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[Asper]

Is it really the Potion mechanic itself that's poorly received? I mean, Alchemy was rushed due to HiG's influence (which shows with e.g. Scrying Pool), contains the least kingdom cards of all expansions, and features one of the most hated cards in all of Dominion. I mean, if I were you I wouldn't take the risk, either, but I feel a lot of the people asking for a second Potion set actually like the mechanic and just don't like Alchemy as much.

[Donald X.]

Is it really the Potion mechanic itself that's poorly received? I mean, Alchemy was rushed due to HiG's influence (which shows with e.g. Scrying Pool), contains the least kingdom cards of all expansions, and features one of the most hated cards in all of Dominion. I mean, if I were you I wouldn't take the risk, either, but I feel a lot of the people asking for a second Potion set actually like the mechanic and just don't like Alchemy as much.

Potions aren't the *only* thing people don't like about Alchemy. A big thing is that the set is too slow. This was a consequence of having lots of action chaining in order to make sure $P cards were usable when there was just one of them (and also then to have some kind of functional theme). I could have instead had two treasures, two VP cards, a Remodel, a Vault. A few cards are also just slow (or slow for certain people) separate from that; some of them could have been in other sets or gotten faster.

But Potions, people also don't like Potions. They were already not-loved-by-all when I showed the game to RGG. Sir Bailey, the 2nd person with a copy of Dominion, didn't include Potions in his copy. Most of us liked Potions fine, but it was clearly the least-liked mechanic, so I put Alchemy last (then bumped it up due to needing a half-size expansion fast).

As I endlessly point out: the important thing to realize is that it isn't "Alchemy II vs. nothing," it's "Alchemy II vs. something else." However much Alchemy II might beat out nothing, it is never beating out something else. There are people who would like more Alchemy; there are more people who would prefer something else.

And I'm one of them! I'd prefer something else. So.

[Asper]

I'm sorry, I felt it was rather clear that I didn't try to persuade you to make "Alchemy II". Your position on the matter and your "X vs something better"-reasoning (which I find compelling) have been made rather clear in the past. My point was solely that I didn't exactly perceive Potions to be the worst thing about Alchemy. That doesn't mean it's good enough to prefer over something fresh.
Tjanks for clearing up the matter.

[NoMoreFun]

An event costing $P that gives +buy is essentially a $4 special treasure that uses 1 card of space instead of 11 (not counting the potions themselves), and it may even be more elegant than "treasure that produces $0".

You can also do more mechanics like Alchemist that use Potion in a special way.

Alchemy will eventually go out of print. I think trying to salvage the Potion mechanic with Alchemy II/Big Box Alchemy is a better solution for the community than abandoning it (ie not releasing a 2nd edition and making it tournament illegal) or reprinting it as is with all the flaws you mentioned. This is especially true if you're going to keep selling Potion with the base cards.

But you're the boss.

[Donald X.]

An event costing $P that gives +buy is essentially a $4 special treasure that uses 1 card of space instead of 11 (not counting the potions themselves), and it may even be more elegant than "treasure that produces $0".

You can also do more mechanics like Alchemist that use Potion in a special way.

This isn't the variants forum! Somehow a common mistake.

Alchemy will eventually go out of print. I think trying to salvage the Potion mechanic with Alchemy II/Big Box Alchemy is a better solution for the community than abandoning it (ie not releasing a 2nd edition and making it tournament illegal) or reprinting it as is with all the flaws you mentioned. This is especially true if you're going to keep selling Potion with the base cards.

Let me just, for the zillionth time, pick exactly what portion of my life I want to dedicate to doing more work on the least popular Dominion expansion.

But you're the boss.

The boss says: drop it! Give it up. Kiss it goodbye.

[NoMoreFun]

Have you ever considered outsourcing the majority of the work on a new expansion to other people? You'd get the final say on whether it goes to print or not, but the bulk of the effort (design, playtesting etc.) would be done by a team that reports back to you?

[Donald X.]

Have you ever considered outsourcing the majority of the work on a new expansion to someone else? You'd get the final say on whether it goes to print or not, but the bulk of the effort (design, playtesting etc.) would be done by someone else?

Which would still rule out Alchemy II, since their time also could be better spent?

I have given it its due consideration and rejected it. I never get out of playtesting the set, unless I'm willing to just have it be broken and awful - something that doesn't live up to whatever standard I've managed to set. And anything I'm unhappy with, the way to fix it is to put in the work myself. I might as well be putting in that work on my own cards.

A key thing maybe is to understand that making up the cards is the best part. I have no interest in farming that out. Man.

Now it's not completely impossible that someday I will collaborate on a set with another world famous game designer. That would be something I did to be friendly to the other person. As it happens the person with the best chance of getting a yes asked; I said surely we could work on some new game instead; we talked for a bit and then both found other things to do. That other game still sounds good though; maybe I will try to revive that someday.

[NoMoreFun]

Have you ever considered outsourcing the majority of the work on a new expansion to someone else? You'd get the final say on whether it goes to print or not, but the bulk of the effort (design, playtesting etc.) would be done by someone else?

Which would still rule out Alchemy II, since their time also could be better spent?

How do you know what the optimal use of time for every human being on earth is?

I have given it its due consideration and rejected it. I never get out of playtesting the set, unless I'm willing to just have it be broken and awful - something that doesn't live up to whatever standard I've managed to set. And anything I'm unhappy with, the way to fix it is to put in the work myself. I might as well be putting in that work on my own cards.

What about setting benchmarks and standards (eg playtested in at least X number of games, simulator testing when appropriate, etc.)? You'd probably still need to playtest but only a few games instead of being hands on for the entire process. Have you ever been misled by playtesters before in your career?

A key thing maybe is to understand that making up the cards is the best part. I have no interest in farming that out. Man.

So how do you feel about the cards which were designed by other people (Courtyard, Summon, Settlers)? Did that diminish your enjoyment of designing cards? Your pride/sense of ownership of the game?

Now it's not completely impossible that someday I will collaborate on a set with another world famous game designer. That would be something I did to be friendly to the other person. As it happens the person with the best chance of getting a yes asked; I said surely we could work on some new game instead; we talked for a bit and then both found other things to do. That other game still sounds good though; maybe I will try to revive that someday.

Why do you think "world famous" game designers are the best people to collaborate with on dominion sets? What about up and coming/lesser known game designers? High level dominion players? The collective wisdom of multiple Dominion/card game/board game fans with no profile?

[Donald X.]

How do you know what the optimal use of time for every human being on earth is?

Are we done with this thread yet?

Why do you think "world famous" game designers are the best people to collaborate with on dominion sets? What about up and coming/lesser known game designers? High level dominion players? The collective wisdom of multiple Dominion/card game/board game fans with no profile?

I said "world famous game designer" in case you, NoMoreFun, thought "oh maybe I could be that co-designer." I totally might agree to co-design with a good friend who was not at all famous.

Now, I am done with your questions for a while.

[NoMoreFun]

I said "world famous game designer" in case you, NoMoreFun, thought "oh maybe I could be that co-designer."

Didn't think that for a second; I was asking the question because it seemed like quite a ridiculous notion and you confirmed it with your "I didn't really mean it" answer.

Up to you what you do next, but if you're going to imteract with the fan community (which you don't have to do), expect criticism (which you can dismiss), good faith suggestions on what people would like to see next (which you can ignore) and follow up questions if the reasoning in the responses doesn't make sense (which you can also ignore).

You took a big risk actually interacting with the community, and I think we're all better off for it.

There are no questions in this post

[Cuzz]

How often is the price of a card not just a function of its strength but also something of an interesting "attribute" of the card? Some examples of the kind of thing I'm thinking of:
-Border Village could probably work with identical wording and with almost any price on it
-Poor House is pretty clearly not the weakest kingdom card. Does it really not work at $2? Could other $2s not work at $1? Or is it just that it's a quirky thing to be able to remake copper into something, and you want that to be rare?
-Similarly, why Chapel at $2 and not $3? It's probably the strongest $2, and even at $3 everyone would still be able to buy it turn 1.
-Would Plunder cost $5 if it were its own pile? Or is part of the "cost" the fact that it's buried under cards half a pile that's hard to drain.

[jsh357]

I said "world famous game designer" in case you, NoMoreFun, thought "oh maybe I could be that co-designer."

Didn't think that for a second; I was asking the question because it seemed like quite a ridiculous notion and you confirmed it with your "I didn't really mean it" answer.

Up to you what you do next, but if you're going to imteract with the fan community (which you don't have to do), expect criticism (which you can dismiss), good faith suggestions on what people would like to see next (which you can ignore) and follow up questions if the reasoning in the responses doesn't make sense (which you can also ignore).

You took a big risk actually interacting with the community, and I think we're all better off for it.

There are no questions in this post

At least nobody can claim you don't live up to your username.

[werothegreat]

How often is the price of a card not just a function of its strength but also something of an interesting "attribute" of the card? Some examples of the kind of thing I'm thinking of:
-Border Village could probably work with identical wording and with almost any price on it
-Poor House is pretty clearly not the weakest kingdom card. Does it really not work at $2? Could other $2s not work at $1? Or is it just that it's a quirky thing to be able to remake copper into something, and you want that to be rare?
-Similarly, why Chapel at $2 and not $3? It's probably the strongest $2, and even at $3 everyone would still be able to buy it turn 1.
-Would Plunder cost $5 if it were its own pile? Or is part of the "cost" the fact that it's buried under cards half a pile that's hard to drain.

http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Cost

[Asper]

Just accept it, NoMoreFun: Donald X will never love fan cards. There is nothing down this road.

[Ankenaut]

When you were initially developing Kingdom Builder, did it have actual Dominion cards for the deck building part, or were you trying out a non-Dominion-compatible deck building component?

[schadd]

A key thing maybe is to understand that making up the cards is the best part. I have no interest in farming that out. Man.

So how do you feel about the cards which were designed by other people (Courtyard, Summon, Settlers)? Did that diminish your enjoyment of designing cards? Your pride/sense of ownership of the game?

have you tried mafia?

[Donald X.]

Up to you what you do next, but if you're going to imteract with the fan community (which you don't have to do), expect criticism (which you can dismiss), good faith suggestions on what people would like to see next (which you can ignore) and follow up questions if the reasoning in the responses doesn't make sense (which you can also ignore).

I certainly expect that when I say "Alchemy II is never happening" someone will say "I don't think you've considered all the angles there, here are more of them to endlessly refute."

The fact that I might hypothetically co-design something with a friend doesn't make it remotely likely. I said "game designer" instead of "person" to try to shut out a poor line of questions, but the most likely co-author is still another full-on game designer.

[Donald X.]

How often is the price of a card not just a function of its strength but also something of an interesting "attribute" of the card? Some examples of the kind of thing I'm thinking of:

You start the game making $3.5 a turn, so $2-$4's are much more a function of 1) openings, 2) utility with +Buys, 3) perception. Well except for early ones where I hadn't worked this out.

Obv. some cards care about their own cost specifically, e.g. Band of Misfits, or have a weird cost thing e.g. Peddler. And all Remodels have built in the possibility of Remodel-ing them. I think those are the main cases - refer to cost of itself, refer to cost of cards in general. Being the bottom of a split pile does have the possibility of making a difference.

Cards try not to be too similar to other cards, but sometimes something similar seems worthwhile, and then it's an issue, it can't be strictly better than another card. This may cause it to do more/less so it can have a different cost. Or kill it.

Sometimes there's a good reason for a card to be cheap or a $5 or expensive - a reactive card wants to be cheap, an early-game card prefers to cost less than $5, a slow (but somehow worthwhile) card wants to cost more. But here the card itself is tweaked to get something that's good at the good cost.

-Border Village could probably work with identical wording and with almost any price on it

Actually it cost $5 at one point, and I improved it by making it at $6. And it can't cost $3 because that's strictly better (as Magic players use the term, not as silly people do) than Village. It certainly varies in value at different costs.

-Poor House is pretty clearly not the weakest kingdom card. Does it really not work at $2? Could other $2s not work at $1? Or is it just that it's a quirky thing to be able to remake copper into something, and you want that to be rare?

Lots of $2's would be a problem at $1, because the pile would empty too quickly - it would be "this game is shorter." Poor House is a terminal that's bad if you aren't going for it.

Poor House itself costs $1 as a gimmick. Sir Martin suggested it.

-Similarly, why Chapel at $2 and not $3? It's probably the strongest $2, and even at $3 everyone would still be able to buy it turn 1.

At $2 it's more available for people choking on Curses (not saying it saves them, but they like being able to get it). At $3 you trade "the 5/2 is extra good" for "the 5/2 is extra bad," which is a wash.

-Would Plunder cost $5 if it were its own pile? Or is part of the "cost" the fact that it's buried under cards half a pile that's hard to drain.

It was $6 initially below Encampment, but being buried felt like it meant it could be $5. I think it would be too good as a straight $5 but don't really know, we didn't test that.

[Donald X.]

When you were initially developing Kingdom Builder, did it have actual Dominion cards for the deck building part, or were you trying out a non-Dominion-compatible deck building component?

The initial work on Kingdom Builder was all me pacing around in the driveway or the nearby park. Just pacing, thinking about the game, night after night.

Its time as a deckbuilding game was entirely during the pacing. There was a never a physical version of that. When I stopped pacing and made a prototype, it looked a lot like the final game. The big differences besides specific abilities and terrain patterns and scoring cards, were that you had 50 cubes instead of 40, and had an ability just by being next to the spot - no chit to track it. And none of that changed prior to Queen getting it - I just messed with the abilities and boards and cards. And then Queen wanted 40 settlements and I pushed for chits for tracking.

[NoMoreFun]

Just accept it, NoMoreFun: Donald X will never love fan cards. There is nothing down this road.

Settlers used to be known as Clerk when it was in the fan cards forum.

I also remember accepting that Guilds would be the last expansion.

I'm not saying that fan cards should be elevated more often, but I'll speak out against,  "out of ideas" rhetoric anywhere, as well as insinuations that only certain people are good enough to contribute.

Donald X you should be happy that you designed such an expandable game that's good enough to have an active fan community.

[Donald X.]

Donald X you should be happy that you designed such an expandable game that's good enough to have an active fan community.

It's like you're implying I'm not! That sucks, people implying garbage about me.

Take your conversation with Asper somewhere else dude; this thread is for interviewing Donald X.

[Jimmmmm]

this thread is for interviewing Donald X.

Hey that's you!

The obvious times you're not enjoying yourself aside, do you tend to enjoy answering questions in this thread?

[werothegreat]

Are there any Dominion cards you wish you could rename?  Not change the text of or rebalance or anything, just change the name.

[Donald X.]

The obvious times you're not enjoying yourself aside, do you tend to enjoy answering questions in this thread?

Sure. The repeated questions are sometimes annoying, and sometimes people feel the need to post cards, or say, now, now is it time for Alchemy II? But in general it's fun.

[Donald X.]

Are there any Dominion cards you wish you could rename?  Not change the text of or rebalance or anything, just change the name.

Sure. The main set didn't have much effort put into the names; some of the names are fine, but I'd rename some. I could have conceivably had basic flavor for "+3 Cards" - not that it would make sense, but it would be something I was more consistent about. And then obv. Harem could be improved on, and probably a few more random ones.