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[Donald X.]

I understand you used to program dialysis machines for a living. What would you say you liked best about that job, and what was the worst.

Best: I learned a bunch about programming on the job. In particular object-oriented and event-driven programming became a thing, and I learned about them, and that was good times.

Worst: The hours (they were normal hours).

[Donald X.]

Do you think you would still be as successful if you didn't have a cool name like Donald X. and had something dorky like Dave P. Gilbert instead?

A story I like to tell: I have had the experience of someone standing there holding a copy of Dominion, introduced to me as Donald X., going on to say, so, we were going to play Dominion, have you played, are you interested.

So, the name does not appear to be a factor.

[Witherweaver]

Do you think you would still be as successful if you didn't have a cool name like Donald X. and had something dorky like Dave P. Gilbert instead?

A story I like to tell: I have had the experience of someone standing there holding a copy of Dominion, introduced to me as Donald X., going on to say, so, we were going to play Dominion, have you played, are you interested.

So, the name does not appear to be a factor.

I mean, "X" could be anything, so it's obviously not a unique name.

[Cave-o-sapien]

Do you think you would still be as successful if you didn't have a cool name like Donald X. and had something dorky like Dave P. Gilbert instead?

A story I like to tell: I have had the experience of someone standing there holding a copy of Dominion, introduced to me as Donald X., going on to say, so, we were going to play Dominion, have you played, are you interested.

So, the name does not appear to be a factor.

I mean, "X" could be anything, so it's obviously not a unique name.

Many years ago, I worked briefly for a large corporation who enforced a rule-based email address policy that followed the format "firstname.middle-initial.lastname@whatever.com". If you didn't have a middle name, they used 'X'. Of course this meant that people external to the organization assumed 'X' was part of that person's name, even in the case of one of the most senior positions in the company.

[Hockey Mask]

Do you think you would still be as successful if you didn't have a cool name like Donald X. and had something dorky like Dave P. Gilbert instead?

A story I like to tell: I have had the experience of someone standing there holding a copy of Dominion, introduced to me as Donald X., going on to say, so, we were going to play Dominion, have you played, are you interested.

So, the name does not appear to be a factor.

So...no X factor.

[J Reggie]

Do you think you would still be as successful if you didn't have a cool name like Donald X. and had something dorky like Dave P. Gilbert instead?

A story I like to tell: I have had the experience of someone standing there holding a copy of Dominion, introduced to me as Donald X., going on to say, so, we were going to play Dominion, have you played, are you interested.

So, the name does not appear to be a factor.

I mean, "X" could be anything, so it's obviously not a unique name.

Many years ago, I worked briefly for a large corporation who enforced a rule-based email address policy that followed the format "firstname.middle-initial.lastname@whatever.com". If you didn't have a middle name, they used 'X'. Of course this meant that people external to the organization assumed 'X' was part of that person's name, even in the case of one of the most senior positions in the company.

People in the company would have assumed that Donald X didn't have a middle name then!

[ConMan]

As I recall according to Terry Pratchett, the middle initial X stands for "Someone who wants to have a cool and interesting middle name".

[Witherweaver]

As I recall according to Terry Pratchett, the middle initial X stands for "Someone who wants to have a cool and interesting middle name".

And people with a middle initial Y are just sideways.

[Hockey Mask]

What were to happen to Dominion if you were to die.  Does it go to your estate? Does it belong to Rio Grande?

By the way...stay safe.

[Seprix]

What were to happen to Dominion if you were to die.  Does it go to your estate? Does it belong to Rio Grande?

By the way...stay safe.

Donald already has at least fifteen youthful clones set aside for that very possibility.

[Jacob marley]

What were to happen to Dominion if you were to die.  Does it go to your estate? Does it belong to Rio Grande?

By the way...stay safe.

Donald already has at least fifteen youthful clones set aside for that very possibility.

The rights to dominion will go to his Estate.  As to who Inherits the Estate, only Donald and his lawyer can say...

[Cave-o-sapien]

The rights to dominion will go to his Estate.  As to who Inherits the Estate, only Donald and his lawyer can say...

I think this issue has been discussed in the rules forum.

[Dingan]

What were to happen to Dominion if you were to die.  Does it go to your estate? Does it belong to Rio Grande?

By the way...stay safe.

Donald already has at least fifteen youthful clones set aside for that very possibility.

The rights to dominion will go to his Estate.  As to who Inherits the Estate, only Donald and his lawyer can say...

I just hope he doesn't Upgrade his Estate first

[weretheruler]

Dominion is awesome! Adventures is my favorite, mostly for the travellers and reserve cards.

1. Do you ever come up with/test new cards when you are not actively working on a new expansion (or working on a promo)?

2. Dominion "came from" Spirit Warriors 2, a deckbuilding game with heroes. Have you ever tested adding heroes to dominion, or is Champion as close as it got?
   2a. If you did, would that be a spinoff?

3. In a week of playtesting, is it it usually just playtesting the same game, or two, or sometimes a lot of things get playtested in a single week?

[Donald X.]

1. Do you ever come up with/test new cards when you are not actively working on a new expansion (or working on a promo)?

Some tiny amount. There's always a file I keep of unused ideas, and I add whatever it is to the file.

2. Dominion "came from" Spirit Warriors 2, a deckbuilding game with heroes. Have you ever tested adding heroes to dominion, or is Champion as close as it got?
   2a. If you did, would that be a spinoff?

If I made something like Spirit Warriors 2 I would think of it as a spin-off, although knowing me I'd end up taking out the deckbuilding part.

I haven't been trying to get "heroes you build up" into Dominion, but there are the travellers. Yes those are probably as close as it gets.

3. In a week of playtesting, is it it usually just playtesting the same game, or two, or sometimes a lot of things get playtested in a single week?

Over the years the most typical thing has been either a mix of games or all Dominion. Sometimes an evening might have been all Temporum or whatever, but not as often.

[werothegreat]

Do players start with an extra card if Endless City starts the game real?  Similar question for Mafia City-States.

[GendoIkari]

Do players start with an extra card if Endless City starts the game real?  Similar question for Mafia City-States.

I would be very surprised if if it counted. To "become real" strongly implies that it wasn't real previously.

[werothegreat]

Do players start with an extra card if Endless City starts the game real?  Similar question for Mafia City-States.

I would be very surprised if if it counted. To "become real" strongly implies that it wasn't real previously.

Just wanted to check.

Also:
-Being time-shifted out of Viking America will not proc it, right?
-Are the Parthenon tokens component limited?  It's possible to have Greek America, New France, and Simulated Paradise in the same game, but you only get 2 tokens.
-Capitalist Utopia's "rule all times" effect only happens if it's real, right?
-You can't look through Quiet Planet's pile until you actually visit, right?
-Coins on Beggar don't count towards its own limit, right?

[Seprix]

Do you ever think about fixing Monopoly? I'd be interested to hear some Donald™ fixes on Monopoly, the game that could have been.

My personal assessment is that the first 25 minutes or so are fun, and then the rest is pretty awful.

[Donald X.]

Do players start with an extra card if Endless City starts the game real?  Similar question for Mafia City-States.

No.

[Donald X.]

-Being time-shifted out of Viking America will not proc it, right?

Correct.

-Are the Parthenon tokens component limited?  It's possible to have Greek America, New France, and Simulated Paradise in the same game, but you only get 2 tokens.

They are component limited.

-Capitalist Utopia's "rule all times" effect only happens if it's real, right?

Correct.

-You can't look through Quiet Planet's pile until you actually visit, right?

Correct.

-Coins on Beggar don't count towards its own limit, right?

Correct.

[Donald X.]

Do you ever think about fixing Monopoly? I'd be interested to hear some Donald™ fixes on Monopoly, the game that could have been.

My personal assessment is that the first 25 minutes or so are fun, and then the rest is pretty awful.

One of my oldest games is my take on Monopoly. The only elements I preserved were moving around that style of board, and owning properties and building them up. Roll-and-move is a reasonable mechanic that you can't do because of the endless parade of bad roll-and-move games. And owning properties and building them up is great. Of course in my version the properties all had special abilities.

The trading in Monopoly is bad, I mean it's political and so much for that. And as everyone knows the game overall is low on interesting decisions (you can mention the trading but the trading is still awful); you have to be into it for the ritual, and then it blows it on the ritual by taking forever, by eliminating players with hours left and all that.

I always say that Settlers is the fixed version, although I don't like Settlers either, due to the politics. But you know, in both games you roll the dice and see what you get, you can get stuff on other players' turns, you draw cards that do random things, you build up properties, you trade. If you are keen on trying the ritual of Settlers with less politics, try: 1) the robber goes to the space with the most points of buildings that you aren't next to, ties broken by most commonly rolled number, further ties broken randomly; 2) on your turn you can only trade with the player to your left.

[Kirian]

So from a previous answer I know your daughters are slightly older than mine.  Are they now involved in playtesting?  And if so do they think of it as cool or boring?

[O]

This question might be answered if I had played your other games, but I'll ask anyways:

There's a "strategic breadth" to dominion that stems from it's randomized kingdoms; even with just the base set its incredibly unlikely to play the same kingdom twice, so to get good you have to consider the pairs of interactions of loads of cards. I'm not as convinced that dominion has a similar amount of "strategic depth", in that one kingdom would generally get boring to play in less than 5 play thrus as a decent player. Chess is a good default example of what I mean from strategic depth: there's a universal starting point but it can handle tens of thousands of play thrus while still being interesting.

Did you intentionally aim for (some form similar to my definition of) strategic breadth over depth because you think it's more valuable for board games? Do your favorite games generally have some form of "arbitrarily large number of starting positions"?

[Donald X.]

So from a previous answer I know your daughters are slightly older than mine.  Are they now involved in playtesting?  And if so do they think of it as cool or boring?

They've done a little playing of unpublished games. It's a case-by-case thing, they have to be interested in the particular game and on that particular day. I don't think they've so much registered it as different from playing a game. And sometimes I ask them questions, especially to see, is this wording good. Natalie suggested the wording on the 2E Library, when I was asking about other options.