalty in all but the end game.

Nothing yet is a power card counterbalanced by an on-buy penalty.  Again, it wouldn't surprise me if we see something like that in Hinterlands, but if we do I'm guessing it'll be a slap on the wrist for a card only slightly overpowered.  Not a dramatically overpowered card with an on-buy self-cursing.  But we'll see.
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Hamlet

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #34 on: September 24, 2011, 08:37:53 pm »
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Quote
But what's "proportionate to its usefulness"?
Obviously, the card has to go through the deck a few times. My original idea for this was a treasure card that was worth $4, cost 5 and was worth -2 or -3. By itself, it isn't much but if players buy quite a few of them then problems could occur. What I meant by "proportionate" is the negative number on that specfic card in realtion to it's usefulness.
I do like the curse token theory, but honestly, I would not buy a card that would force me to end up with a permanent -1 chip unless it would guarantee me a ridiculous amount of points later on to compensate, and that could end up broken if I end up being able to play it a lot.. If there was a way to "purge" it, then I would go for it, but a card that says "Remove Curse Chips from the pile" seems a little too easy to use for the amount that you're bringing up. There could be a provision that instead of gaining VP chips you can discard Curse Chips, but even then it seems a little bit too easy to get rid of, compared to the luck factor necessary to trash Curses with a specific card.
I'm not sure which would be the most fair without playtesting it, but this is definetely an idea worth trying.
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rinkworks

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #35 on: September 24, 2011, 09:17:26 pm »
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Quote
But what's "proportionate to its usefulness"?
Obviously, the card has to go through the deck a few times. My original idea for this was a treasure card that was worth $4, cost 5 and was worth -2 or -3. By itself, it isn't much but if players buy quite a few of them then problems could occur. What I meant by "proportionate" is the negative number on that specfic card in realtion to it's usefulness.

I know what you meant, but what I'm saying is that it's impossible to have a proportionate penalty if the "bad" value is fixed and the "good" value is variable.  You have three choices:  (1) Both good and bad values are fixed; (2) both good and bad values fluctuate in tandem; (3) you don't have proportional values.

It's absolutely impossible to have a proportional fixed penalty and a non-fixed benefit.  That's just math.

I'm not going so far as to say it's impossible to have a balanced *card* with a fixed penalty, but I have yet to see one that I thought would be.  For this exact reason.  If the card is balanced in the mid-game, then it's an unbalanced must-buy in the beginning, and useless in the end game (ditto again, but lots of cards are useless in the endgame, so that's okay).

To make a balanced card, the penalty would have to be so steep as to be a good opener, okay after the first shuffle, and useless after the second.  That's the only way a fixed-penalty card won't be an immediate must-buy, and therefore unbalanced.  And that's workable (see: Trading Post), but not necessarily a desirable thing.

As for your proposed card of a treasure worth $4 and costing $5, compare that to Contraband, a treasure costing the same but worth only $3 and with a per-use penalty that is probably equal to or steeper than 2-3 VP even if you only incur the penalty once.  (Late game, it will commonly mean you have to buy a Duchy instead of a Province; early game, it will commonly cost you a Gold, a loss that will compound with every shuffle thereafter.)  Even if you put the penalty at like -7 VP, I'm buying that card as soon as I can every single time it's on the board.  In a Colony game or a slow Province game (Ghost Ship games in particular), I'm probably auto-buying a second one at the earliest opportunity thereafter.

Quote
I do like the curse token theory, but honestly, I would not buy a card that would force me to end up with a permanent -1 chip...

Not buying the Valkyrie card I proposed at the start of this thread will cost you a lot of games, then.  I've now playtested it extensively (several dozen games), and if anything it's a bit too strong -- I'm considering removing the +coin and seeing how that plays.

-1 VP isn't actually all that big a deal in comparison to even a fairly modest power boost.  The real harm of Curse cards isn't the penalty but the damage it does to your deck.  I'm pretty sure the penalties on Bishop and maybe Council Room help your opponents more than -1 VP, on average, hurts you.  It's just not as obvious.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2011, 09:56:37 pm by rinkworks »
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Hamlet

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #36 on: September 26, 2011, 05:01:26 pm »
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One thing that will make the card more balanced would be having it as a Action/Curse type; the actual card also being worth -2 or so on top of using the -1 Curse Chips.
Another way you could change this is is to use it opposite of Goons; that is, take a Curse Chip per buy.
The reason I wouldn't buy it would be to see if it could be beaten without it. As it looks, though, it's an insanely powered card. It's reward outweighs it's risk by a lot, but I'm not sure how to weaken it without entirely crippling it.
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ChaosRed

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #37 on: September 27, 2011, 05:17:45 pm »
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The card I am thinking of, doesn't really make curses "good", it just ignites a trigger, something like...

PLAGUE
Action 4
+1 Card
You may gain a card worth 1$ or less and put it in your hand. Reveal a curse from your hand, if you do, each other opponent gains a curse.

Meh, something like that.

The other thing I was toying with is:

LEPER'S CAMP
Action/Victory
Cost: 3
+1 Card, Worth 1VP if you have at least one curse in your deck.
You may reveal a curse card from your hand, if you do discard it, gain +1VP.

Both could use revisions and ideas, but these were concepts I was toying with.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #38 on: September 16, 2013, 08:44:17 pm »
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I didn't want to start a new topic, even though this one is a little old... I posted here because I vaguely remembered there being a topic like this. I hope I made the right choice.

I was making some Monty Python cards a few days ago, and one of the ones I came up with actually seems to me like a pretty balanced self-cursing card (not sure if 4 is the appropriate cost... seems right to me, I guess...):

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7617.msg292937#msg292937
« Last Edit: September 16, 2013, 08:48:45 pm by Minotaur »
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eHalcyon

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #39 on: September 16, 2013, 09:15:13 pm »
+1

It would have been better just to start a new thread, I think.  But no big deal.

For people who can't see the attachment:

Bright Side of Life
$4 - Action
Gain a curse, putting it into your hand. Each player may reveal up to three curses from their hand. Each player who revealed exactly zero/one/two/three curses gains a curse/copper/silver/gold. You put your gained card into your hand.

First of all, you should capitalize all the card names (Curse, Copper, Silver, Gold).  Second, this should probably be an Attack type, because it is sending out Curses and Coppers most of the time.

On the actual idea --

Bright Side of Life (BSoL) looks incredibly weak to me.  You gain a Curse, OK.  And then EVERY player gains something depending on how many Curses they have in hand.  Since you just got to gain a Curse in hand, you should have an advantage over everyone else, right?  But it doesn't really make a big difference. 

Let's say nobody had a Curse in hand to start... everyone ends up getting a Curse, you get an additional Copper.  You got the raw end of the deal there.  OK, you gain the Copper to your hand -- that's like +$1.  Not great.  You also gain the Curse to your hand, so maybe you can get rid of it after... but that's a lot of effort when you could have just not used BSoL to begin with.

So let's say everyone has one Curse in their hand to start.  In the end, everyone else gains a Copper, and you've gained Silver and Curse.  Was that Silver really worth it?  Probably not -- Curses are terrible.

In the best case, when nobody else has a Curse in hand, everyone gains a Curse.  You also get to gain a Treasure, and the best case here is kind of hard to say.  When you are able to gain a Gold, the rest of your hand was really bad so you're not likely to do much that turn.  In the worst case, you gain a Curse and a Copper and everyone else gets like a Silver or something.

And then we can add that since you gain a Curse first, you come out the worst when the Curses run out unevenly (e.g. say there is only one Curse left, you gain it and nobody else gains a Curse).

I can't really think of when this would ever be a good card to play.  Maybe if the Curses are already out and you seriously lost the Curse split, you can use this as a sort of cheap Explorer.  But it's certainly not worth it to gain a Curse to unreliably give others Curses, and probably give yourself a Copper.

So I don't think it is balanced -- it's pretty much always worse for you than for your opponents.  The only practical purpose I can think for it is for when the Curses are already gone, which defeats the point of this being a self-Curser.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #40 on: September 16, 2013, 09:36:13 pm »
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First of all, you should capitalize all the card names (Curse, Copper, Silver, Gold).  Second, this should probably be an Attack type, because it is sending out Curses and Coppers most of the time.

On the actual idea --

Bright Side of Life (BSoL) looks incredibly weak to me.  You gain a Curse, OK.  And then EVERY player gains something depending on how many Curses they have in hand.  Since you just got to gain a Curse in hand, you should have an advantage over everyone else, right?  But it doesn't really make a big difference. 

Let's say nobody had a Curse in hand to start... everyone ends up getting a Curse, you get an additional Copper.  You got the raw end of the deal there.  OK, you gain the Copper to your hand -- that's like +$1.  Not great.  You also gain the Curse to your hand, so maybe you can get rid of it after... but that's a lot of effort when you could have just not used BSoL to begin with.

So let's say everyone has one Curse in their hand to start.  In the end, everyone else gains a Copper, and you've gained Silver and Curse.  Was that Silver really worth it?  Probably not -- Curses are terrible.

In the best case, when nobody else has a Curse in hand, everyone gains a Curse.  You also get to gain a Treasure, and the best case here is kind of hard to say.  When you are able to gain a Gold, the rest of your hand was really bad so you're not likely to do much that turn.  In the worst case, you gain a Curse and a Copper and everyone else gets like a Silver or something.

And then we can add that since you gain a Curse first, you come out the worst when the Curses run out unevenly (e.g. say there is only one Curse left, you gain it and nobody else gains a Curse).

I can't really think of when this would ever be a good card to play.  Maybe if the Curses are already out and you seriously lost the Curse split, you can use this as a sort of cheap Explorer.  But it's certainly not worth it to gain a Curse to unreliably give others Curses, and probably give yourself a Copper.

So I don't think it is balanced -- it's pretty much always worse for you than for your opponents.  The only practical purpose I can think for it is for when the Curses are already gone, which defeats the point of this being a self-Curser.

First of all, it's not an attack. It's the bright side of life! Not being able to block it could make it stronger.

You have an interesting criticism. Maybe I should consider ultimately adding a little something extra and possibly making it cost 5. But I also have some counterpoints. Mostly, I suppose I should play test this sometime if I really want to see if it works.

In a lot of curse games, it can be really hard to get some golds in your deck. After the curses run out, playing this card gets you more Silvers and Golds while anyone who doesn't buy it is still probably choking on curses and coppers to some extent. If the other players aren't playing Bright Side of Life, then they will have less curses than you, and they might gain a Curse or a Copper on the same turn that you gain a Gold.

It would probably be stronger on boards with no trashing, overall.

Also, you don't have to play the card if your deck already has several curses but your hand has none. The "everyone else gets a gold while you gain a curse and a copper" scenario probably won't ever happen if you play the card judiciously.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #41 on: September 16, 2013, 10:20:50 pm »
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First of all, it's not an attack. It's the bright side of life! Not being able to block it could make it stronger.

You have an interesting criticism. Maybe I should consider ultimately adding a little something extra and possibly making it cost 5. But I also have some counterpoints. Mostly, I suppose I should play test this sometime if I really want to see if it works.

In a lot of curse games, it can be really hard to get some golds in your deck. After the curses run out, playing this card gets you more Silvers and Golds while anyone who doesn't buy it is still probably choking on curses and coppers to some extent. If the other players aren't playing Bright Side of Life, then they will have less curses than you, and they might gain a Curse or a Copper on the same turn that you gain a Gold.

It would probably be stronger on boards with no trashing, overall.

Also, you don't have to play the card if your deck already has several curses but your hand has none. The "everyone else gets a gold while you gain a curse and a copper" scenario probably won't ever happen if you play the card judiciously.

In Dominion terms, it's pretty much an attack.  It hands out Curses and Coppers most of the time.  Yes it does it to you as well, but it's still attacking others.  If you want to make it a non-attack for thematic reasons, OK.  Then it's still an attack that just doesn't have the Attack type.  And of course being unblockable makes it stronger. :P

I'd already addressed your first counterpoint in looking for a use case for this card -- games that have other cursing, after Curses have run out.  In this case, you can make the most of your junky deck and use BSoL as a cheap Explorer, which is fairly decent.  But as I said, this defeats the purpose of BSoL being a self-curser.  It's actually just a way to deal with Curses, and the self-cursing is irrelevant because you wouldn't want to use it until Curses have run out.  That initial penalty on play actually narrows the use case of BSoL -- you don't want to help your opponent win the Curse split even more, so you don't play it until the Curses are gone.  You're not going to play it until the Curses are gone, so you won't buy it until the Curses are almost gone.  You're buying it so late that you're not going to get much use out of it at all.  Maybe if the initial Curse gain was optional, the card would be a little useful.  Still niche, which is fine.  But again, this defeats the purpose of being a "self-curser" (which I am focused on because of the thread you posted this in).

I note that you say "they will have less curses than you" as if it were good that you have more curses.  OK, you can gain slightly better treasure than them... but you have more curses.  That is explicitly not a good thing.

So when does the self-cursing matter?  On boards with no other cursing.  This is the most important use case for a self-cursing card.  And in this context, BSoL is terrible.  Again, you always give yourself a Curse, and you only sometimes give others a Curse.  That's because your opponents can block it with Curses.  Even in the very best case, where you gain Gold and your opponents all gain Curses... well, you still gained a Gold and a Curse, and that Curse probably isn't worth it.  And again, it's questionable that this is a good case at all because it means you had at least 2 Curses in hand to start, which is pretty bad.

As for your last counterpoint that you don't have to play BSoL if you have no Curses in hand... true.  But then BSoL was itself almost as bad as a Curse, since it's a dead card in your hand.

tl;dr:

BSoL almost always hurts you a lot more than it hurts other players.  It's too weak at pretty much any price.  Its best use case is as a way to deal with already having a deck full of Curses, and for this purpose it is somewhat interesting.  But this defeats the purpose of making it a self-curser.







I know it started off as a Monty Python parody, but if you want to make it a playable card you should ask yourself, "what is the purpose of this card?"

If your goal is to make it a viable strategy to give yourself Curses, this card does not succeed.  If your goal is to provide a way to mitigate the power of Cursing attacks, then you may be onto something.  For the latter, making the self-cursing optional opens up the use cases a bit while still keeping it niche.  I'm personally not a fan of Curses-for-benefit concepts, but some people like it.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #42 on: September 16, 2013, 10:33:55 pm »
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If your goal is to make it a viable strategy to give yourself Curses, this card does not succeed.  If your goal is to provide a way to mitigate the power of Cursing attacks, then you may be onto something.  For the latter, making the self-cursing optional opens up the use cases a bit while still keeping it niche.  I'm personally not a fan of Curses-for-benefit concepts, but some people like it.

About cards that "should" be an attack, Masquerade definitely feels like an attack, but you can't Secret Chamber yourself or Moat to remove yourself from the rotation. You could argue that Masquerade doesn't always hurt the other players, but then, neither does BSoL.

Making the self-curse optional would break the theme of BSoL.

Another option might be this:

Bright Side of Life
Cost: 4
Each player gains a Curse into their hand.
You may reveal up to three Curses from your hand. If you reveal 1/2/3 Curses, gain a Copper/Silver/Gold, putting it into your hand.


This one is a lot more predictable and probably more balanced. I think my original concept was slightly more thematic, in that *everyone* finds joy in looking on the Bright Side of Life.

Do you think this is closer to a usably good card? (I would probably rename the new version in to something else, though.)
« Last Edit: September 16, 2013, 11:01:03 pm by Minotaur »
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eHalcyon

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #43 on: September 16, 2013, 11:46:36 pm »
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If your goal is to make it a viable strategy to give yourself Curses, this card does not succeed.  If your goal is to provide a way to mitigate the power of Cursing attacks, then you may be onto something.  For the latter, making the self-cursing optional opens up the use cases a bit while still keeping it niche.  I'm personally not a fan of Curses-for-benefit concepts, but some people like it.

About cards that "should" be an attack, Masquerade definitely feels like an attack, but you can't Secret Chamber yourself or Moat to remove yourself from the rotation. You could argue that Masquerade doesn't always hurt the other players, but then, neither does BSoL.

Making the self-curse optional would break the theme of BSoL.

Another option might be this:

Bright Side of Life
Cost: 4
Each player gains a Curse into their hand.
You may reveal up to three Curses from your hand. If you reveal 1/2/3 Curses, gain a Copper/Silver/Gold, putting it into your hand.


This one is a lot more predictable and probably more balanced. I think my original concept was slightly more thematic, in that *everyone* finds joy in looking on the Bright Side of Life.

Do you think this is closer to a usably good card? (I would probably rename the new version in to something else, though.)

On Attacks -- it's not about always hurting others, it's about usually hurting them.  Pretty much every attack has edge cases where they help rather than hurt -- e.g. Militia can activate Tunnels, Fortune Teller can help cycle good cards, even junkers like Witch can bump up Gardens.

Masquerade and Possession often prompt people to wonder whether they should have the Attack type.  The thing is, attacks usually hurt others.  Masquerade and Possession do not.  Masquerade is usually neutral (everyone passes a bad card) and Possession doesn't affect the "victim" on average.  They can hurt by pure luck (my entire hand is great!) or in conjunction with other cards (discard attack then Masq; Possession-Amb/Masq) but they don't usually hurt other players on their own.

BSoL should be an attack because it DOES usually hurt others.  It usually hands out Curses and Coppers.  Sometimes it gives a gift of Silver or Gold, but that will be rare (unless you've already heavily junked their decks).


The new version is certainly more playable.  Note that this is still an attack, even by your definition. :P

It is still niche -- fairly often you are just gaining Copper -- but there are ways to make it work.  Maybe there's other Cursing that you don't really want to get into; you can use this to mitigate how badly you'd lose the split while also giving yourself some decent Treasure to slog through.  There are probably other odd use cases.  It could combo with Trader, at least.

I'm still not a fan because I just don't like Curse-for-benefit.  But yeah, I can see this working.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #44 on: September 17, 2013, 12:34:24 am »
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Actually, the old one could work with "you may trash a card from your hand" at the end of it...
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #45 on: September 17, 2013, 12:38:49 am »
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On Attacks -- it's not about always hurting others, it's about usually hurting them.  Pretty much every attack has edge cases where they help rather than hurt -- e.g. Militia can activate Tunnels, Fortune Teller can help cycle good cards, even junkers like Witch can bump up Gardens.

Masquerade and Possession often prompt people to wonder whether they should have the Attack type.  The thing is, attacks usually hurt others.  Masquerade and Possession do not.  Masquerade is usually neutral (everyone passes a bad card) and Possession doesn't affect the "victim" on average.  They can hurt by pure luck (my entire hand is great!) or in conjunction with other cards (discard attack then Masq; Possession-Amb/Masq) but they don't usually hurt other players on their own.

BSoL should be an attack because it DOES usually hurt others.  It usually hands out Curses and Coppers.  Sometimes it gives a gift of Silver or Gold, but that will be rare (unless you've already heavily junked their decks).


The new version is certainly more playable.  Note that this is still an attack, even by your definition. :P

It is still niche -- fairly often you are just gaining Copper -- but there are ways to make it work.  Maybe there's other Cursing that you don't really want to get into; you can use this to mitigate how badly you'd lose the split while also giving yourself some decent Treasure to slog through.  There are probably other odd use cases.  It could combo with Trader, at least.

I'm still not a fan because I just don't like Curse-for-benefit.  But yeah, I can see this working.

In the case of the original card (the one which can give treasures to enemies), the card might actually help the opponent. Anyway, in either version of the card I proposed, it would be way too weak as an attack in any game where it could be prevented. Though in the version that's more stable, it's never good for the other players, so it feels more like a clear attack card.

(Maybe the new one could be called "Cursed Tomb" or something. Sort of off-theme.)
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #46 on: September 17, 2013, 12:40:06 am »
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On Attacks -- it's not about always hurting others, it's about usually hurting them.  Pretty much every attack has edge cases where they help rather than hurt -- e.g. Militia can activate Tunnels, Fortune Teller can help cycle good cards, even junkers like Witch can bump up Gardens.

Masquerade and Possession often prompt people to wonder whether they should have the Attack type.  The thing is, attacks usually hurt others.  Masquerade and Possession do not.  Masquerade is usually neutral (everyone passes a bad card) and Possession doesn't affect the "victim" on average.  They can hurt by pure luck (my entire hand is great!) or in conjunction with other cards (discard attack then Masq; Possession-Amb/Masq) but they don't usually hurt other players on their own.

BSoL should be an attack because it DOES usually hurt others.  It usually hands out Curses and Coppers.  Sometimes it gives a gift of Silver or Gold, but that will be rare (unless you've already heavily junked their decks).


The new version is certainly more playable.  Note that this is still an attack, even by your definition. :P

It is still niche -- fairly often you are just gaining Copper -- but there are ways to make it work.  Maybe there's other Cursing that you don't really want to get into; you can use this to mitigate how badly you'd lose the split while also giving yourself some decent Treasure to slog through.  There are probably other odd use cases.  It could combo with Trader, at least.

I'm still not a fan because I just don't like Curse-for-benefit.  But yeah, I can see this working.

In the case of the original card (the one which can give treasures to enemies), the card might actually help the opponent. Anyway, in either version of the card I proposed, it would be way too weak as an attack in any game where it could be prevented. Though in the version that's more stable, it's never good for the other players, so it feels more like a clear attack card.

(Maybe the new one could be called "Cursed Tomb" or something. Sort of off-theme.)

Yes, and as I said, official attack cards can also help opponents.  But they (and BSoL) usually hurt.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #47 on: September 17, 2013, 12:41:37 am »
0

Actually, the old one could work with "you may trash a card from your hand" at the end of it...

This would negate the "curse for benefit" nature in a sort of trivial way, and it wouldn't fit the original theme, either.

If the idea is to stock up on Curses, get Golds, and then trash the Curses later, it seems sort of questionable to me. I guess everyone might be forced to play the same game the same way if curses are going out anyway, but it would be more like a Curse card that defends against Curses than it would be a self-Curse-for-benefit card. Likely, you'd gain better treasures because of curses you already had from other players, not because of Curses played on yourself that you accumulated.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2013, 03:48:33 am by Minotaur »
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #48 on: September 17, 2013, 03:51:58 am »
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Yes, and as I said, official attack cards can also help opponents.  But they (and BSoL) usually hurt.

I don't know how you feel about labeling things as "attack" or not based on balance and theme reasons. If it had a name like "Cursed Tomb", then the plot reason for it not being an attack is that the player is just derping around in a cursed place, not actually attacking anyone. The balance reason is simply that if it's too easy to prevent it, then the self-curse is too much of a drawback to be justified. (Though it would still get strongly countered by Watchtower and maybe a couple others I'm forgetting)
« Last Edit: September 17, 2013, 02:34:31 pm by Minotaur »
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #49 on: September 17, 2013, 02:59:23 pm »
0

I thought about it some more. Here's another version which is *sometimes* curse-for-benefit, but probably only in the case when you have exactly two curses in hand:

Shady Character
Action - Attack
Cost: 5

+1 card
Each other player gains a Curse. You may gain a Curse, putting it directly into your hand. If you do so or if the Curse pile is empty, you may reveal up to three curses from your hand. If you reveal 1/2/3 Curses, gain a Copper/Silver/Gold.

(The card draw helps make the treasure gain more likely to work out well, and together with the optional self-Curse helps justify a 5 cost.)

Cursed Tomb
Action - Attack
Cost: 5

+2 cards
Each player gains a Curse. Put your gained Curse directly into your hand. You may reveal up to three curses from your hand. If you reveal 1/2/3 Curses, gain a Copper/Silver/Gold, putting it directly into your hand.

(The +2 cards makes the gain feature a lot more attractive. I don't know whether to put the treasure into your hand or not, in this case. It would be interesting to see whether this beats Witch in an otherwise base Dominion board...)
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #50 on: September 17, 2013, 03:49:51 pm »
0

I made Bright Side of Life stronger:

Bright Side of Life (v.2)
Action
Cost: 4
Each player gains a Curse; yours goes into your hand. Each player may reveal up to three Curses from their hand. Each player who revealed exactly 1/2/3 Curses gains a Copper/Silver/Gold. If you gained a Treasure this way, put it into your hand.

(It probably gives other players no more than a Silver, or more likely just a Copper they may want to opt out of anyway. Everyone gets a Curse in any case. This still has a strong connection to the original theme, as well.)
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #51 on: September 17, 2013, 04:15:02 pm »
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Yes, and as I said, official attack cards can also help opponents.  But they (and BSoL) usually hurt.

I don't know how you feel about labeling things as "attack" or not based on balance and theme reasons. If it had a name like "Cursed Tomb", then the plot reason for it not being an attack is that the player is just derping around in a cursed place, not actually attacking anyone. The balance reason is simply that if it's too easy to prevent it, then the self-curse is too much of a drawback to be justified. (Though it would still get strongly countered by Watchtower and maybe a couple others I'm forgetting)

Most would agree that Dominion is a game of mechanics first, theme second, so theme is not a great reason to make an attack that doesn't have the attack type.  You can name it something else.  Or you can think about it differently -- "Cursed Tomb" is an attack because the Tomb itself is attacking all you explorers for intruding and tripping all its cursed booby traps or whatever.  As for balance, well, you can do that, but you can also give it the attack type and balance it in other ways.  If there is a way to block the attack, then the attack is weaker -- so be it.  If the bane is strong, I don't go for Young Witch -- that's just how the game goes.  As it is, there are two unblockable "attacks" in Dominion already -- Noble Brigand (on buy) and Ill-Gotten Gains (on gain).  But they are unblockable for mechanic reasons rather than theme or balance.

All of the cards you are posting are pretty similar so there's not much to say about them, unless you have a specific question. 
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #52 on: September 17, 2013, 04:29:11 pm »
0

All of the cards you are posting are pretty similar so there's not much to say about them, unless you have a specific question.

I think they're closer to being balanced cards than the original. The differences are probably substantial in practice, even if they are iterations on the same idea. Do one or the other of the last two look usable? That is, putting aside for the moment your distaste for curse-for-benefit on principle.

Or suppose the Attack type is added to the most recent BSoL. What other change might tune the balance back into place?
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #53 on: September 17, 2013, 04:42:31 pm »
0

Most would agree that Dominion is a game of mechanics first, theme second, so theme is not a great reason to make an attack that doesn't have the attack type.  You can name it something else.  Or you can think about it differently -- "Cursed Tomb" is an attack because the Tomb itself is attacking all you explorers for intruding and tripping all its cursed booby traps or whatever.  As for balance, well, you can do that, but you can also give it the attack type and balance it in other ways.  If there is a way to block the attack, then the attack is weaker -- so be it.  If the bane is strong, I don't go for Young Witch -- that's just how the game goes.  As it is, there are two unblockable "attacks" in Dominion already -- Noble Brigand (on buy) and Ill-Gotten Gains (on gain).  But they are unblockable for mechanic reasons rather than theme or balance.
And Council Room, Masquerade, Possession and Embassy.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #54 on: September 17, 2013, 04:54:46 pm »
0

All of the cards you are posting are pretty similar so there's not much to say about them, unless you have a specific question.

I think they're closer to being balanced cards than the original. The differences are probably substantial in practice, even if they are iterations on the same idea. Do one or the other of the last two look usable? That is, putting aside for the moment your distaste for curse-for-benefit on principle.

Or suppose the Attack type is added to the most recent BSoL. What other change might tune the balance back into place?

Sure, Cursed Tomb looks alright, as does the latest BSoL.  It should get the attack type and no other change is really necessary.  The niche is still mostly as a response to other cursing, but maybe you also use it if you think you can handle curses better than opponents or something.  Giving it the Attack type doesn't throw it out of balance or anything.  If other players have Moat, then that's just something you have to account for before deciding to buy or play the card.

Most would agree that Dominion is a game of mechanics first, theme second, so theme is not a great reason to make an attack that doesn't have the attack type.  You can name it something else.  Or you can think about it differently -- "Cursed Tomb" is an attack because the Tomb itself is attacking all you explorers for intruding and tripping all its cursed booby traps or whatever.  As for balance, well, you can do that, but you can also give it the attack type and balance it in other ways.  If there is a way to block the attack, then the attack is weaker -- so be it.  If the bane is strong, I don't go for Young Witch -- that's just how the game goes.  As it is, there are two unblockable "attacks" in Dominion already -- Noble Brigand (on buy) and Ill-Gotten Gains (on gain).  But they are unblockable for mechanic reasons rather than theme or balance.
And Council Room, Masquerade, Possession and Embassy.

???

The effects of those cards aren't considered attacks.  Masq and Possession have already been explained in this thread.  CR gives everyone a card, which is almost always a helpful thing.  Embassy (and Governor, might as well mention that too) gives Silver which is also usually helpful.

NB is obviously an attack, since it does the same thing on-buy or on-play, but the on-buy is unblockable for rules simplicity.  IGG curses which is (hopefully) obviously an attack, but again the mechanics of the card makes it unblockable.  Note that even Donald X. calls it an "on-gain attack" in the secret histories.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2013, 04:56:19 pm by eHalcyon »
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #55 on: September 17, 2013, 05:15:51 pm »
0

???

The effects of those cards aren't considered attacks.  Masq and Possession have already been explained in this thread.  CR gives everyone a card, which is almost always a helpful thing.  Embassy (and Governor, might as well mention that too) gives Silver which is also usually helpful.
I fail to see why helping the opponent is relevant from a mechanical point of view (it is relevant if you want to create flavorful cards, though, but that has nothing to do with mechanics). They all are direct player interaction, the key difference to Attacks, which also are direct player interaction, is that they aren't supposed to be blocked. If Bright Side of Life isn't supposed to be blocked, there is no reason why it should have the Attack type.

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #56 on: September 17, 2013, 05:33:19 pm »
0

???

The effects of those cards aren't considered attacks.  Masq and Possession have already been explained in this thread.  CR gives everyone a card, which is almost always a helpful thing.  Embassy (and Governor, might as well mention that too) gives Silver which is also usually helpful.
I fail to see why helping the opponent is relevant from a mechanical point of view (it is relevant if you want to create flavorful cards, though, but that has nothing to do with mechanics). They all are direct player interaction, the key difference to Attacks, which also are direct player interaction, is that they aren't supposed to be blocked. If Bright Side of Life isn't supposed to be blocked, there is no reason why it should have the Attack type.

So how do you define attacks then?  Direct player interaction that should be blockable?  How do you decide whether it should be blockable?  Whether the card helps or hurts others is a mechanics things.  You could rename Witch to "Happy Awesome Fun Times" -- that's a change in flavour/theme, but it doesn't change the mechanics of the card which is an attack that junks others' decks.

An attack is something offensive that hurts others.  This is the dictionary definition, and there's no reason why that should change in Dominion.  Attacks are the cards that hurt others.

As I said earlier in the thread, if you don't give it the Attack type, then it becomes an attack without the Attack type, and being unblockable makes it stronger.  But most players will recognize that it is still basically an attack, and reasons not to give it the typing aren't really so compelling.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #57 on: September 17, 2013, 05:36:11 pm »
0

???

The effects of those cards aren't considered attacks.  Masq and Possession have already been explained in this thread.  CR gives everyone a card, which is almost always a helpful thing.  Embassy (and Governor, might as well mention that too) gives Silver which is also usually helpful.
I fail to see why helping the opponent is relevant from a mechanical point of view (it is relevant if you want to create flavorful cards, though, but that has nothing to do with mechanics). They all are direct player interaction, the key difference to Attacks, which also are direct player interaction, is that they aren't supposed to be blocked. If Bright Side of Life isn't supposed to be blocked, there is no reason why it should have the Attack type.

In the card-making advice FAQ, there was this whole lecture on why attack reflection cards make both Attack cards and themselves into non-starters. Allowing BSoL to be an attack would essentially turn Moat/Lighthouse into attack reflection cards. Watchtower is a strong counter to BSoL, however. I think preserving the sanctity of the Attack type would hurt BSoL, as well as most other self-cursing "attack" cards you might think of.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #58 on: September 17, 2013, 05:40:44 pm »
+2

It's not attack reflection because you are incurring the penalty whether or not they block you.  If this is an issue, it's more a knock on self-cursing itself IMO.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #59 on: September 17, 2013, 05:40:49 pm »
0

So how do you define attacks then?  Direct player interaction that should be blockable?  How do you decide whether it should be blockable?  Whether the card helps or hurts others is a mechanics things.  You could rename Witch to "Happy Awesome Fun Times" -- that's a change in flavour/theme, but it doesn't change the mechanics of the card which is an attack that junks others' decks.

An attack is something offensive that hurts others.  This is the dictionary definition, and there's no reason why that should change in Dominion.  Attacks are the cards that hurt others.

As I said earlier in the thread, if you don't give it the Attack type, then it becomes an attack without the Attack type, and being unblockable makes it stronger.  But most players will recognize that it is still basically an attack, and reasons not to give it the typing aren't really so compelling.

If we're going by strict conformity to the dictionary instead of treating labels as simple mechanical tools, then Copper shouldn't count as a treasure because it's lousy. It should have the new type "bauble" or "pocket change". Most Action cards in the game shouldn't count as Actions because they're mostly people or buildings.

Even if Watchtower counters BSoL unreasonably well in any case, the number of cases is drastically reduced by not having the Attack type. Also, it can potentially give the other players a Gold and no curses without having to rely on any combination with other non-basic cards whatsoever, so it has this ground to stand on for classifying it as not being an attack for English dictionary reasons.

The point here is that from a mechanical perspective, "Attack" is just a label which can be applied or not strictly for gameplay reasons. We could change the old name to "Blockable Attack" and give BSoL the new type "Unblockable Attack", but there would be no practical difference in gameplay whatsoever. It would just be wordier than what I proposed: making BSoL a basic Action.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2013, 05:45:40 pm by Minotaur »
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #60 on: September 17, 2013, 05:58:46 pm »
0

So how do you define attacks then?  Direct player interaction that should be blockable?  How do you decide whether it should be blockable?  Whether the card helps or hurts others is a mechanics things.  You could rename Witch to "Happy Awesome Fun Times" -- that's a change in flavour/theme, but it doesn't change the mechanics of the card which is an attack that junks others' decks.

An attack is something offensive that hurts others.  This is the dictionary definition, and there's no reason why that should change in Dominion.  Attacks are the cards that hurt others.

As I said earlier in the thread, if you don't give it the Attack type, then it becomes an attack without the Attack type, and being unblockable makes it stronger.  But most players will recognize that it is still basically an attack, and reasons not to give it the typing aren't really so compelling.

If we're going by strict conformity to the dictionary instead of treating labels as simple mechanical tools, then Copper shouldn't count as a treasure because it's lousy. It should have the new type "bauble" or "pocket change". Most Action cards in the game shouldn't count as Actions because they're mostly people or buildings.

Even if Watchtower counters BSoL unreasonably well in any case, the number of cases is drastically reduced by not having the Attack type. Also, it can potentially give the other players a Gold and no curses without having to rely on any combination with other non-basic cards whatsoever, so it has this ground to stand on for classifying it as not being an attack for English dictionary reasons.

The point here is that from a mechanical perspective, "Attack" is just a label which can be applied or not strictly for gameplay reasons. We could change the old name to "Blockable Attack" and give BSoL the new type "Unblockable Attack", but there would be no practical difference in gameplay whatsoever. It would just be wordier than what I proposed: making BSoL a basic Action.

Treasure is "something of value, money".  Copper still fits that definition.  But that wasn't really my point -- an attack is an attack because it's supposed to hurt others.  Look at literally every attack card in Dominion -- their primary use case involves hurt other players in some fashion.  Giving out curses?  The purpose of that is to hurt other players which qualifies it as an attack.

There isn't really a good balance reason to omit the Attack type from an attack.  You get around Moat and Lighthouse... OK, there's still Trader and Watchtower.  Sometimes it helps other players by letting them gain Gold?  That doesn't change its nature because you still gave out a Curse.  Soothsayer is an attack even though it lets others draw a card.  Militia is still an attack even though it can let opponents gain multiple Golds from discarding Tunnels.

Please don't misunderstand me here -- I'm not saying that this card MUST have have the Attack type.  I'm just saying that it is obviously an attack card, and the reasons for omitting the Attack type are weak.  I think the best reason would be for purely thematic reasons, and even that is not so compelling.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #61 on: September 17, 2013, 06:12:05 pm »
+1

So how do you define attacks then?  Direct player interaction that should be blockable?  How do you decide whether it should be blockable?
Yeah, direct player interaction that should be blockable is my definition for Attack. It should be blockable if being blockable improves the gaming experience.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #62 on: September 17, 2013, 06:31:29 pm »
+2

So how do you define attacks then?  Direct player interaction that should be blockable?  How do you decide whether it should be blockable?
Yeah, direct player interaction that should be blockable is my definition for Attack. It should be blockable if being blockable improves the gaming experience.

And if it doesn't?  Keep in mind that there are reactions to attacks that aren't just blocking.  Some of them mitigate attacks in other ways, or offer something like a consolation prize.  "You took a Curse and that sucks, but hey -- have an extra card in hand," says Horse Traders.

The definition for "attack" that I gave is the one that is commonly understood by veterans and newbies alike.  The game experience is improved by sticking to it and keeping it easy to understand.  When I play Council Room, my friends don't typically yell at me and wish they could have stopped it with a Moat.  They throw their hands in the air and shout, "Council Room!" because that extra card is great.

It would be confusing for new players if Council Room had the Attack type.  Likewise, given that there is an Attack type in the game, it would be confusing if a card like Soothsayer did NOT have the Attack type.  BSoL is like that -- it gives others Curses and is therefore an attack.  Omit the Attack type if you wish, but most players will still recognize that it has the spirit of an attack.  IMO it is better to keep consistent and give this attack the Attack type.  YMMV, of course.

On your definition of Attack though -- it really makes no sense to classify all direct player interaction as an "attack".  Are you seriously going to classify Council Room as an attack?
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #63 on: September 18, 2013, 02:28:59 am »
0

On your definition of Attack though -- it really makes no sense to classify all direct player interaction as an "attack".  Are you seriously going to classify Council Room as an attack?
No, because it's not supposed to be blocked.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #64 on: September 18, 2013, 02:52:23 am »
0

On your definition of Attack though -- it really makes no sense to classify all direct player interaction as an "attack".  Are you seriously going to classify Council Room as an attack?
No, because it's not supposed to be blocked.

Well how do you decide what should be blockable? :P
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #65 on: September 18, 2013, 03:07:43 am »
0

Well how do you decide what should be blockable? :P

I think he already answered this...

It should be blockable if being blockable improves the gaming experience.

The point was made that a blockable self-curse card of the Attack type would be unreasonably well-countered by Reactions. Denying the card the Attack type drastically reduces the number of cases where the card is completely invalidated.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #66 on: September 18, 2013, 07:13:41 am »
0

The point was made that a blockable self-curse card of the Attack type would be unreasonably well-countered by Reactions. Denying the card the Attack type drastically reduces the number of cases where the card is completely invalidated.

I think the definition of an attack should be "any kind of card that has an usually undesirable effect on your opponents, where 'usually' means 'ignoring interaction between kingdom cards'". Council Room, Masquerade and Possession only give a negative effect provided certain other kingdom cards (like Pillage, Militia, Baker), and all attacks are only non-negative on boards with certain other cards (reactions, draw-up-to, etc).

Keep in mind that only 3 of oh so many Dominion cards can actually block your card. Ignoring them, your card will always harm your opponents, and this is enough for an attack type. Every card can live with one or two other cards that make it less desirable - heck, that's part of what makes Dominion interesting. If you really want to improve its interaction with blocking reactions, tie the reveal-benefit to the curse gaining, like Soothsayer does. It won't solve Watchtower, but gee, 1 of 205 cards? Sounds fine to me.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #67 on: September 18, 2013, 08:35:19 am »
0

I think the definition of an attack should be "any kind of card that has an usually undesirable effect on your opponents, where 'usually' means 'ignoring interaction between kingdom cards'". Council Room, Masquerade and Possession only give a negative effect provided certain other kingdom cards (like Pillage, Militia, Baker), and all attacks are only non-negative on boards with certain other cards (reactions, draw-up-to, etc).

Keep in mind that only 3 of oh so many Dominion cards can actually block your card. Ignoring them, your card will always harm your opponents, and this is enough for an attack type.
Council Room does give a negative effect in a single-card kingdom, too, it triggers unwanted reshuffles. Masquerade sometimes makes you pass a good card even without hand size reduction attacks and Possession can make you skip a good hand. And Margrave, Minion, Soothsayer, Thief, Fortune Teller, Saboteur, Rabble, Ghost Ship and Pirate Ship can help opponents without the presence of any other cards, even if you're not trying to help your opponent with them. "Undesirable" is relative, so basically what your definition actually is, is "it should be an Attack if the card feels like what the word 'attack' means" which is a flavor reason.

There is no reason to have an Attack type if there are no cards that interact with the type Attack. If there was, there also should be a Splitter card type, a Trasher card type, a Virtual-Coin type etc.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #68 on: September 18, 2013, 08:51:25 am »
0

I think the definition of an attack should be "any kind of card that has an usually undesirable effect on your opponents, where 'usually' means 'ignoring interaction between kingdom cards'". Council Room, Masquerade and Possession only give a negative effect provided certain other kingdom cards (like Pillage, Militia, Baker), and all attacks are only non-negative on boards with certain other cards (reactions, draw-up-to, etc).

Keep in mind that only 3 of oh so many Dominion cards can actually block your card. Ignoring them, your card will always harm your opponents, and this is enough for an attack type.
Council Room does give a negative effect in a single-card kingdom, too, it triggers unwanted reshuffles. Masquerade sometimes makes you pass a good card even without hand size reduction attacks and Possession can make you skip a good hand. And Margrave, Minion, Soothsayer, Thief, Fortune Teller, Saboteur, Rabble, Ghost Ship and Pirate Ship can help opponents without the presence of any other cards, even if you're not trying to help your opponent with them. "Undesirable" is relative, so basically what your definition actually is, is "it should be an Attack if the card feels like what the word 'attack' means" which is a flavor reason.

There is no reason to have an Attack type if there are no cards that interact with the type Attack. If there was, there also should be a Splitter card type, a Trasher card type, a Virtual-Coin type etc.

Hmm... Good points.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #69 on: September 18, 2013, 10:03:17 am »
+1

I think the definition of an attack should be "any kind of card that has an usually undesirable effect on your opponents, where 'usually' means 'ignoring interaction between kingdom cards'". Council Room, Masquerade and Possession only give a negative effect provided certain other kingdom cards (like Pillage, Militia, Baker), and all attacks are only non-negative on boards with certain other cards (reactions, draw-up-to, etc).

Keep in mind that only 3 of oh so many Dominion cards can actually block your card. Ignoring them, your card will always harm your opponents, and this is enough for an attack type.
Council Room does give a negative effect in a single-card kingdom, too, it triggers unwanted reshuffles. Masquerade sometimes makes you pass a good card even without hand size reduction attacks and Possession can make you skip a good hand. And Margrave, Minion, Soothsayer, Thief, Fortune Teller, Saboteur, Rabble, Ghost Ship and Pirate Ship can help opponents without the presence of any other cards, even if you're not trying to help your opponent with them. "Undesirable" is relative, so basically what your definition actually is, is "it should be an Attack if the card feels like what the word 'attack' means" which is a flavor reason.

There is no reason to have an Attack type if there are no cards that interact with the type Attack. If there was, there also should be a Splitter card type, a Trasher card type, a Virtual-Coin type etc.

Hmm... Good points.

Disagree, those weren't good points.

eHalcyon has already basically made the case, but I think these arguments in favor of not having the type "attack" require some serious pedantry. I find it completely irrelevant to point out that it's theoretically possible for a play of Council Room to hurt someone. This isn't a question of opinion or subjectivity. "Undesirable" is not subjective. Actual numbers can be used here.

How about Awaclus and I play a bunch of rounds of Dominion, with Council Room in the Kingdom. Except whenever I play Council Room, he doesn't get to draw a card. But when he plays Council Room, standard rules apply. There is absolutely no realistic chance that if he will win many games in which we both buy Council Room. Same goes for Witch... since Curses can theoretically help you, how about whenever you play Witch, I don't get a Curse, even if I want one. But when I play Witch, normal rules apply. We can run a modified sim if it's really needed, but I think it's quite obvious what the outcome would be.

An attack in Dominion is a card that has a harmful effect for your opponent. A harmful effect is one that, on average, will cause your opponent to need more turns to score a given number of points than they would have otherwise. That's it. The only exception to this is IGG, which as explained, would cause a lot of rules confusion if it were labeled "attack."
« Last Edit: September 18, 2013, 10:04:24 am by GendoIkari »
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #70 on: September 18, 2013, 11:05:00 am »
0

An attack in Dominion is a card that has a harmful effect for your opponent. A harmful effect is one that, on average, will cause your opponent to need more turns to score a given number of points than they would have otherwise. That's it. The only exception to this is IGG, which as explained, would cause a lot of rules confusion if it were labeled "attack."
No, an Attack in Dominion is a card that can be interacted with by cards that interact with the Attack type. That's it. There are no exceptions to this.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #71 on: September 18, 2013, 11:14:27 am »
+1

Yes, but the way cards are chosen to be attacks is what you quoted, and that's what is being discussed: choosing whether or not this should be an attack. The decision is not and should not be circular.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #72 on: September 18, 2013, 11:25:01 am »
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Yes, but the way cards are chosen to be attacks is what you quoted
That's how Donald X. did it, but it's certainly not necessary for a fan card to do it the same way. The only requirements are that it must be a card with direct player interaction and the creator needs to think that the interaction part should be sometimes blockable.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #73 on: September 18, 2013, 11:33:02 am »
0

The point was made that a blockable self-curse card of the Attack type would be unreasonably well-countered by Reactions. Denying the card the Attack type drastically reduces the number of cases where the card is completely invalidated.

I think the definition of an attack should be "any kind of card that has an usually undesirable effect on your opponents, where 'usually' means 'ignoring interaction between kingdom cards'". Council Room, Masquerade and Possession only give a negative effect provided certain other kingdom cards (like Pillage, Militia, Baker), and all attacks are only non-negative on boards with certain other cards (reactions, draw-up-to, etc).

Keep in mind that only 3 of oh so many Dominion cards can actually block your card. Ignoring them, your card will always harm your opponents, and this is enough for an attack type. Every card can live with one or two other cards that make it less desirable - heck, that's part of what makes Dominion interesting. If you really want to improve its interaction with blocking reactions, tie the reveal-benefit to the curse gaining, like Soothsayer does. It won't solve Watchtower, but gee, 1 of 205 cards? Sounds fine to me.

Lighthouse and Moat are two cards which invalidate this card in an uncommonly strong way - to the point of essentially being as strong as an attack reflection, which are discouraged from being fan-made because the threat of them invalides attacks and therefore themselves altogether, reducing the board size by 2. Watchtower and Trader can't be helped (without going to great lengths in the wording at least), but that's no reason to give it four unreasonably strong counters instead of two. Every card that nullifies the curse gain invalidates BSoL altogether.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #74 on: September 18, 2013, 11:38:07 am »
0

Yes, but the way cards are chosen to be attacks is what you quoted
That's how Donald X. did it, but it's certainly not necessary for a fan card to do it the same way. The only requirements are that it must be a card with direct player interaction and the creator needs to think that the interaction part should be sometimes blockable.

I think I could fix this by making it like this:

"Each other player gains a curse. If they all do so, gain a curse into your hand; otherwise, you may gain a curse into your hand." etc, etc. Then it could be Attack type without being invalidated, not even by Watchtower.

But that wording is clunky, and just having it be a sort of Murphy's Law rather than giving it the Attack type is a more compact way of doing things. It's still countered pretty hard by a couple cards, but Militia is countered almost as hard by Library and Watchtower.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #75 on: September 18, 2013, 12:14:03 pm »
0

The point was made that a blockable self-curse card of the Attack type would be unreasonably well-countered by Reactions. Denying the card the Attack type drastically reduces the number of cases where the card is completely invalidated.

I think the definition of an attack should be "any kind of card that has an usually undesirable effect on your opponents, where 'usually' means 'ignoring interaction between kingdom cards'". Council Room, Masquerade and Possession only give a negative effect provided certain other kingdom cards (like Pillage, Militia, Baker), and all attacks are only non-negative on boards with certain other cards (reactions, draw-up-to, etc).

Keep in mind that only 3 of oh so many Dominion cards can actually block your card. Ignoring them, your card will always harm your opponents, and this is enough for an attack type. Every card can live with one or two other cards that make it less desirable - heck, that's part of what makes Dominion interesting. If you really want to improve its interaction with blocking reactions, tie the reveal-benefit to the curse gaining, like Soothsayer does. It won't solve Watchtower, but gee, 1 of 205 cards? Sounds fine to me.

Lighthouse and Moat are two cards which invalidate this card in an uncommonly strong way - to the point of essentially being as strong as an attack reflection, which are discouraged from being fan-made because the threat of them invalides attacks and therefore themselves altogether, reducing the board size by 2. Watchtower and Trader can't be helped (without going to great lengths in the wording at least), but that's no reason to give it four unreasonably strong counters instead of two. Every card that nullifies the curse gain invalidates BSoL altogether.

Moat is not an unreasonably strong counter to your card.  It's just a counter.  Just because your card self-curses, it is NOT attack reflection.  Your card self-curses whether or not another player blocks the attack portion.  The self-curse is a function of YOUR card, not the reaction.  Likewise for Trader, Watchtower and Lighthouse.

Your stated goal for the card is to make self-cursing viable.  You do this by giving yourself a chance to get good treasure out of having Curses in hand.  If you think that the card is so weak that you have to remove the ability for reactions to deal with it (note: reactions that usually aren't even on the board, and even then may not be in their hand when you play the attack!), then you should probably change your card.  Other attack cards have counters too.  Moat makes all attacks weaker.  Fixed draw counters discard attacks.  Those cards are still fine.

I mean, consider some other attacks. 

If my opponent has a Moat, my Sea Hag is completely dead.  It cost me an action and it literally does nothing.  Is Moat an unreasonably strong counter to Sea Hag?
If my opponent has a Trader, my Mountebank gives them TWO SILVER and only give mes +$2.  A terminal +$2 card is probably not even worth $2.  Is Trader an unreasonably strong counter to Mountebank?

The answer is no in both cases.  These are strong counters, but they are not unreasonable.

Now consider your card.  If other players block the Curse, you still get to gain a Treasure.  Yeah it sucks that you got a Curse and your opponents didn't... but man, that was kind of your own fault for buying a card that gives you Curses.  If you can't accept that, you shouldn't have bought it.  Is Moat a strong counter?  Sure.  Is it unreasonable?  Not really.




OK, here's an important point that hasn't been brought up yet.  Let's suppose that Moat, Lighthouse, Watchtower and Trader ARE all unreasonably strong counters to BSoL that completely invalidate it.  If it such a big deal that you can't let Moat and Lighthouse block the attack, why are you letting Watchtower and Trader do it?  What you are effectively saying is, "Watchtower and Trader have a broken interaction with this card, but it is too awkward to fix it so I'll just let it be."  No, if it is really so problematic, you need to deal with it for all cases, not just the ones that are easy to address.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #76 on: September 18, 2013, 12:21:28 pm »
0

It is possible to meet the challenge of inventing a self-cursing card that works-- at least in a way that satisfies the spirit if not the letter of the challenge. Just give VP chips to all other players. Effectively, this is equivalent to reducing one's own score.
Quote
Self-Cursing Equivalent
Type: Action
Cost: $2
Choose two:
+2 Cards.
+2 Actions.
Trash a victory card or lose a VP chip. If you do, +$3.
---------------
When you gain this, each other player gains 2 VP chips.
... or what have you.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2013, 12:27:30 pm by Matt_Arnold »
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eHalcyon

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #77 on: September 18, 2013, 12:27:33 pm »
0

It is possible to meet the challenge of inventing a self-cursing card that works-- at least in a way that satisfies the spirit if not the letter of the challenge. Just give VP chips to all other players. Effectively, this is equivalent to reducing one's own score.
Quote
Self-Cursing Equivalent
Type: Action
Cost: $2
+1 Card.
+1 Action.
Choose one:
+1 Card.
+1 Action.
You may trash a victory card or lose a VP chip. If you do, +$3.
---------------
When you gain this, each other player gains 2 VP chips.
... or what have you.

This has been brought up in the thread already (in the non-recent portion):

Other than for perhaps thematic reasons, negative VP (curse) tokens are unnecessary; you could just give every other player the appropriate number of VP tokens.  Unless I'm missing something, or some future card lets you "spend" VP tokens for some benefit, it should be functionally equivalent.

But that is not the difficulty of inventing a self-Cursing card.  The difficulty is in balancing it such that the self-Curse isn't trivial and yet is sometimes worth it.  The card in recent discussion actually veers a bit from it because it is a Curse-for-benefit card, whereas the original discussion was about using Curses as a penalty to temper an otherwise too-powerful card.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #78 on: September 18, 2013, 12:57:57 pm »
0

Yes, but the way cards are chosen to be attacks is what you quoted
That's how Donald X. did it, but it's certainly not necessary for a fan card to do it the same way. The only requirements are that it must be a card with direct player interaction and the creator needs to think that the interaction part should be sometimes blockable.

Well just because Donald X liked to avoid political cards and reactions that reflected attacks doesn't mean that fan cards have to obey that either. We can create fan cards are more powerful than Goons but cost $3 if we want. Nothings stopping anyone from doing whatever they want with fan cards. But in this section of the board, when people post fan cards, they are judged by people who like Dominion a lot, and people who think that Donald X knew what he was doing when he created his cards. And thus if a fan card chooses to do something that Donald X tried to avoid doing, it is expected that this will be commented on.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #79 on: September 18, 2013, 01:21:02 pm »
0

Moat is not an unreasonably strong counter to your card.  It's just a counter.  Just because your card self-curses, it is NOT attack reflection.  Your card self-curses whether or not another player blocks the attack portion.  The self-curse is a function of YOUR card, not the reaction.  Likewise for Trader, Watchtower and Lighthouse.

Your stated goal for the card is to make self-cursing viable.  You do this by giving yourself a chance to get good treasure out of having Curses in hand.  If you think that the card is so weak that you have to remove the ability for reactions to deal with it (note: reactions that usually aren't even on the board, and even then may not be in their hand when you play the attack!), then you should probably change your card.  Other attack cards have counters too.  Moat makes all attacks weaker.  Fixed draw counters discard attacks.  Those cards are still fine.

I mean, consider some other attacks. 

If my opponent has a Moat, my Sea Hag is completely dead.  It cost me an action and it literally does nothing.  Is Moat an unreasonably strong counter to Sea Hag?
If my opponent has a Trader, my Mountebank gives them TWO SILVER and only give mes +$2.  A terminal +$2 card is probably not even worth $2.  Is Trader an unreasonably strong counter to Mountebank?

The answer is no in both cases.  These are strong counters, but they are not unreasonable.

Now consider your card.  If other players block the Curse, you still get to gain a Treasure.  Yeah it sucks that you got a Curse and your opponents didn't... but man, that was kind of your own fault for buying a card that gives you Curses.  If you can't accept that, you shouldn't have bought it.  Is Moat a strong counter?  Sure.  Is it unreasonable?  Not really.




OK, here's an important point that hasn't been brought up yet.  Let's suppose that Moat, Lighthouse, Watchtower and Trader ARE all unreasonably strong counters to BSoL that completely invalidate it.  If it such a big deal that you can't let Moat and Lighthouse block the attack, why are you letting Watchtower and Trader do it?  What you are effectively saying is, "Watchtower and Trader have a broken interaction with this card, but it is too awkward to fix it so I'll just let it be."  No, if it is really so problematic, you need to deal with it for all cases, not just the ones that are easy to address.

The reason Moat is unreasonably strong as a counter is that you always hurt yourself by gaining a Curse, but you don't always hurt your opponent. Losing an action from playing Sea Hag doesn't even compare. In any case, your opponent buying Moat is an opportunity cost, since they would otherwise rather have stronger cards.

The bottom line is that I wouldn't buy a BSoL if it has to curse my opponent for me to come out ahead for playing it, but it might not actually curse them.

I suppose I could give it the "no reactions" clause and call it an attack, but then there's an extra layer of back-and-forth that makes it start to look like Magic: the Gathering. I think for a self-cursing to attack to have any hope of being useful, it has to be on a board where it's not going to be blocked.

(I probably wouldn't buy Mountebank on a Trader board, either, but every other reaction I can think of is an opportunity cost for the buyer and doesn't counter Mountebank that strongly. One hard counter, not four. This is better and makes more boards have more valid cards.)
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #80 on: September 18, 2013, 01:41:17 pm »
+2

Moat is not an unreasonably strong counter to your card.  It's just a counter.  Just because your card self-curses, it is NOT attack reflection.  Your card self-curses whether or not another player blocks the attack portion.  The self-curse is a function of YOUR card, not the reaction.  Likewise for Trader, Watchtower and Lighthouse.

Your stated goal for the card is to make self-cursing viable.  You do this by giving yourself a chance to get good treasure out of having Curses in hand.  If you think that the card is so weak that you have to remove the ability for reactions to deal with it (note: reactions that usually aren't even on the board, and even then may not be in their hand when you play the attack!), then you should probably change your card.  Other attack cards have counters too.  Moat makes all attacks weaker.  Fixed draw counters discard attacks.  Those cards are still fine.

I mean, consider some other attacks. 

If my opponent has a Moat, my Sea Hag is completely dead.  It cost me an action and it literally does nothing.  Is Moat an unreasonably strong counter to Sea Hag?
If my opponent has a Trader, my Mountebank gives them TWO SILVER and only give mes +$2.  A terminal +$2 card is probably not even worth $2.  Is Trader an unreasonably strong counter to Mountebank?

The answer is no in both cases.  These are strong counters, but they are not unreasonable.

Now consider your card.  If other players block the Curse, you still get to gain a Treasure.  Yeah it sucks that you got a Curse and your opponents didn't... but man, that was kind of your own fault for buying a card that gives you Curses.  If you can't accept that, you shouldn't have bought it.  Is Moat a strong counter?  Sure.  Is it unreasonable?  Not really.




OK, here's an important point that hasn't been brought up yet.  Let's suppose that Moat, Lighthouse, Watchtower and Trader ARE all unreasonably strong counters to BSoL that completely invalidate it.  If it such a big deal that you can't let Moat and Lighthouse block the attack, why are you letting Watchtower and Trader do it?  What you are effectively saying is, "Watchtower and Trader have a broken interaction with this card, but it is too awkward to fix it so I'll just let it be."  No, if it is really so problematic, you need to deal with it for all cases, not just the ones that are easy to address.

The reason Moat is unreasonably strong as a counter is that you always hurt yourself by gaining a Curse, but you don't always hurt your opponent. Losing an action from playing Sea Hag doesn't even compare. In any case, your opponent buying Moat is an opportunity cost, since they would otherwise rather have stronger cards.

The bottom line is that I wouldn't buy a BSoL if it has to curse my opponent for me to come out ahead for playing it, but it might not actually curse them.

I suppose I could give it the "no reactions" clause and call it an attack, but then there's an extra layer of back-and-forth that makes it start to look like Magic: the Gathering. I think for a self-cursing to attack to have any hope of being useful, it has to be on a board where it's not going to be blocked.

(I probably wouldn't buy Mountebank on a Trader board, either, but every other reaction I can think of is an opportunity cost for the buyer and doesn't counter Mountebank that strongly. One hard counter, not four. This is better and makes more boards have more valid cards.)

Yes it compares.  Curses are more dangerous for clogging your deck than for the -VP.  Sea Hag itself is almost as bad as a Curse if it isn't able to attack.  At least with your card, you still have a chance at gaining Gold.

You wouldn't buy BSoL if there are counters to it?  Sure, that's fine -- that is how Dominion works.  That's not a reason to remove the attack type so that BSoL is slightly more viable in a small percentage of games.  Sometimes cards just aren't useful on a certain board, and that's fine.  Conspirator is useless without a way to play multiple actions in a turn.  Talisman is useless in a game with no good sub-$5 cards.  This is just how the game goes.

I was just using specific examples, but man -- Lighthouse, Moat and Watchtower also counter Mountebank.  Lighthouse and Moat are hard counters to EVERY attack by definition.  So it's not like there are SO many more counters to BSoL than to other attacks.

And there is ALWAYS opportunity cost with buying those cards.  You can't say that these cards are problematic with BSoL and then bring up opportunity cost as the reason why it's not also problematic with other attack cards.  Opportunity cost is there with BSoL as well.

And man, those defenses aren't even perfect.  Trader?  Hey, you can pick up Trader too, so maybe now you give yourself a Silver and the others get Cursed if their Trader isn't in hand.  Similar story for Watchtower.  Lighthouse?  Man, you can see it from a mile away.  If their Lighthouse is up, just don't play BSoL.  Moat?  Well hey, they still might not have it in their hand.  And yeah -- opportunity cost.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #81 on: September 18, 2013, 01:49:58 pm »
0

Moat is not an unreasonably strong counter to your card.  It's just a counter.  Just because your card self-curses, it is NOT attack reflection.  Your card self-curses whether or not another player blocks the attack portion.  The self-curse is a function of YOUR card, not the reaction.  Likewise for Trader, Watchtower and Lighthouse.

Your stated goal for the card is to make self-cursing viable.  You do this by giving yourself a chance to get good treasure out of having Curses in hand.  If you think that the card is so weak that you have to remove the ability for reactions to deal with it (note: reactions that usually aren't even on the board, and even then may not be in their hand when you play the attack!), then you should probably change your card.  Other attack cards have counters too.  Moat makes all attacks weaker.  Fixed draw counters discard attacks.  Those cards are still fine.

I mean, consider some other attacks. 

If my opponent has a Moat, my Sea Hag is completely dead.  It cost me an action and it literally does nothing.  Is Moat an unreasonably strong counter to Sea Hag?
If my opponent has a Trader, my Mountebank gives them TWO SILVER and only give mes +$2.  A terminal +$2 card is probably not even worth $2.  Is Trader an unreasonably strong counter to Mountebank?

The answer is no in both cases.  These are strong counters, but they are not unreasonable.

Now consider your card.  If other players block the Curse, you still get to gain a Treasure.  Yeah it sucks that you got a Curse and your opponents didn't... but man, that was kind of your own fault for buying a card that gives you Curses.  If you can't accept that, you shouldn't have bought it.  Is Moat a strong counter?  Sure.  Is it unreasonable?  Not really.




OK, here's an important point that hasn't been brought up yet.  Let's suppose that Moat, Lighthouse, Watchtower and Trader ARE all unreasonably strong counters to BSoL that completely invalidate it.  If it such a big deal that you can't let Moat and Lighthouse block the attack, why are you letting Watchtower and Trader do it?  What you are effectively saying is, "Watchtower and Trader have a broken interaction with this card, but it is too awkward to fix it so I'll just let it be."  No, if it is really so problematic, you need to deal with it for all cases, not just the ones that are easy to address.

The reason Moat is unreasonably strong as a counter is that you always hurt yourself by gaining a Curse, but you don't always hurt your opponent. Losing an action from playing Sea Hag doesn't even compare. In any case, your opponent buying Moat is an opportunity cost, since they would otherwise rather have stronger cards.

The bottom line is that I wouldn't buy a BSoL if it has to curse my opponent for me to come out ahead for playing it, but it might not actually curse them.

I suppose I could give it the "no reactions" clause and call it an attack, but then there's an extra layer of back-and-forth that makes it start to look like Magic: the Gathering. I think for a self-cursing to attack to have any hope of being useful, it has to be on a board where it's not going to be blocked.

(I probably wouldn't buy Mountebank on a Trader board, either, but every other reaction I can think of is an opportunity cost for the buyer and doesn't counter Mountebank that strongly. One hard counter, not four. This is better and makes more boards have more valid cards.)

Yes it compares.  Curses are more dangerous for clogging your deck than for the -VP.  Sea Hag itself is almost as bad as a Curse if it isn't able to attack.  At least with your card, you still have a chance at gaining Gold.

You wouldn't buy BSoL if there are counters to it?  Sure, that's fine -- that is how Dominion works.  That's not a reason to remove the attack type so that BSoL is slightly more viable in a small percentage of games.  Sometimes cards just aren't useful on a certain board, and that's fine.  Conspirator is useless without a way to play multiple actions in a turn.  Talisman is useless in a game with no good sub-$5 cards.  This is just how the game goes.

I was just using specific examples, but man -- Lighthouse, Moat and Watchtower also counter Mountebank.  Lighthouse and Moat are hard counters to EVERY attack by definition.  So it's not like there are SO many more counters to BSoL than to other attacks.

And there is ALWAYS opportunity cost with buying those cards.  You can't say that these cards are problematic with BSoL and then bring up opportunity cost as the reason why it's not also problematic with other attack cards.  Opportunity cost is there with BSoL as well.

And man, those defenses aren't even perfect.  Trader?  Hey, you can pick up Trader too, so maybe now you give yourself a Silver and the others get Cursed if their Trader isn't in hand.  Similar story for Watchtower.  Lighthouse?  Man, you can see it from a mile away.  If their Lighthouse is up, just don't play BSoL.  Moat?  Well hey, they still might not have it in their hand.  And yeah -- opportunity cost.

Good point about seeing Lighthouse in advance, hadn't thought of that. This means that Moat remains the only card at all for which the "attack reflection" argument applies with this card. 1 single card for which there's that kind of situation.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #82 on: September 18, 2013, 01:56:50 pm »
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Yes it compares.  Curses are more dangerous for clogging your deck than for the -VP.  Sea Hag itself is almost as bad as a Curse if it isn't able to attack.  At least with your card, you still have a chance at gaining Gold.

You wouldn't buy BSoL if there are counters to it?  Sure, that's fine -- that is how Dominion works.  That's not a reason to remove the attack type so that BSoL is slightly more viable in a small percentage of games.  Sometimes cards just aren't useful on a certain board, and that's fine.  Conspirator is useless without a way to play multiple actions in a turn.  Talisman is useless in a game with no good sub-$5 cards.  This is just how the game goes.

I was just using specific examples, but man -- Lighthouse, Moat and Watchtower also counter Mountebank.  Lighthouse and Moat are hard counters to EVERY attack by definition.  So it's not like there are SO many more counters to BSoL than to other attacks.

And there is ALWAYS opportunity cost with buying those cards.  You can't say that these cards are problematic with BSoL and then bring up opportunity cost as the reason why it's not also problematic with other attack cards.  Opportunity cost is there with BSoL as well.

And man, those defenses aren't even perfect.  Trader?  Hey, you can pick up Trader too, so maybe now you give yourself a Silver and the others get Cursed if their Trader isn't in hand.  Similar story for Watchtower.  Lighthouse?  Man, you can see it from a mile away.  If their Lighthouse is up, just don't play BSoL.  Moat?  Well hey, they still might not have it in their hand.  And yeah -- opportunity cost.

Moat still counters BSoL harder than almost any card counters anything else. You're right about Lighthouse. It's not an overly strong counter - you're right, I just wouldn't play BSoL unless I knew I was gaining a Gold that turn. Basically Trader and Watchtower are the ones that are just too good.

The reason that Moat totally invalidates BSoL more than it invalidates other attacks is that the person who plays the attack loses so much more in the exchange. Trader still counters BSoL harder than it counters Mountebank because I still Curse myself, while Mountebank would have given me money. With the exception of Saboteur and Sea Hag and maybe some others I'm forgetting, if I play an attack and have it blocked, I still gain something. If I have BSoL blocked, I Curse myself and probably only gain a Copper or Silver. It's hard to imagine BSoL ever being worth it on such a board, while Trader is probably the only card that even comes close to invalidating Mountebank that badly.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #83 on: September 18, 2013, 01:59:55 pm »
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Good point about seeing Lighthouse in advance, hadn't thought of that. This means that Moat remains the only card at all for which the "attack reflection" argument applies with this card. 1 single card for which there's that kind of situation.

Yeah, I guess it may as well be an attack, and/or it could have a "no reactions" clause. But "no reactions" would be an ugly clause. The only thing to worry about is other fan cards that prevent attacks, which would also hard-counter this card. Potentially, more official Dominion expansions could be released too.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #84 on: September 18, 2013, 02:11:13 pm »
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Good point about seeing Lighthouse in advance, hadn't thought of that. This means that Moat remains the only card at all for which the "attack reflection" argument applies with this card. 1 single card for which there's that kind of situation.

Yeah, I guess it may as well be an attack, and/or it could have a "no reactions" clause. But "no reactions" would be an ugly clause. The only thing to worry about is other fan cards that prevent attacks, which would also hard-counter this card. Potentially, more official Dominion expansions could be released too.

Of course it's your card and in the end it's up to you, but I strongly recommend having it be an attack and not having any sort of "no reactions" card. Reactions exist for the purpose of making attacks not as good on that particular board. If you choose to not play Minion because Horse Trader's makes it weaker, that's a good thing for card design. It doesn't mean that Minion needs to be made stronger to avoid the possible Horse Trader interaction. And if you choose not to play BSoL because Moat is in the Kingdom, same thing.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #85 on: September 18, 2013, 02:15:42 pm »
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Good point about seeing Lighthouse in advance, hadn't thought of that. This means that Moat remains the only card at all for which the "attack reflection" argument applies with this card. 1 single card for which there's that kind of situation.

Yeah, I guess it may as well be an attack, and/or it could have a "no reactions" clause. But "no reactions" would be an ugly clause. The only thing to worry about is other fan cards that prevent attacks, which would also hard-counter this card. Potentially, more official Dominion expansions could be released too.

Of course it's your card and in the end it's up to you, but I strongly recommend having it be an attack and not having any sort of "no reactions" card. Reactions exist for the purpose of making attacks not as good on that particular board. If you choose to not play Minion because Horse Trader's makes it weaker, that's a good thing for card design. It doesn't mean that Minion needs to be made stronger to avoid the possible Horse Trader interaction. And if you choose not to play BSoL because Moat is in the Kingdom, same thing.

I guess it's ok then. Militia is strongly countered by Library and Watchtower. BSoL is strongly countered by Trader, Moat, and Watchtower. In either case, the counter is strong enough to almost totally invalidate the other card.

In most cases, though, reactions don't over-counter cards, though in some cases, Secret Chamber often makes attacks good for you. But almost nothing is quite as damaging as a Moated BSoL, way in excess of the opportunity cost of Moat.
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Asper

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #86 on: September 18, 2013, 02:32:46 pm »
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I think the definition of an attack should be "any kind of card that has an usually undesirable effect on your opponents, where 'usually' means 'ignoring interaction between kingdom cards'". Council Room, Masquerade and Possession only give a negative effect provided certain other kingdom cards (like Pillage, Militia, Baker), and all attacks are only non-negative on boards with certain other cards (reactions, draw-up-to, etc).

Keep in mind that only 3 of oh so many Dominion cards can actually block your card. Ignoring them, your card will always harm your opponents, and this is enough for an attack type.
Council Room does give a negative effect in a single-card kingdom, too, it triggers unwanted reshuffles. Masquerade sometimes makes you pass a good card even without hand size reduction attacks and Possession can make you skip a good hand. And Margrave, Minion, Soothsayer, Thief, Fortune Teller, Saboteur, Rabble, Ghost Ship and Pirate Ship can help opponents without the presence of any other cards, even if you're not trying to help your opponent with them. "Undesirable" is relative, so basically what your definition actually is, is "it should be an Attack if the card feels like what the word 'attack' means" which is a flavor reason.

There is no reason to have an Attack type if there are no cards that interact with the type Attack. If there was, there also should be a Splitter card type, a Trasher card type, a Virtual-Coin type etc.

Hmm... Good points.

Disagree, those weren't good points.

Not good against yours or eHalcyon's points, but capable of interfering with my argumentation that it was all about ignoring kingdom cards. I still think the card should be an attack.
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Asper

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #87 on: September 18, 2013, 02:47:43 pm »
+1

In most cases, though, reactions don't over-counter cards, though in some cases, Secret Chamber often makes attacks good for you. But almost nothing is quite as damaging as a Moated BSoL, way in excess of the opportunity cost of Moat.

Any trashing attack/Fortress? Any junker/Trader? Your card can't be good on every board, and no card can. Well, except maybe some very few exceptions, but usually that's not a good thing about those cards (looking at you, Rebuild). If your card works on every board, it's boring. You likely wouldn't go for Sea Hag on a Masquerade board, and you wouldn't go for BSoL on a Moat board.

I admit an attack that also harms yourself is unusual, but the point is that a non-attack that harms opponents is the much bigger deal.
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popsofctown

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #88 on: September 18, 2013, 03:21:14 pm »
+1

I suspect that cards with a VP penalty just aren't good design space.  Not that they are unbalanceable, I just think they are not going to be as fun as other cards.  Mostly hunch.  Partly concern about how mega turn mirrors work out, the VP penalty card getting gobbled up because the board clearly allows you to overcome the inverse VP chips.  Whoever gets more of VP penalty card has more control on when the game ends on piles, and thus has the power to both undo his VP losses and terminate the game before the player with fewer curses can undo his VP losses.


With that in mind, it might be one of those things that is best done as a potion cost card.   Even then, I think cards without negative VP work out better.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #89 on: September 18, 2013, 04:23:59 pm »
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I suspect that cards with a VP penalty just aren't good design space.  Not that they are unbalanceable, I just think they are not going to be as fun as other cards.  Mostly hunch.  Partly concern about how mega turn mirrors work out, the VP penalty card getting gobbled up because the board clearly allows you to overcome the inverse VP chips.  Whoever gets more of VP penalty card has more control on when the game ends on piles, and thus has the power to both undo his VP losses and terminate the game before the player with fewer curses can undo his VP losses.


With that in mind, it might be one of those things that is best done as a potion cost card.   Even then, I think cards without negative VP work out better.

I think the problem is more that it expands the consideration space too much--Dominion should be relatively straightforward. Making points a resource to spend comes at a huge cost to the playability of the game. Does it add enough to the depth of the game to be worth it? I don't think so.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #90 on: September 18, 2013, 04:40:10 pm »
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I think the problem is more that it expands the consideration space too much--Dominion should be relatively straightforward. Making points a resource to spend comes at a huge cost to the playability of the game. Does it add enough to the depth of the game to be worth it? I don't think so.

I think it might be better overall not to have them, but it's a fun problem to puzzle over. Self-cursing attack cards probably aren't too horrible, but just for three-pile considerations, they should probably have "Setup: The curse pile has an additional 10 curses" added to it. If we're going to make fan cards with self-harm mechanics, we may as well try to do the most balanced and fun versions we can think of.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #91 on: September 18, 2013, 04:43:30 pm »
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In general, I think a board where a super-strong counter for a card is available isn't as good a board as it could be - or at best, it should just be played with 9 of the 10 cards anyway. If Library and Militia are on the same board, then Militia probably shouldn't even be there. If Trader and Mountebank are on the same board, then Mountebank probably shouldn't even be there. I think the balance between Moat and Militia or Moat and Witch is fine, but the balance between Moat and a self-cursing attack would nullify the self-cursing card, and reduce Moat to a weak drawer in the absence of other attacks.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #92 on: September 18, 2013, 05:07:54 pm »
+2

The part you are overlooking is that Moat does not counter BSoL any more than it does another attack.  Yeah with BSoL you get hit by a Curse... but you get hit by a Curse even without a Moat.  Compare to Witch:

With Witch, everybody else gets a Curse.  You get +2 Cards.
With BSoL, everybody else gets a Curse and maybe a Treasure.  You get a Curse and maybe a Treasure.

Moat blocks out the first part (what other people get) but not the first (what you get).  Just because the personal part of BSoL is negative doesn't mean it should be an unblockable attack.  You getting a Curse is bad.  +2 Cards is also pretty weak.  Curse is worse, sure, but this is arbitrary.  Sea Hag gives you nothing, and that is also worse than +2 Cards.  Why shouldn't Sea Hag be unblockable?  Why should BSoL?  It's an arbitrary line.

In general, I think a board where a super-strong counter for a card is available isn't as good a board as it could be - or at best, it should just be played with 9 of the 10 cards anyway. If Library and Militia are on the same board, then Militia probably shouldn't even be there. If Trader and Mountebank are on the same board, then Mountebank probably shouldn't even be there. I think the balance between Moat and Militia or Moat and Witch is fine, but the balance between Moat and a self-cursing attack would nullify the self-cursing card, and reduce Moat to a weak drawer in the absence of other attacks.

These are all very arbitrary distinctions.  Maybe the board lets you play Militia every turn, and they can't get Library every turn.  Maybe Militia is the only source of action money and you can build a nice KC engine that appreciates KC-able coin.  At the very least, the presence of Militia makes everyone consider whether they should pick up Library when maybe they otherwise wouldn't.  These are all interesting things.

Likewise, Mountebank is strong enough that it may be worth it even at risk of giving the opponent 2 Silvers.  Maybe it's a Colony game where those Silvers are only mediocre anyway.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2013, 05:11:52 pm by eHalcyon »
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