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Author Topic: DimOnion: Modern Times  (Read 14096 times)

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Minotaur

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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #25 on: November 04, 2013, 08:09:42 pm »
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Power Outage is giving me a headache. The easiest thing is to not allow players to use actions in the sense of using an action to play an Action card. Meaning KC chains with a Power Outage continue on without a hiccup. That would make Power Outage perhaps unreasonably strong on that kind of board... But it would also have the easiest rules to understand.
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eHalcyon

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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #26 on: November 04, 2013, 08:16:16 pm »
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On the conflict with rules -- I play Football, then Upgrade a Potion, Upgrade says I have to gain a $5 card.  If Duchies and Upgrades are all gone, I have to gain a Library.  Except I can't.  So there's a conflict here that needs a ruling via FAQ.  But again, I'm not seeing the connection between Football and Library.  It seems completely random and not worth the card space.

If you play a Witch, and there aren't any Curses in the supply, then you have to gain a Curse, but you can't.

That is covered by the rules.  There is no conflict between cards there.  In the other case, there ARE two cards (Upgrade and Football) telling you conflicting things.  You need an FAQ ruling to clarify how that interaction is supposed to proceed.

Bomb Shelter -- it's a Moat with 1VP instead of draw... I think I prefer the draw most of the time, if at all.  I suppose you don't want to cost it at $2 because then it's strictly better than Estate, but Estate is a junk card anyway.  Maybe make it $2 instead so that you have a real reason to want to buy this even on boards with no attacks.

I don't think I can make it strictly better than estates. Attack prevention can be a big deal on some boards, and with strong terminals on the board, I might draw dead Moats anyway. Then there are alt VP boards... this card might not always be a winner, but I figured a Victory-Reaction card might be satisfying to have in the game, since a Reaction is half a card better than just being a dead card altogether.

Oops! I meant to say, "make it 2VP instead."

Ah, my mistake. Debt is supposed to be a mandatory Curse-like pile in every Modern Times game, sort of like a Ruins. Note that the Payday Loan shelter generates a Debt, for one. I suppose the real solution may be to create a Looter-type analog for Debts.

OK, that's fine.  You should clarify which cards are Kingdom cards, which are new basic Supply cards, and which are cards tied to other cards like Madman, Mercenary and Spoils. :)



I suppose Power Outage should say something along the lines of "Actions do nothing when played" instead of "players cannot play actions", to disambiguate what happens when Power Outage is part of a Throne Room chain.

To clarify, I mean that any action played during a Power Outage is played as if it were a copy of this card, and it remains this card until it leaves play:

Derp
Action
Cost: X
You may choose to say the word "derp" aloud as many times as you like.

(Ex: Throne Room A plays Throne Room B, and Throne Room B1 is used to play Power Outage twice. The first time, you choose to keep it in play. Then Throne Room B1 plays Power Outage a second time, but this time Power Outage does nothing. Throne Room A isn't affected by Power Outage, so it goes on to play Throne Room B2, which does nothing because it IS affected by Power Outage. Your Throne Room B1ed Power Outage grants you +1 action at the start of your next turn, and then you trash it.)

Ok, that's actually complicated, and I didn't get it right the first time. And I'm not totally confident that I'm doing it right still. When it's played a second time, is it still "in play" from the first time it was played, or does it evade itself?

Ahh, slipped my mind that it affects you on your own turn.  A simpler example of card conflict is with Golem.

Power Outage is giving me a headache. The easiest thing is to not allow players to use actions in the sense of using an action to play an Action card. Meaning KC chains with a Power Outage continue on without a hiccup. That would make Power Outage perhaps unreasonably strong on that kind of board... But it would also have the easiest rules to understand.

How would you word that?
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Minotaur

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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #27 on: November 04, 2013, 08:18:47 pm »
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How would you word that?

Hmmmmm. Players are not allowed to spend actions while this card is in play?
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #28 on: November 04, 2013, 09:53:20 pm »
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Oops! I meant to say, "make it 2VP instead."

Oh! That sounds right. I just remembered that there is a Victory-Reaction in Dominion, and it's called Tunnel, and it costs $3, and it gives 2 VP. Comparing the two reactions, I think it's fair to price them the same.

My gut says that 2 VP is too much, and that Tunnel is also an OP card, but it's in the game and I may as well use it as my reference point here.
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Minotaur

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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #29 on: November 05, 2013, 09:59:44 pm »
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Car Insurance -- Having trouble parsing this on the first read through.  Hmm... The drawback seems to be that it makes you discard treasures.  Alternatively, you can just trash it.  So why wouldn't you do that?  Maybe you want to keep it around for the reaction, which lets you recover cards that you trash, but that comes with a Debt card.  I don't see that reaction being particularly useful even in ideal cases (read: TfB) because of that extra junk card.  So... this is just a shelter that disappears immediately?

Ok, how about this one?

Car Insurance
+1 card
+1 action
You may discard a treasure. If you do not, trash this card and place two cards from your hand on top of your deck.

When one of your cards is trashed, you may reveal this card from your hand. If you did so, or if this card is in play, you may discard this card. If you do, gain the trashed card and a Debt.

(Theme remark: It "costs money" to make Car Insurance "payments", but the opportunity cost of "canceling" your policy is two cards.)

If, as before, I let the player draw a replacement card and just trash this right away, then the early-game pacing could be unusually fast compared to regular Dominion, and that's not necessarily what I want with this fan set; in particular, iPhone is already a minimally harmful cantrip. That's why the change, gameplay-wise. The new card is dead early, and has the potential to either "wake up" mid-to-late-game or trash itself when your hand works out in favor of it.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2013, 10:01:39 pm by Minotaur »
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eHalcyon

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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #30 on: November 05, 2013, 10:20:28 pm »
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Car Insurance -- Having trouble parsing this on the first read through.  Hmm... The drawback seems to be that it makes you discard treasures.  Alternatively, you can just trash it.  So why wouldn't you do that?  Maybe you want to keep it around for the reaction, which lets you recover cards that you trash, but that comes with a Debt card.  I don't see that reaction being particularly useful even in ideal cases (read: TfB) because of that extra junk card.  So... this is just a shelter that disappears immediately?

Ok, how about this one?

Car Insurance
+1 card
+1 action
You may discard a treasure. If you do not, trash this card and place two cards from your hand on top of your deck.

When one of your cards is trashed, you may reveal this card from your hand. If you did so, or if this card is in play, you may discard this card. If you do, gain the trashed card and a Debt.

(Theme remark: It "costs money" to make Car Insurance "payments", but the opportunity cost of "canceling" your policy is two cards.)

If, as before, I let the player draw a replacement card and just trash this right away, then the early-game pacing could be unusually fast compared to regular Dominion, and that's not necessarily what I want with this fan set; in particular, iPhone is already a minimally harmful cantrip. That's why the change, gameplay-wise. The new card is dead early, and has the potential to either "wake up" mid-to-late-game or trash itself when your hand works out in favor of it.

Still not really seeing this as an interesting decision.  Consider this tidbit from the Secret Histories of Dark Ages:

Quote
Hovel is the only one that changed. Originally it was an action you could trash by discarding your hand. It turned out that trashing it turn 1-2 usually seemed like the correct play, even if you drew it with four Coppers. So that was no good. Hovel as printed has nice flavor going for it; you move out of your old Hovel and into a nice Duchy.

Car Insurance seems like that to me.  You may have to lose the hand, but it's probably worth it to get the junk card out of your deck.  Slowing the cycling down might make a difference, but probably not much.
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Minotaur

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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #31 on: November 05, 2013, 10:35:52 pm »
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Car Insurance -- Having trouble parsing this on the first read through.  Hmm... The drawback seems to be that it makes you discard treasures.  Alternatively, you can just trash it.  So why wouldn't you do that?  Maybe you want to keep it around for the reaction, which lets you recover cards that you trash, but that comes with a Debt card.  I don't see that reaction being particularly useful even in ideal cases (read: TfB) because of that extra junk card.  So... this is just a shelter that disappears immediately?

Ok, how about this one?

Car Insurance
+1 card
+1 action
You may discard a treasure. If you do not, trash this card and place two cards from your hand on top of your deck.

When one of your cards is trashed, you may reveal this card from your hand. If you did so, or if this card is in play, you may discard this card. If you do, gain the trashed card and a Debt.

(Theme remark: It "costs money" to make Car Insurance "payments", but the opportunity cost of "canceling" your policy is two cards.)

If, as before, I let the player draw a replacement card and just trash this right away, then the early-game pacing could be unusually fast compared to regular Dominion, and that's not necessarily what I want with this fan set; in particular, iPhone is already a minimally harmful cantrip. That's why the change, gameplay-wise. The new card is dead early, and has the potential to either "wake up" mid-to-late-game or trash itself when your hand works out in favor of it.

Still not really seeing this as an interesting decision.  Consider this tidbit from the Secret Histories of Dark Ages:

Quote
Hovel is the only one that changed. Originally it was an action you could trash by discarding your hand. It turned out that trashing it turn 1-2 usually seemed like the correct play, even if you drew it with four Coppers. So that was no good. Hovel as printed has nice flavor going for it; you move out of your old Hovel and into a nice Duchy.

Car Insurance seems like that to me.  You may have to lose the hand, but it's probably worth it to get the junk card out of your deck.  Slowing the cycling down might make a difference, but probably not much.

The alternative to trashing Car Insurance ASAP is to hold onto a dead card and use the reaction to get a Province.

Another alternative is that you start buying better treasures, and play the card on turns where you think you'll draw something better than the Copper you'll have to discard. If you cantrip to Cutpurse yourself but you drew a Silver, the card is acting like a Copper that turn (but it took the Silver out of your deck for that shuffle in the process)

The penalty for trashing it has to be* at least bad enough that you don't expect to get free 4/4 or 4/5 opening hands and an early reshuffle totally for free (when you take iPhone into account).

(*- Well, ok, doesn't have to be, but I respect the sort of tempo that vanilla Dominion games have, and I'm not looking to rock the boat just because)
« Last Edit: November 05, 2013, 10:39:13 pm by Minotaur »
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #32 on: November 05, 2013, 10:41:42 pm »
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(Also, I'm actually kind of ok with trashing Car Insurance just being the obvious right thing to do when there's no trashing on the board. Fairly often, your Estates only function as dead cards you likewise want to trash ASAP, or you just can't, and again - it's just a dead card, only you don't even get a choice in that case, and the VP difference doesn't change anything for anyone.)
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #33 on: November 06, 2013, 02:15:34 pm »
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Added Kids These Days to the end of the OP.
« Last Edit: November 06, 2013, 02:20:20 pm by Minotaur »
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #34 on: November 06, 2013, 11:42:15 pm »
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I felt like I had way more than enough, so I started churning out images for it. Updated with a link at the top of the OP. Some fixes and additions as well, but I can't promise I'll fix this page to be up-to-date with the image file, because there's always one more thing...
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #35 on: November 08, 2013, 09:40:10 pm »
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Added Dominion-style flavor text to the OP. Updated a lot of cards on the DeviantArt page (linked in OP).
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #36 on: July 30, 2014, 01:41:30 pm »
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In case anyone was following this thread, I updated it with links.  The links include card text this time, as has been requested.  Feedback would be appreciated.
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #37 on: April 26, 2015, 03:42:51 am »
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GendoIkari

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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #38 on: April 28, 2015, 10:21:27 am »
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In my opinion, it's is not worth mentioning specifically that cards on your Amazon mat are part of your deck at the end of the game. Native Village and Island are the only 2 cards that have this mentioned, out of the huge number of cards that can cause things to be set aside when the game ends. The Dominion rulebook makes it clear that ALL set aside cards are part of your deck at the end of the game. I personally wish Native Village and Island didn't have that text, because then people would be forced to learn the correct rule in the first place, instead of assuming that it works that way because Island and Native Village say so.

The list of cards that don't have that text, but can still cause a set aside card at end of game:

Haven
Gear
Inheritance
All cards on your Tavern mat
Horse Traders
Prince

I'm sure there's more, but you get the point. I guess my point is that even though without the text, people will ask "do cards on the Amazon mat count as being in your deck at end of game?" that that's ok... if they need to ask that, then they SHOULD have to ask it, because they need to learn the rule. Rather than ask it for each card that is missing the text.
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #39 on: April 28, 2015, 10:31:44 am »
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The text version of Google doesn't have +1 action. I'm guessing that this is a typo, and not that you've changed the card?

Gas Station sounds like it may be way too good, but I can't be sure. Compared to Stables... both leave you with a 1-size hand increase, like Lab. But Gas Station trashes Coppers instead of Discarding them, which is WAY better for the first several times you play it. On top of that, Gas Station gives you 1 of your card draws before you need the treasure, so you have 1 more card to find the treasure in. At the least, I would play a few games where both are available, where one person always buys Stables and the other always buys Gas Station, to see if Stables can ever win.
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #40 on: April 28, 2015, 10:41:06 am »
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What do you mean for iPhone to be a Shelter? Are you intending it to replace 1 of the 3 other Shelters in your starting deck? To be consistent with other Durations, I would recommend updating the wording:

+1 Card
+1 Action
At the end of your cleanup phase this turn, place one card from your hand on top of your deck.
At the start of your next turn, return this to your hand.
------------------------------------
While this is in play, you cannot use reaction abilities.


Do you mean for it to only restrict YOU from using reaction abilities? Or did you want it to prevent other players from using them? If the former (which is how it's worded now), it sounds like a very weak card. But if it's a Shelter that starts in your deck, that might make sense.
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #41 on: April 28, 2015, 10:44:05 am »
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Job creator looks very weak to me... it trashes your opponent's Coppers for them, and junks yourself with a Copper. Sure it's ok if it hits Silver, but even then it's basically Noble Brigand with some super-Cutpurse on the side. I would think this could cost $3, not $6. And even then it's situational... basically stops Big Money; it's terrible against engines.
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #42 on: April 28, 2015, 11:40:47 am »
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The text version of Google doesn't have +1 action. I'm guessing that this is a typo, and not that you've changed the card?

Gas Station sounds like it may be way too good, but I can't be sure. Compared to Stables... both leave you with a 1-size hand increase, like Lab. But Gas Station trashes Coppers instead of Discarding them, which is WAY better for the first several times you play it. On top of that, Gas Station gives you 1 of your card draws before you need the treasure, so you have 1 more card to find the treasure in. At the least, I would play a few games where both are available, where one person always buys Stables and the other always buys Gas Station, to see if Stables can ever win.

This is indeed a misprint in the text version.  Google is a lot of fun, and the +1 action is essential.  If it were too good, it would cost more instead.

Gas Station has a typo in the cost.  I believe I bumped it up to $6.  It trashes for theme reasons (non-renewable resource and all that).

I'm sure there are more if I missed those two.  :(
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #43 on: April 28, 2015, 11:44:29 am »
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What do you mean for iPhone to be a Shelter? Are you intending it to replace 1 of the 3 other Shelters in your starting deck? To be consistent with other Durations, I would recommend updating the wording:

+1 Card
+1 Action
At the end of your cleanup phase this turn, place one card from your hand on top of your deck.
At the start of your next turn, return this to your hand.
------------------------------------
While this is in play, you cannot use reaction abilities.


Do you mean for it to only restrict YOU from using reaction abilities? Or did you want it to prevent other players from using them? If the former (which is how it's worded now), it sounds like a very weak card. But if it's a Shelter that starts in your deck, that might make sense.

iPhone is the "Shelter"-type card for Modern Times.  There are three, replacing the starting Estates.  It tends to stay in play for a long time.  I don't like the idea of choosing which card you don't draw.  I could say "put the -1 card token on your deck at the end of your Buy phase", but I was hoping that drawing less would make sense as is.  For example, 2 instead of 3 before an Outpost turn, if that were Modern Times...

iPhone is supposed to be a perpetual distraction.  You still get 5 cards, but you're constantly fiddling with iPhone in between and can't react to things.
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #44 on: April 28, 2015, 11:54:07 am »
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Job creator looks very weak to me... it trashes your opponent's Coppers for them, and junks yourself with a Copper. Sure it's ok if it hits Silver, but even then it's basically Noble Brigand with some super-Cutpurse on the side. I would think this could cost $3, not $6. And even then it's situational... basically stops Big Money; it's terrible against engines.

It's actually pretty good early, like a Cutpurse variant that occasionally steals a Silver if you're lucky.  If it's too cheap, then it can be very hard to ever get enough Golds to buy Golds if you play wrong against it.  There's also a lot of trashing in the set, so in practice, you can just get rid of it when it gets closer to the late game.  It's also not that hard to get rid of the extra Copper.

Note that you're often getting $3 that turn, $4 if you're lucky, $2 for a whiff.  Noble Brigand gets you $1 - this is a huge difference.  And if you're playing against an engine, then they'd better not have 4 actions and a Silver in hand...

When Job Creator succeeds, it hurts the other player's momentum like Cutpurse would, and it gives you momentum in excess of the $2 of Cutpurse.  It would be weak on a board without trashing, but unless I get more card ideas, it's hard to make a trashing-free board here anyway.
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Re: DimOnion: Modern Times
« Reply #45 on: April 28, 2015, 11:55:36 am »
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Thanks for the feedback.  Let me know if anything else stands out.
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