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Author Topic: Interview with Donald X.  (Read 2126822 times)

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DG

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1225 on: April 02, 2014, 08:22:09 pm »
+1

I'll give Alien Frontiers a mention as it seems like a good space game with smart mechanics and alien fun. Unfortunately, after investing a lot of brain power into deciding how to maximize your dice roll and gather resources it really does always turn on who you shoot with your zaps. Someone wins when they get to 10 points or so and a zap can remove a point from someone, but the point is for controlling a region and someone else will get the point instead, so once people have about 6-8 points each it all goes political. You can sit down and play Family Business to get the same result faster.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1226 on: April 02, 2014, 08:22:41 pm »
0

I don't see Settlers as "voting on a winner".
It's shorthand, a terse way to sum up what's going on. When you put the robber on Tom's bricks rather than my ore, due to my successful campaign (my slogan was "Tom's winning"), that's a vote for me. It doesn't feel like a vote for me; it feels like a vote against Tom. You don't want Tom to win. I don't either but so what? Really though, you were picking one of us to hose, and picked him; it's a victory for me over Tom. Your goal wasn't to pick me as the winner, your goal was to win yourself, and hurting Tom appeared to further that. But if you don't actually win, then what you did was contribute to the race between me and Tom.

OK, fair enough.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1227 on: April 02, 2014, 08:36:32 pm »
+3

Or what do you think about the board game Diplomacy, if you're familiar? That was always one of my favorites, and it leans very heavily on the politics. Leads to some grudges sometimes, but my friends and I played the heck out of it in high school.
I have not played Diplomacy. As an outsider it looked overly complicated.

I would argue that Diplomacy is not the "same game" as the other games I've played with politics. The difference is that in Diplomacy, we are not all sitting around the same table arguing about who to shaft, etc. We are having various secret* meetings between turns and then deciding which agreements to honor and who to stab in the back for maximum gain. The actual decisions are made simultaneously and then revealed.

Like McFish, I played quite a bit in high school and pretty much none since then. But from what I can remember, even though the rulebook is long, the rules basically boil down to the fact that clever maneuvering of your units gets you pretty much nothing. If you have the support of your allies, you win. Otherwise, you lose.

I consider Diplomacy to be the purest game of politics, because politics is all that really matters in the end. Diplomacy has a bunch of other issues, of course. It's ridiculously long (especially if you don't hold strictly to the time limit between turns) and has player elimination. If you're ever in high school again, you should try it out. If you get eliminated, just play Super Smash Bros or call for your mom to pick you up and drive you home.

But yeah, it definitely is a different kind of political game than Settlers, etc.

* For various values of "secret"
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ftl

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1228 on: April 03, 2014, 02:09:43 am »
0

Diplomacy also has the advantage that it has the theme right there in the title. If you sit down to play a game of Diplomacy, you're going to be doing a lot of, well, diplomacy. The mechanics are all in support of that.

Other games where politics is a side effect rather than a deliberate inclusion have the politics take over their mechanics, which turns out to be problematic.
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Marcory

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1229 on: April 03, 2014, 02:50:50 am »
0

Diplomacy also allows for draws, where each surviving player shares in the victory. Some players, once they have established a defensible position and are boxed in, will choose to play for a draw rather than risk elimination. So you often have competing agendas. On the other hand, it is possible for players to make full or limited alliances and directly cooperate, which is not possible in Monopoly or Settlers.

Another aspect is that two- or three-way tactical stalemates are frequently possible, so that no one gains control of a key province unless they cooperate or persuade other people to attack their nearby opponent so that he can't continue the stalemate. And even if someone gains that key province, others can usually combine to kick him out if they decide that it's necessary. (Examples: Germany/England/France competing for Belgium; Austria/Russia/Turkey in Romania; Germany/Russia/Austria at Warsaw, etc).

Meanwhile, in Settlers, if three players all have roads leading toward the same vertex, someone can always build a settlement there during his turn, and the others can do nothing to stop it besides complain about the broken agreement. Also, if one player is the leader and the others gang up on him
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Stealth Tomato

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1230 on: April 03, 2014, 04:19:33 pm »
+1

I don't see Settlers as "voting on a winner".  Early on, you can't really say who is the clearly winning (especially because of the dice rolling).  Later in the game, I find that players just become a lot stingier about trading.  Ways to actively hurt others are limited, so the politics is mostly in making the trade sweet enough that the other player can't pass on it.  Usually it's more of a grind to the top and seeing who gets lucky with the dice rather than voting for a winner.  YMMV though, of course.

I suppose it depends on the dynamics in your gaming group.  Oftentimes when I play, every will decide to gang up on one person who "always wins" or who "won last time".  It is very much possible for a couple players to collude against you in Settlers, trapping you in with roads and refusing the trade with you.

Ahh, well, we tended not to hold grudges.  Sometimes people would band together within one game when one player's win seems to be inevitable, pooling resources into the second place player to see if they can unseat the clear leader.  But if it succeeds, we recognize the previous leader as the symbolic victor.

We haven't played Settlers in many years though.

Iterative political games can easily become awful because they tend to reward plays that ruin the current game for the sake of leverage in future games. You can always go with the tried-and-true rule of "don't play with people who do that", but it's much easier to just find a game that doesn't reward people who do that.

On a side note, I hate Diplomacy, mostly because it's difficult to find a group that will play the game with a realistic level of cooperation. It's more fun to just fuck people over all the time, so the majority of people do that, and the game devolves into misery. You almost *have* to play it iteratively... that way, the trustworthy players start to ally, forcing the natural backstabbers to form an opposing alliance, which starts to create interesting dynamics because you now have an alliance of natural backstabbers.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2014, 04:24:06 pm by Stealth Tomato »
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Ozle

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1231 on: April 04, 2014, 02:23:09 pm »
+11

Can someone remind me what job we were interviewing Donald for again?
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rspeer

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1232 on: April 04, 2014, 09:16:02 pm »
0

Meanwhile, in Settlers, if three players all have roads leading toward the same vertex, someone can always build a settlement there during his turn, and the others can do nothing to stop it besides complain about the broken agreement. Also, if one player is the leader and the others gang up on him

Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?

And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1233 on: April 04, 2014, 09:32:11 pm »
+10

Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?

And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
I just want the longest road dude, I'm not putting a settlement there. Tom is going to put a settlement there, put the robber on his bricks why don't you.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1234 on: April 05, 2014, 03:19:43 am »
+2

Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?

And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
I just want the longest road dude, I'm not putting a settlement there. Tom is going to put a settlement there, put the robber on his bricks why don't you.

/casually builds a knight in that spot
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Sidsel

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1235 on: April 06, 2014, 03:43:40 pm »
0

Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?

And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
I just want the longest road dude, I'm not putting a settlement there. Tom is going to put a settlement there, put the robber on his bricks why don't you.

You can lose the longest road, and it's not resource producing anyway. I'd much rather build the settlement - that's a permanent point which helps me build further.
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Awaclus

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1236 on: April 06, 2014, 03:48:38 pm »
+3

Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?

And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
I just want the longest road dude, I'm not putting a settlement there. Tom is going to put a settlement there, put the robber on his bricks why don't you.

You can lose the longest road, and it's not resource producing anyway. I'd much rather build the settlement - that's a permanent point which helps me build further.
Depends on the situation. Being permanent and producing resources aren't relevant when it's the last points you need for winning.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1237 on: April 06, 2014, 04:02:06 pm »
0

Also, Longest Road can be permanent under the right late game circumstances, like if it clinches you a maximum length road.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1238 on: April 06, 2014, 09:06:42 pm »
+9

Also, Donald X. was clearly lying.  He just wants you to drop your guard and trade him the clay he needs to build that settlement there.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1239 on: April 16, 2014, 11:34:19 am »
+1

In the Secret Histories/Outtakes, you mention a card that could discard Victory cards for $2 apiece. It started out at $4, then jumped up to $6, then left for being too boring.

This probably seems like a strange question, but what prompted you to go from $4 right to $6 without stopping at $5 along the way? Was it just that strong? How did it play out power-wise at $6? Could another bonus have been tacked on to spice it up without making it too powerful?
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1240 on: April 16, 2014, 05:55:51 pm »
+4

In the Secret Histories/Outtakes, you mention a card that could discard Victory cards for $2 apiece. It started out at $4, then jumped up to $6, then left for being too boring.

This probably seems like a strange question, but what prompted you to go from $4 right to $6 without stopping at $5 along the way? Was it just that strong? How did it play out power-wise at $6? Could another bonus have been tacked on to spice it up without making it too powerful?
It was probably $5 on the way; that would usually not seem worth mentioning, and I haven't kept records of every version of every card. It might have skipped $5 if it was clearly crazy; I can always go back to $5 later. But in general you want to err on the side of powerful, so that the card gets played with and you get data.

It died because we just didn't like it much. It kind of fit into a mild VP theme Hinterlands had/has, but that wasn't enough to save it. Terminal actions that just make money (yes there are various ways to get other value from discarding those victory cards) are not typically crowd favorites. I'm not sure I can say much about how powerful it was; power level wasn't what killed it.
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petrie911

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1241 on: April 16, 2014, 06:04:55 pm »
+2

For the next Magic core set, Wizards asked various game designers to make cards. Were you asked to make one? What kind of card would you have made?
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Tables

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1242 on: April 16, 2014, 06:15:44 pm »
+1

For the next Magic core set, Wizards asked various game designers to make cards. Were you asked to make one? What kind of card would you have made?

Sorry for being completely off topic, but I feel like I recognise your username from elsewhere. You don't happen to be a Zelda speedrunner do you? Sorry if that makes no sense (you can look it up if I'm wrong and you're curious I suppose...)

On topic and to Donald: A friend of mine is currently doing some graphics/arts course and expressed interest in finding out about getting into doing artwork for things like Dominion/Magic cards. Do you know how the artists for Dominion (and similar games) were selected, did you have anything to do with it and do you have any advice for her?
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Ozle

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1243 on: April 16, 2014, 06:24:16 pm »
+2

For the next Magic core set, Wizards asked various game designers to make cards. Were you asked to make one? What kind of card would you have made?

Sorry for being completely off topic, but I feel like I recognise your username from elsewhere. You don't happen to be a Zelda speedrunner do you? Sorry if that makes no sense (you can look it up if I'm wrong and you're curious I suppose...)

On topic and to Donald: A friend of mine is currently doing some graphics/arts course and expressed interest in finding out about getting into doing artwork for things like Dominion/Magic cards. Do you know how the artists for Dominion (and similar games) were selected, did you have anything to do with it and do you have any advice for her?


Donald just nicked the images off google image search (SSSSHH don't tell eHalycon!)
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1244 on: April 16, 2014, 07:01:40 pm »
+5

For the next Magic core set, Wizards asked various game designers to make cards. Were you asked to make one? What kind of card would you have made?
I was probably asked.

A guy from Wizards contacted me to say they were interested in me designing a Magic card for some product. He didn't want to go into details until I signed an NDA (I signed an NDA years ago, but that was no longer any good). The NDA had a false statement in it, which I guess is not so unusual; as has been noted, the online Dominion ToS says you can't use the product. Anyway I don't like signing false things. I said, could they change that? They said sure and made it worse. I said now it's worse. They said you know we can't actually change anything for you, that wouldn't be fair to the other designers. This was nonsense so now they were also telling me nonsense, which I am not fond of. I never quite convinced myself to sign the NDA and eventually they mailed me some free stuff and said thanks anyway. It was like, 12 booster packs, some "booster battle packs," some sleeves, a bag. It was a nice touch, I even drafted those packs. I would have used the sleeves in a prototype by now but they have a dot obscuring a corner, so I can only use them in a game that doesn't have data there.

Now to put this further in perspective, I already designed a published Magic card, way way back when (Energizer from Tempest). And I always feel like I named haste (they asked the people contributing to 6E, which is better, speed or surprise, and I said hey how about haste). In addition to whatever harder-to-pin-down contributions to the rules (possibly last known information, I suggested that to Bethmo when it wasn't a rule yet); it's hard to say since I was outside the company and don't know what other people were also suggesting. Bill specifically cited an essay of mine as convincing him that they were doing triggered effects the right way, even though I was arguing that they should be different. Anyway I made a Magic card already. It was cool, but I had the experience. It would be nice to have some extra publicity but I didn't know the specifics there. I probably should have just signed the NDA, but at this point it's all been announced and I don't feel left out.

I keep flirting with sending them a list of general suggestions (not cards) that wouldn't require an NDA, and if at some point they were interested in me co-designing a set, i.e. more than one card, then I would probably just sign the NDA. It would be fun to work on a Magic set, but one card, I have had the honor. My name isn't on the card but that's not so bad.

If I had done it I would probably have sent them 100 cards so they would have had a lot to choose from. I have made thousands of homemade Magic cards. I would have offered up especially novel ones.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1245 on: April 16, 2014, 07:10:54 pm »
+6

On topic and to Donald: A friend of mine is currently doing some graphics/arts course and expressed interest in finding out about getting into doing artwork for things like Dominion/Magic cards. Do you know how the artists for Dominion (and similar games) were selected, did you have anything to do with it and do you have any advice for her?
Jay picks his artists; I have nothing to do with it. I have gotten to comment on sketches; since some mistakes in Intrigue (Steward like the guy in charge of a castle, not like the guy on an airplane), I have also gotten to provide notes for the artist, so that they know what the card titles mean. For other companies I have not gotten to provide notes; I did get to comment on the art for Gauntlet of Fools. I endlessly interacted with the artist for an upcoming game.

I would just email the game companies. I'm an artist, here's a link to my portfolio. Some game companies are very approachable, and if they aren't interested it hasn't cost you much.
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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1246 on: April 17, 2014, 02:58:35 am »
0

Wait... I don't understand this comparison. Why would you build a road to the same vertex as someone you supposedly have an agreement with?

And especially if all three edges have different players on them, there is no possible agreement. It's just a race to build a settlement. The only person who can benefit from the road at all is the one who settles there.
I just want the longest road dude, I'm not putting a settlement there. Tom is going to put a settlement there, put the robber on his bricks why don't you.

You can lose the longest road, and it's not resource producing anyway. I'd much rather build the settlement - that's a permanent point which helps me build further.

This discussion shows how games with politics don't generally put the game in the back seat in favour of politics to the extent it doesn't matter which game you are playing. Ideally, you need a lot of experience in the particular game to notice who has the best chances to win and needs to be hosed.

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petrie911

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1247 on: April 17, 2014, 03:34:38 am »
0

Huh, that's very interesting. As it happens, haste is my favorite ability in Magic, so thanks for that.

Sorry for being completely off topic, but I feel like I recognise your username from elsewhere. You don't happen to be a Zelda speedrunner do you? Sorry if that makes no sense (you can look it up if I'm wrong and you're curious I suppose...)

Yup, that's me. Though I guess I don't do much speedrunning anymore. More into modding at the moment.
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Holger

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1248 on: April 17, 2014, 08:14:05 am »
+2

Is there a specific reason why "+3 Actions" and "+2 Buys" were only used on a single card each (Crossroads and Squire), or was it a coincidence?

A "super Village" giving +3 Actions each time you play it might work at $4 (or $5?), I think. (Though it wouldn't be too interesting without some extra twist.)
+2 Buys isn't that much better than +1 Buy, but it might have been an interesting boost e.g. for Woodcutter (and/or Nomad Camp) to have a second Buy. (This would have made Woodcutter/Gardens quite strong, but still far weaker than Beggar/Gardens, and probably also weaker than Squire/Gardens, so it should be an okay combo.)
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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1249 on: April 17, 2014, 08:33:06 am »
+1

Is there a specific reason why "+3 Actions" and "+2 Buys" were only used on a single card each (Crossroads and Squire), or was it a coincidence?
Sir Martin?
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