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Author Topic: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!  (Read 5390 times)

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Showdown35

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More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« on: October 03, 2013, 02:28:22 pm »
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Ok folks, time for the next round.
 
 So thinking more about the themes of this Fan Set I'm working on, the flavor theme remains a "Dominion After Hours" kind of feel, and the "Revealing of Hands" is the focal mechanical theme.  I am reconsidering the "reward for multiple buys" sub-theme, however, as it doesn't seem to be synergistic enough, or making flavor sense, with the card ideas I'm developing.  I'm thinking the sub-theme I want to go with is "high risk, high reward" cards, which will mostly be seen on Attack cards.

 I'm asking for more help from the community with the set, and I'd like to start by coming up with a name for the expansion itself. I know it's still early and I'll have only shown 5 cards (one of which I'm scrapping) so far, but this is just for flavor ideas and fun. The only names I've been able to come up with so far are things like "Night Harvest" and "Secrets and Shadows". It definitely has to have Night or Shadow, or something similar in the name, but I want to stay away from the word Dark so as to differentiate from Dark Ages.

Also, I'm only going to post 2 cards at a time from now on to allow a more focused discussion. It got a little messy with discussion of three different cards going on at the same time.

Ok, on to the two cards I'd like some feedback on:

Nomadic Tribe
$5 Action - Attack
You may trash up to 2 cards from your hand that are not Treasures.
Each other player reveals his hand and chooses one: pass a Treasure to you; or gain 2 curses.

Bar Brawlers
$3 Action - Attack
+1 Card, +1 Action, +$1
Each other player reveals the top 3 cards of his deck, trashes one and discards the rest.

Both these cards play into the high risk, high reward theme as they could be quite good, or quite mediocre (possibly helping your opponents) depending on the situation. Gypsies might just gum up your deck with a bunch of copper, or it might net you some nice Treasure if your opponent doesn't think it's worth taking 2 curses. Bar Brawlers will allow your opponents to trash coppers and estates, but later in the game, they could pull up a province, a gold, and a good action.  Of course, other actions (including others I've come up with for this set) will help the consistency of these two cards hitting their high reward, and I think that makes for good strategic fun.

Comment away!
« Last Edit: October 04, 2013, 12:38:42 am by Showdown35 »
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Jack Rudd

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2013, 02:35:23 pm »
+3

Bar Brawlers is likely to set up really horrible Bar Brawlers pin games.
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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2013, 02:40:05 pm »
+5

First of all, I might suggest changing the names?

"Gypsies" has ethnic connotations and may be construed as offensive.

"Bar Brawlers" makes me feel like I'm saying "Bob Loblaw" :P Maybe just "Brawl"?
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Warfreak2

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #3 on: October 03, 2013, 02:54:05 pm »
+3

Can people please stop using names like "Gypsy" for treasure-stealing attacks?

Cantrip trashing attacks for $3 don't sound like a good idea. There are only two cantrip attacks in Dominion: Urchin's attack is very weak (and doesn't stack), and Familiar is hard to buy. Also neither of them also give +$1; cantrip +$1 just by itself is widely accepted to be a $4-value card. Your card is so much strictly better than Oasis.
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Jack Rudd

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #4 on: October 03, 2013, 02:55:48 pm »
+2

Can people please stop using names like "Gypsy" for treasure-stealing attacks?

Cantrip trashing attacks for $3 don't sound like a good idea. There are only two cantrip attacks in Dominion: Urchin's attack is very weak (and doesn't stack), and Familiar is hard to buy.
Actually, four: you forgot Scrying Pool and Spy. But neither of those are exactly devastating attacks either.
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Dsell

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2013, 02:56:39 pm »
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I think Bar Brawlers might be cool if it said "Each other player may reveal the top 3 cards of his deck, trash one, and discard the rest."

That way it's a drawback to the card, but still an interesting decision for the opponents.

Edit: this kinda messes with the theme, though.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #6 on: October 03, 2013, 02:56:52 pm »
+4

Can people please stop using names like "Gypsy" for treasure-stealing attacks?

Cantrip trashing attacks for $3 don't sound like a good idea. There are only two cantrip attacks in Dominion: Urchin's attack is very weak (and doesn't stack), and Familiar is hard to buy.
Actually, four: you forgot Scrying Pool and Spy. But neither of those are exactly devastating attacks either.

Sir Bailey!
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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #7 on: October 03, 2013, 02:59:59 pm »
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The main problem with Gypsies (if you still call it that) is that they'll start out just passing Coppers to you.
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Warfreak2

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #8 on: October 03, 2013, 03:24:14 pm »
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Good call on Spy and Scrying Pool; yeah, the attacks on those are relatively weak too. The only part of Bar Brawlers which is worse than Sir Cantrip is that the opponent has three cards to pick from - Sir Cantrip isn't Sir Peddler, he costs $5 and you can't buy five of him, he can't trash KC/Province/Platinum/Colony, his attack eventually peters out because he just turns over two Coppers most of the time, and he can be trashed when he hits another Knight.
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scott_pilgrim

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #9 on: October 03, 2013, 03:38:35 pm »
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The only part of Bar Brawlers which is worse than Sir Cantrip is that the opponent has three cards to pick from
Being able to trash cards costing $2 or less is a big deal.  By big deal, I mean that I would generally like for my opponents to play Sir Bailey against me if it didn't have the $3 to $6 clause.  You really can't just ignore that.

The problem with Bar Brawlers is that it becomes brutal against thin decks, and it forces other players to have thin decks.  If it said "each other player may reveal..." then I think it's fine and actually quite interesting.
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Showdown35

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #10 on: October 03, 2013, 03:43:59 pm »
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I think Bar Brawlers might be cool if it said "Each other player may reveal the top 3 cards of his deck, trash one, and discard the rest."

That way it's a drawback to the card, but still an interesting decision for the opponents.

Edit: this kinda messes with the theme, though.

I love this idea. Making it optional for opponents is the perfect nerfing effect to make it not as strong (or crippling to thin decks), and flavor wise, it means it's the opponents choice to get involved in the fight, and they may end up losing! Love it! This also means it doesn't have to be an attack.

"Bob Loblaw"... haha, haven't heard that in a while! I originally wanted the name to be Bar Room Brawlers, but I didn't want to have to make the font smaller, and thought Bar Brawlers would actually be fun to say while playing!

As for the gypsies, I apologize for the negative connotations, it's not meant to be stealing. The flavor I was going for is you are paying for their show/merchandise (as Gypsy tribes have traditionally been seasonal traveling traders), and if you choose not to pay them what is rightfully owed, as legend has it, they can curse you for wronging them. I really only picked the name cause I had the art. I can change the name to Nomads or Nomadic Merchants, something like that.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2013, 04:06:55 pm by Showdown35 »
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eHalcyon

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #11 on: October 03, 2013, 04:17:54 pm »
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Gypsies -- I would avoid this name simply because it can have racist connotations, especially if it uses the stereotype that Romani people are thieves like this card does.  (I see that others have already mentioned this, but it's worth repeating.  Although you say you mean for it to be "paying" the Gypsies, that is not what most people will read the card as.)

As far as the attack goes, it is pretty weird for balance.  2 Curses is just so bad, that will almost never be the right choice.  Even when it is, many players will feel terrible about it.  It'll feel worse than Torturer.

So what about the Treasure passing?  Early on it's a tough call.  You Cutpurse opponents and flood yourself with Copper; that's not that great.  Note that it scales really strangely with number of players because you can get a lot more money out of it but also a lot more junk in your deck.

The correct play against Gypsies (whenever possible) would be to play a deck with no Treasures at all.  Then Gypsies just doesn't really do anything.  I choose to pass you a Treasure, but I don't have one in my hand.  And that's it. 

When you can't avoid using Treasures (e.g. no virtual coin), Gypsies are game warping.  I can't build a trim deck without Copper because Gypsies will just steal away all my Silver and Gold.  In fact, I probably can't ignore Gypsies at all, especially with many players, because multiple Gypsies have the potential to completely destroy my hand and eventually my entire deck, making it so that I can't buy anything except for more Copper, which subsequently get stolen as well.  Yeah I can take the Curses instead... but again, 2 Curses is crazy.

So basically, it's a really tricky card to balance, maybe not balanceable at all.  It's really weak to start, and weak in most games, but it can become devastating in games that rely on Treasure.  With more than 2 players, it may be pretty much impossible to avoid using it.  Thief also destroys Treasure but it doesn't steal from players' hands, so they can still buy something good on their turn.  This can neuter hands. 

If it were a single Curse like Torturer it would feel more reasonable.  Maybe try it with that.

Bar Brawlers -- a plain vanilla peddler (cantrip +$1) is acknowledged as being correctly balanced at $4.  BB has an attack on top of that so it's almost certainly undercosted at $3.  If you make the trashing optional, then it's fine at $3, maybe even weak enough to go down to $2.  It wouldn't be an attack anymore; it would actually be immensely helpful to the other players and not fit the theme at all.  But yeah, a cantrip unrestricted trashing attack would just be ridiculous and destroy decks.
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Showdown35

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #12 on: October 03, 2013, 05:36:11 pm »
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Thanks for the comments. I have changed Gyspsies to Nomadic Tribe to avoid the possibility of ethnic offense. The high risk high reward theme is what I was trying to hit with the card. Early on, yes, its not good because players will ditch their coppers to you, but it can be a very strong attack if you, say, have seen everyone's hand already (which is supported by the reveal hands theme). Also, I meant to put in "if he doesn't" clause meaning if you don't have a treasure to pass, you have to take the curses. I figured it was a very powerful attack, but its also terminal and can hurt your own deck with a copper flood. Its a big risk to use it, but the rewards are huge if it works out. Also, in most games I play with witches or other curses, the curse supply almost always runs out, and once it does, this card becomes a terminal "players reveal their hands" card, which is terrible, further adding to the high risk part. Edit: it can trash 2 non treasures too, so its not terrible. But it always guarantees there is a trash outlet for those that got hit hard by curses.

I've already changed bar brawlers to optional for opponents, but I think I'll make it top 2 cards to increase the risk to opponents for choosing it
« Last Edit: October 03, 2013, 05:39:46 pm by Showdown35 »
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LastFootnote

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #13 on: October 03, 2013, 06:08:46 pm »
+1

So Nomadic Tribe looks something like this, then, correct?

Nomadic Tribe
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
You may trash up to 2 cards from your hand that are not Treasures. Each other player reveals his hand and may pass you a Treasure card. If he doesn't, he gains 2 Curses.

I think the card's biggest issue is that the attack is too harsh and the benefit to your too small. Many people dislike Saboteur because it's such a brutal attack with no direct benefit for the attacker. This has a benefit for the attacker, but it's still a brutal, brutal attack.

I see that Nomadic Tribe is sort of a counter to itself, allowing you to trash Curses when you play it. I guess that's not necessarily bad, but it may make the card a must-buy on most boards.

I'm kind of rambling, but I think the biggest issue I have with the card is that it's too similar to Torturer, and Torturer is easier to fight. It's like a more brutal Torturer, albeit harder to chain. I think the idea of players passing cards to you is interesting, but as eHalcyon said, it scales oddly with the number of players.
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Showdown35

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #14 on: October 03, 2013, 10:21:14 pm »
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So Nomadic Tribe looks something like this, then, correct?

Nomadic Tribe
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
You may trash up to 2 cards from your hand that are not Treasures. Each other player reveals his hand and may pass you a Treasure card. If he doesn't, he gains 2 Curses.

I think the card's biggest issue is that the attack is too harsh and the benefit to your too small. Many people dislike Saboteur because it's such a brutal attack with no direct benefit for the attacker. This has a benefit for the attacker, but it's still a brutal, brutal attack.

I see that Nomadic Tribe is sort of a counter to itself, allowing you to trash Curses when you play it. I guess that's not necessarily bad, but it may make the card a must-buy on most boards.

I'm kind of rambling, but I think the biggest issue I have with the card is that it's too similar to Torturer, and Torturer is easier to fight. It's like a more brutal Torturer, albeit harder to chain. I think the idea of players passing cards to you is interesting, but as eHalcyon said, it scales oddly with the number of players.

Agreed, the scaling with number of players is an issue, although, any curse attacks are pretty safe from scaling because of the number of curses.  The amount of coppers that you will get flooded with in a four or five player game can get ridiculous, yes, but that is the risk you take looking for that bigger pay off of handing out 6 or 8 curses in a single turn.  I could toy with the idea of it only handing out 1 curse if you don't get passed a treasure, or even make it "a treasure that is not a Copper"!! That would have to be a $6 card, and doesn't really fit the high risk half of the theme. However I decide to edit it, it will obviously need tons of playtesting!

Again, appreciate all the comments.  I am very happy with Bar Brawlers now with the optional "attack" that isn't an attack. I have a couple more cards ready that I will post in a different thread now.
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BadAssMutha

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #15 on: October 03, 2013, 11:09:13 pm »
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I think the optional Bar Brawlers attack is too weak, it's practically a free Lookout play for your opponents if they want it. Going down to 2 cards might do the trick, but I think the savvy player would just not take the option after awhile. Being optional, it's not much of an attack (in fact, it should only benefit the opponent), and gives your opponents a chance to reveal reactions, too.
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KingZog3

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #16 on: October 03, 2013, 11:31:33 pm »
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Why not have a high risk card similar to Swindler. Like

Action

Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a victory card, gain a Gold. Otherwise gain an Estate.

Sort of a Baron/Swindler combination. Not this exact wording or effect, but perhaps something like this where you "junk" yourself or gain a great card. High risk doesn't have to be crazy attack cards that dominate games while junking yourself.
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Showdown35

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #17 on: October 04, 2013, 12:36:40 am »
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I think the optional Bar Brawlers attack is too weak, it's practically a free Lookout play for your opponents if they want it. Going down to 2 cards might do the trick, but I think the savvy player would just not take the option after awhile. Being optional, it's not much of an attack (in fact, it should only benefit the opponent), and gives your opponents a chance to reveal reactions, too.

I did go ahead and change it to 2 cards, which helps take it from an auto decision for players to take the option, a little more risky when you only get two cards, both could be silvers/golds or actions, etc... And making it optional means it's not an attack card anymore, so no attack reactions can be used against it.  I think it works like this as a $3 card. you're still getting the +$1 and the cantrip out of it, and it just offers your opponents a slightly risky play.  I like how it fits the flavor of choosing whether or not to get involved in the bar brawl. If you're confident, you may end up with a little bonus, but you might get your butt kicked too, or you can just run out of the bar and go home.
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LastFootnote

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #18 on: October 04, 2013, 11:55:05 am »
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Also, I meant to put in "if he doesn't" clause meaning if you don't have a treasure to pass, you have to take the curses.

Sooo, you changed the name to Nomadic Tribe, but you didn't fix this. As written, even if another player has no Treasures to pass you, he can still choose that option to avoid the Curses. I think it's fine that way, but you said you wanted it the other way. Did you change your mind?
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Showdown35

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #19 on: October 04, 2013, 01:02:53 pm »
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Also, I meant to put in "if he doesn't" clause meaning if you don't have a treasure to pass, you have to take the curses.

Sooo, you changed the name to Nomadic Tribe, but you didn't fix this. As written, even if another player has no Treasures to pass you, he can still choose that option to avoid the Curses. I think it's fine that way, but you said you wanted it the other way. Did you change your mind?

Haha, actually no, I didn't change my mind.  I didn't change the rules text because I don't usually want to change the first post so people viewing this thread can see what I originally posted then read the comments (which wouldn't make sense if the preview card gets changed). I felt it an unusual circumstance, however, that required changing the name.

I changed the text on my personal digital copy of the card.  Once I've finalized all the cards in the set, I will post them all in their finished form, so, hopefully, some might want to playtest them for themselves.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2013, 01:04:46 pm by Showdown35 »
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BadAssMutha

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #20 on: October 04, 2013, 03:16:11 pm »
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Bar Brawlers has an interesting self-synergy with Bar Brawlers in your opponents' decks. Being a cantrip money source, BBs would be good to get a lot of, especially if you can thin your deck - from other Bar Brawlers. I could imagine some funny mirrors: Both players buy lots of BBs, trash their deck down to just the cantrips, and then no one wants to fight ever again.

What about making it a $4 attack, where you have the option to reveal the top 2 cards and trash one OR gain a curse? It wouldn't give out curses much early, but you could get caught with a deck that's too thin to fight. I think getting cursed out for not fighting fits the theme perfectly.
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Showdown35

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Re: More FLAVOR! Yes, I said it again!
« Reply #21 on: October 04, 2013, 04:14:08 pm »
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Interesting concept. I like the idea of getting cursed or "fighting", but I'm very happy with how bar brawlers ended up after all these comments. I think I'll try to get your concept an a different card in the set.
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