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[Festuca]

I was planning on making Dominon fan cards for my Dominion-minded friends for Christmas, based on everyone's favourite/signature cards. I'm a card designing noob though, so I was hoping for some advice or commentary. Here's what I've got:

Magic Lamp
Cost: 4
---
+1 Card
+1 Action
Name a card. Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's the named card, put it into your hand. Repeat until the revealed card is not the card that you named.
---

Awkward wording probably. This friend's signature card is (obviously) Wishing Well; this is supposed to be a Wishing Well you can keep using till you get one wrong.

Covered Wagon
Cost: 4
---
+1 Card
---
While this card is in play, Grand Markets cost 7$, but may be bought with copper.
---
Setup: Add Grand Market as an extra Kingdom card pile.
---

Again pretty obvious. I was also considering making it a duration card, so it had this effect for two turns, but then it would change the price of Grand Markets on the other peoples' turns, and I don't know about the price, and all sorts of stuff. This was more simple, but I'm interested in other peoples' thoughts. Also, I'm not sold on the name.

Overhaul
Cost: 7 5
---
+1 Card
+1 Action
---
Discard X cards. Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly X more than it.
---

This friend likes Upgrade, and also Library-esque chains. Is 7 okay for this? No it is not! It could be kind of crazy.

Oratory
Cost: 3
---
Choose one: Trash a card and any number of copies of it from your hand,
or
Trash Oratory. If you do, +1 card.
---

Colonist
Cost: 4
---
+1 Card
+1 Action
---
You may set aside this and a Province from your hand. Colonists set aside in this way are worth 4VP at the end of the game.
---

The last person doesn't really have a signature card, except he only ever wants to play Colony games. That doesn't make for a very exciting pet card. Better ideas would be welcomed.

[Davio]

Could you make a card for me?

I wonder what you would come up with for a complete stranger.

[Jimmmmm]

Ooh, does everyone get one?

[Qvist]

Magic Lamp
Cost: 4
---
+1 Card
+1 Action
Name a card. Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's the named card, put it into your hand. Repeat until the revealed card is not the card that you named.
---

In some setups this can be quite strong. I think it's a nice homage to Wishing Well

Covered Wagon
Cost: 4
---
+1 Card
---
While this card is in play, Grand Markets cost 7$, but may be bought with copper.
---
Setup: Add Grand Market as an extra Kingdom card pile.
---

I don't like that card because it's completely dependant from one card that is not a base card.
I would make it more universal to use it for other cards too. But that's only my personal taste.

Overhaul
Cost: 7
---
+1 Card
+1 Action
---
Discard X cards. Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly X more than it.
---

That's my favourite of your four cards. It is really nice. But $7 is way to expensive. Compare it to Upgrade. You have to discard one card to get the same result.
Yes it can get crazy but with $7 no-one will buy it. Compare it to Expand. Yes you have the +1 Card and 1+ Action here but you have to discard 3 cards to get the same result, that's a lot. So with $5 or $4 it will be much better. Maybe you have to test it.

Colonist
Cost: 4
---
+1 Card
+1 Action
---
You may set aside this and a Province from your hand. Colonists set aside in this way are worth 4VP at the end of the game.
---

So this is an Action-Victory Card. It's like Island mixed-up with Tournament. It's cantrip and if you have the luck to get Province and Colonist in your hand then it is worth 4VP. It might be balanced in cost. I don't like it that much because the luck factor is high like it is with Tournament, so it's a issue of personal taste. If your friend likes Island and Tournament, give it a try.

[goober]

I also really like the idea behind overhaul, and agree that a price point of $5 is probably better.  I think this is a really neat card and one I'd like to play with (though I also like upgrade so maybe I'm biased). 

I also agree that covered wagon is not such a well-made card.  It seems like your other gift cards are mainly suped-up versions of favorite cards, so maybe a better idea for the grand market lover is another grand market style card, that is a very strong non-situational card with buy restrictions.  Maybe something in the lab family to differentiate it from grand market would be fun. 

Colonist seems like it could be hated by someone who likes playing colony games, as most of those people like making uber-engines and colonist discourages that.  It seems more for the kind of player that likes islands.  Maybe think more about the sorts of decks this person likes to make to play colony games and give him/her a power card that facilitates that style.

Magic lamp seems like it does the job well.

Very cool idea by the way to make cards to please specific players, well done.

[Festuca]

Yes, the idea is that each person gets "their" card.

I looked at Davio's councilroom page to see what cards he's particularily fond of, and he seem to buy a lot of Chapels and also play them better than average. So I came up with Oratory as a Chapel spin-off. Then I was thinking about Goober's suggestion to find a power card that allows crazy engines, and... well, you can see where this is going. So thanks to you both for the inspiration!

Oratory
Cost: 3
---
Choose one: Trash as many copies of one kingdom card as you like from your hand,
or
Trash Oratory. If you do, +1 card.
---

Thanks for the feedback on Overhaul's price. I changed it to 5$. The problem with these cards is that I can't playtest them with the people I usually play Dominion with because that would spoil the surprise! Maybe I'll have to teach someone else how to play.

I can see your point about Covered Wagon, and I completely agree that it would be a terrible actual Dominion card. I'm not sure that that's necessarily my goal though, so much as to make a card that my friend would like. I do like Goober's idea to make a "Grand Lab" or something, though... that could be fun. Ok, I'm convinced. I'll see what I can think of on the train this morning.

Thanks very much for your help!

[rinkworks]

I also agree that covered wagon is not such a well-made card.  It seems like your other gift cards are mainly suped-up versions of favorite cards, so maybe a better idea for the grand market lover is another grand market style card, that is a very strong non-situational card with buy restrictions.  Maybe something in the lab family to differentiate it from grand market would be fun.

There is always the Grand Bazaar, which I love:

Grand Bazaar
$6 - Action
+1 Card
+2 Actions
+$2
--
You can't buy this if you have any Copper in play.

I've found Grand Market to be the more useful card in general, because when you're raking in the kind of money you get with a stack of Grand Markets, you really want +Buy.  But the extra actions you get from Grand Bazaar make it easy to slip a +Buy source in, if any are available.

The other way the lack of +Buy affects the card is that having a stack of Grand Bazaars isn't as helpful in securing you MORE Grand Bazaars, since it's harder to get more than one per turn.  That may be a good thing.

I love Grand Market and the little subgame it creates about seeing who can strip out Coppers fastest, so I have really enjoyed adding a similar card to the rotation and increasing the frequency I get to do that.  Anyway, it may well make a good "gift" card for a Grand Market fan.

Very cool idea by the way to make cards to please specific players, well done.

Agreed!

[Davio]

Yes, the idea is that each person gets "their" card.

I looked at Davio's councilroom page to see what cards he's particularily fond of, and he seem to buy a lot of Chapels and also play them better than average. So I came up with Oratory as a Chapel spin-off. Then I was thinking about Goober's suggestion to find a power card that allows crazy engines, and... well, you can see where this is going. So thanks to you both for the inspiration!

Oratory
Cost: 3
---
Choose one: Trash as many copies of one kingdom card as you like from your hand,
or
Trash Oratory. If you do, +1 card.
---

Thanks for the feedback on Overhaul's price. I changed it to 5$. The problem with these cards is that I can't playtest them with the people I usually play Dominion with because that would spoil the surprise! Maybe I'll have to teach someone else how to play.

I can see your point about Covered Wagon, and I completely agree that it would be a terrible actual Dominion card. I'm not sure that that's necessarily my goal though, so much as to make a card that my friend would like. I do like Goober's idea to make a "Grand Lab" or something, though... that could be fun. Ok, I'm convinced. I'll see what I can think of on the train this morning.

Thanks very much for your help!

I like it. But! It should be $4 or $5 I think. Chapel's inability to Trash itself is such a big deal especially in Chapeled decks where you draw the same cards (and thus a dead Chapel) over and over again.

I don't think I play Chapel better or worse than most, I just trash aggressively most of the time.

[Thisisnotasmile]

I don't get the point of Oratory. The main cards you want to trash are Curses, Coppers and Estates, and Oratory doesn't let you trash any of them =/

[dondon151]

I thought all of the cards were considered to be part of the kingdom? Regardless, I think the intention of the card is to trash as many copies of a single card name in your hand, then then to trash itself when it's no longer useful.

[def]

I think Oratory is fine at 3. It's not that good, especially in cursed games. Think about a hand like
Oratory, Copper, Copper, Estate, Curse.
With Chapel, you'd trash all of them. Compare that to the options you have with Oratory.

Magic Lamp can be pretty crazy with Navigator or Cartographer, but since the combo with the first card needs a third card that gives +Actions, it's ok, I guess.

[ChaosRed]

Here's one I should make for my wife:

KARMA
ACTION - REACTION - 2$
Reveal the top card of your deck, trash it or discard it (you choose)
----------------------
When another player plays an Attack card, reveal this card, the bastard who attacked you must get up and making the coffee in the morning and deliver it to you.

It would make her laugh, because she loathes attacks cards. She'll never buy one, unless I start to buy them first and even then, if she's winning, she frequently will refuse to play it. She scowls when I give her a Curse in the game.

She ALWAYS makes the coffee in the morning, (in my defense I always take out the trash), so this would make a nice gift under the tree. The challenge is, would I still reach for the Witch, once I see she's bought one?

[rinkworks]

I thought all of the cards were considered to be part of the kingdom? Regardless, I think the intention of the card is to trash as many copies of a single card name in your hand, then then to trash itself when it's no longer useful.

Kingdom cards are just the 10 (or 11, with Young Witch) random piles you pick.  That's a good thought I missed when reading these initially, because I read it as you meant it.  But to be precise, I suppose it should say something like, "You may trash a card and any number of copies of it from your hand."  Not sure what the absolute best wording would be.

[Festuca]

Yeah, you all figured out what I meant with Oratory. I'm happy with Rinkworks' wording - seems clear enough. I think I might want a mandatory trash for the first condition though. You should have to do SOMETHING if you hit it with Golem.

I'm enjoying the Granding it up thread. I was thinking about what other restrictions you could put on a "Grand" card, but no copper really seems like the most interesting and the one with the most effect. How about no non-treasure sources of money (i.e. no +x$ cards)? What else would be interesting?

ChaosRed, I like it! In support of your wife, I think you should go for it. I especially like the name.

[Tydude]

I'm enjoying the Granding it up thread. I was thinking about what other restrictions you could put on a "Grand" card, but no copper really seems like the most interesting and the one with the most effect. How about no non-treasure sources of money (i.e. no +x$ cards)? What else would be interesting?

I always wanted to see some sort of Farmer's Market, as if from Cornucopia. The penalty would be something along the lines of, "you can't buy this if you have any duplicate treasures in play".

[Festuca]

I always wanted to see some sort of Farmer's Market, as if from Cornucopia. The penalty would be something along the lines of, "you can't buy this if you have any duplicate treasures in play".

Farmer's Market is so thematically adorable! I really like it a lot. What were you thinking of for the effect? I could imagine something like

Farmer's Market
Cost: 6
---
+2 Cards
+1 Action
+1 buy
+1$
---
You can't buy this if you have duplicate Treasure cards in play
---

cause you know, extra bounty, extra card? I'm not sure, but I do think Farmer's Market is a great idea.

[Jimmmmm]

Wouldn't it be more like Farmer's Village + Market rather than Lab + Market?

[rinkworks]

I've thought about Farmer's Market but could never figure out how to make it work.  A GM-like buy restriction never even occurred to me.

The problem is that Market is a somewhat weak $5 card (though often underrated, I think), so adding the Farmer's Village effect to the draw -- itself a somewhat weak effect -- still feels like a $5-level card and at $6 would be totally outclassed by its peers.

But how about keeping the cost at $5 and adding a buy restriction?  Love the duplicate treasures idea.  It's probably easier to circumvent than the no-Copper one but still a significant obstacle, especially in the early game.  And it doesn't rely on the existence of treasure-earning actions, which aren't always present.  Nice.

[Jack Rudd]

You could make Farmer's Market a 3+P - cost card. That's a known way to make a card that's slightly better than the cost-5 it's based on (cf Alchemist and Laboratory).