But it would be good to recognize that other people does good things as well, and I think there is lack of such recognition. For instance, there is mention to Magic being good or innovative a couple of times, and also Richard Garfield is mentioned as a designer he trusts makes good games. However, this are minor comments and, more significantly, there is no mention to Magic nor Garfield as direct contributors to Dominion existence.
Here is an interview at opinionatedgamers, in which the interviewer asks who taught me the most about game design, and I cite some people:
http://opinionatedgamers.com/2012/05/11/the-art-of-design-interviews-to-game-designers-19-donald-x-vaccarino/Magic was important for me pursuing game design, but it did not directly contribute to Dominion existing otherwise. I did not think "hey could I take deckbuilding out of Magic and make it the whole game." What I actually thought was, "how do I keep the building-up-heroes part of Spirit Warriors II while simplifying it enough for it to be playable." An edited version of that story can be seen here at
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1997.01. Besides the obvious deck-building, do you feel there is something deeper or more detailed Magic contributed to Dominion? In particular, did you at some point considered other properties in Magic and how they would affect dominion (like different resources in costs, things that stay in play a really long time as opposed to instant effects, explicit combat)? I know this has been partially answered before here and there, so it is of course fine if you only go into new details.
I did not get the deckbuilding from Magic. Not all obvious things are true.
Magic introduced me to interacting rules-on-cards, which Dominion has (as well as most of my other games). Magic didn't come up with that though, it was in turn inspired by Wiz-War and Cosmic Encounter. As a game with tons of cards, Magic had to really deal with making rules-on-cards work on a large scale, which other games had not; this didn't happen overnight, and all of that work is valuable for other games with rules-on-cards, although in this case I was there, I was working on good wordings right when they were, and even offered some to them (I am credited in the Magic rules in the "contributions" section, for commenting on the 6E rules, although most of what I suggested was probably also suggested by in-house people).
I tend to give cards types, on a line at the bottom of the card. This comes from Magic doing that. Again I don't think it originated that.
Spirit Warriors II (as described in the linked article) at one point had something like Smash Up has; you drafted four heroes and then shuffled packets of ~10 cards per hero together to get your own deck. I got that idea from a set of Magic decks I'd built that worked the same way. You make a 30-card packet for each color, plus one for artifacts; they include lands (use Urza lands for the artifact one). So your 6 packets end up making 15 possible decks. You have a theme; an early one I made was graveyard-themed. The RW graveyard deck was pretty cool. As it happens the contribution this had to Dominion was needing to be replaced by something that worked better for building up heroes.
I made Dominion after years of making other games. Dominion took things like "attacks hit everyone else" automatically from those other games. Things which you can trace back to Magic, like card types, only ultimately came from Magic; they directly came from other games of mine, where I'd tried out things and found what I liked.
2. How do you feel about identical starting hands? Would you consider including it as a suggestion or variant in a rule book? How often do you think a different opening has a too big impact on the outcome (by "too big" I mean "it would be better to avoid if it could be done in a simple manner, like arrange shuffle luck for particular kingdoms with god, nature, chance, or whatever has the "decision").
No interest. The opening hands vary intentionally. I have never felt unhappy with how that turned out. Play whatever variants you want; I shuffle my starting ten.
3. One of the two things that I hate most about Dominion (this sounds harsh, but after reading it, I think this is more a testimony that I love the game) is the fact that the text on the cards is sexist (it refers to individual players as "he"). Did you consider gender neutrality while making the game? Would you (if you happen to call the shots on such a thing) consider a request for gender neutrality for upcoming expansions/games?
The prototype said "they." RGG which is to say Jay switched to "he" (and also expanded most contractions).
I think "he or she" is awful. I think "she" is also awful. "They" is where it's at and has been in use for centuries. Evo is an example of a game that uses it.
I would not include this in contracts; it is hard enough getting games published. If I self-published (not likely) I would use "they."
4. How good were you at playing Dominion during development in comparison with the other playtesters? When playtesting, do you feel that you play to win as hard as possible, or are your decisions based on other things as well (from "I need to test this card, even if I do not
In playtesting my focus is generally just on winning, although sometimes it's on doing something wacky to try it out. Some games the focus is "get this particular card playtested." When a card seems like it might be trouble but might not be, it may end up that I am saying, "okay this game mcp and vinay have to buy it and me and locus can't." Some players are bad at being forced to buy a card and they tend to get shifted into the can't-buy role. But you know, if everyone buys a card, someone who bought it will win, and there won't be any real data there on how the card measures up. Unless it's always, "whoever gets the most copies of it wins," which I guess has come up. Anyway you can just decide, I am not buying the card they think is broken this game, but you will get (different) data faster if two buy it and two don't.
I won my share, I was no slouch. There were weaker playtesters, but among the better playtesters, I'm not sure I see a clear winner.
For Kingdom Builder, I think I am 2nd best after playtester Mark Levine. It's close though.
5. If you were to put a clock on Dominion to avoid people thinking forever, would you give a particular limit to the first move (i.e., some time to evaluate the board)? How much time do you think a person should take to play close enough to optimal (i.e., close to what he/she would play if given unbounded time)? Do you have any more general thoughts on how to clock Dominion games in general?
Well for a computer version it's straightforward to count down the time for whoever currently gets to make a decision - usually the person taking the turn, but sometimes another player who is deciding what to discard or something. You could resolve Militia in turn order as the rules technically say to do. Anyway then you don't need to do anything special for turn one; you've got X minutes for the whole game, spend 'em how you want.
I don't know how much time you should spend thinking about turn one or whatever later situation. The hardest decisions tend to matter the least and knowing that is helpful. There may be a lot to think about on turn one or not much. You don't necessarily need to figure out your whole strategy; some games you are clearly opening Silver/Silver or something and can work out the rest while shuffling. I generally do stare at the cards on turn one.