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Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Expansion - Rush
« on: October 25, 2024, 12:13:20 am »
This fan expansion is the second in a series of ideas I had. In case you've read this story from my previous expansion, I'll give the short version; I was bored of renaming cards after DXV would release an official card with the same name as one of my fan cards, so the success I felt with one group of cards based on somebody else's intellectual property gave me the idea to put more ideas for using IP into fan cards. I've used Pikmin and Shantae, and this is Rush.
This expansion has had very little playtesting, unlike Royal Wizardry and Pikmin. Any feedback is welcome. This expansion is a bit more cohesive than the Shantae expansion, because I devised a new mechanic to be used on every card. The goal of this expansion was to use this new mechanism which stockpiles a new resource on moderately simple cards, not necessarily a bunch of vanilla-bonus cards with my new resource tacked on or cards that a new player would be an expert at immediately, but trying to be less complicated than the Pikmin cards, the Shantae cards, and the (spoiler alert) upcoming group of Zelda cards that I'll share next. If I had to compare complexity level, I'd probably put it right around or right below the complexity of Royal Wizardry after the recent update to it. This expansion is 350 cards (I don't use randomizers) with 8 piles out of 33 containing an Attack -- only a slightly higher ratio than most official expansions, but it's right where Adventures is.
Let me briefly explain the theme of this expansion. If you don't know what Rush is, you're dead to me. OK, onto the cards.
Just kidding. Let me actually give a bit of a description. Rush is a progressive rock band from Canada; one of the three things Canada has done to benefit the world. Everything in this expansion is named after an album, piece, or movement created by the band. This includes some split piles which combine some obviously related music. You'll also see that I haven't put art on every card yet because this is audio art, not visual art, and it's not clear what to put as the card art without simply abusing the ability of AI to generate art for me. (I have been attempting to avoid having text in the art, and I've been prioritizing fine art over photography when possible.) I was lucky enough to find a few pieces of fanart. I've also included some references and Easter eggs.
In this expansion, in addition to the new mechanic of building up a resource over multiple turns, I wanted to explore a few effect combos that would be virtually impossible for official cards and try some interesting things with split piles, some strange Attacks, and some far-from-trivial decisions. There is also a sub-theme of Nights and Durations, found in at least 10 piles each. A lot of these cards have a lot of words on them, but I don't think it's particularly complicated except for the split piles, and maybe you just want to choose not to play with them. My goal is always to design cards in a way that they can be used in a completely random Kingdom and will not encourage buying that card in every game. This expansion makes use of the Tavern mat (from Adventures), [$VP]VP tokens (from Prosperity or Empires), the Exile mat (from Menagerie), the Coffers & Villagers mat (from Renaissance), and the Ruins (from Dark Ages), but you can use whatever substitute you have at home. It also requires the Potions (from Alchemy) and the Boons and Will-o'-Wisps (from Nocturne) [and Omens and associated components (from Rising Sun)], or you can exclude the cards [and Prophecies] that utilize them.
In small groups, I'll show the image versions, followed by the text versions, then give a brief explanation if required. Before that, let me explain the main mechanic of this set. There is a unique icon for a new vanilla bonus, discs. When you get +discs, you put that many tokens on a separate mat just for them, just like the Coffers, Villagers, and other things, and you likewise leave them there until you use them. Unlike Coffers and Villagers, however, you don't choose when to use them. At the start of your turn, if you have at least 7 discs, you pay 7 discs and get +1 Card. It's a pretty weak bonus, and I would be open to changing how many you need. The important part is that it happens at the start of your turn, so you don't have to worry about timing it in the middle of your turn by playing cards in a particular tactical order, but also remember to choose what order you do things if you have multiple effects happen at the same time, so if you have a card give you +discs at the start of your turn, you can choose whether you want to draw the card first, just in case it matters. Right now, the way the discs work is that they automatically happen, and you draw as many cards as you have multiple of 7 discs, but it might be meaningful to have it change to be a one-time check at the start of your turn and you only get to draw one card from discs per turn. I'm not convinced that's the right way to do this, but I'd be happy to hear some thoughts. Let's look at an example.
The Snowdog is likewise a Reaction, but the Reaction part is definitely not as likely unless you use By-Tor's Reaction. That's the cool split pile interaction. The top will let you get multiple +[$VP] at a time, but you'll have to get your stuff back somehow, while the bottom is +1[$VP] at a time, but gets you free Gold in the near future.
Fly by Night is all about duplicates, giving you +⊗ for duplicates and enabling itself for the future. The +⊗ probably isn't strong enough for you to choose Copper and junk yourself, so the cost being low doesn't matter since it's not going to be too strong in the opening.
Rivendell waits until you don't have any good cards to play and then gives you some nice stuff as a booby prize. I do wonder if it's worth anything to try big money like this. It's nearly impossible to play a Treasure first and then get around to playing Actions and other good stuff, but I know there are ways.
The Necromancer is a split pile with 3 different cards in it; that's pretty unique. Into Darkness is a Night card because it wants you to have something left in your hand to discard and do the ability. It may need reworded to be clear that the Reserve effect puts the gained card into your hand and not itself. Under the Shadow definitely wants to be played as a Shadow, otherwise it's guaranteed to miss the shuffle. (Shadows are all virtually guaranteed, but this one is also a Duration, so it bridges that last degree into guaranteed.) I'm sure there's going to be a moment where you have something obvious to trash. There's a subtheme here that's obvious after you read Return of the Prince where the first asks you to discard a card, the second asks you to discard 2, and the third asks you to discard 3. Return of the Prince is a King's Court with a cost, but sometimes it's a triple Laboratory. There's some cool lore connection here if you're familiar with the identity of the prince. Me not coming up with any art yet makes it a bit more obscure.
For The Fountain of Lamneth, remember that you do the choices in the order that they're printed, so you can get +1 Card before you do any of the discarding, trashing, or Exiling, but also remember that you have to make all of your choices before you start doing any of them, so you might be gambling that you draw something you'd like to discard/trash/Exile. This idea is really why I chose the discs to build to 7 before paying off.
Xanadu should be clear. I tried to match the wording on Way of the Chameleon.
Closer to the Heart is a little bit wordy, and might even be fine without the fourth option, because the fourth option would then be to not buy it.
The Voyage may want to be cheaper; that'd make it easier to get to the bottom half of the split pile. Would it have to be less than +[$3] to be cheaper, or is it fine because it's a one-shot? What would the cost of Spoils be if it weren't a [$0]? Hemispheres may be good enough without the effect of converting Coppers. Hard to say. It’s trying to interact with its own ability and The Voyage.
There may be a wording problem with The Maples, but maybe it's fine. If you look at the same card multiple times, does this wording give you +[$] every time you looked or just the first time for each card? If you rearrange them and look again, is it possible to track that? The correct effect clearly should be each card there and each time you look at it, but I'm not sure the wording reflects that. I'm also wondering if I can change the interaction with [$2]s on The Oaks without losing the theme; actually, maybe it should turn into a Gold instead of a Silver, given that it's the bottom card of a split pile. That might be both good and interesting.
La Villa Strangiato is probably clear as mud. There's probably a wording complaint somewhere about "Actions you play are played twice each." The rest is probably the confusing part, though. Let's use this card as an example: play LVS from your hand the first time, get the +1 Action and you'll get the rest later; play another copy of LVS from your hand, get +1 Action, ignore any words up to +1 Card, ignore "and" and move on to +⊗⊗, then the first LVS makes you play the second LVS a second time, so you get +1 Action, +1 Card, and +⊗⊗ again; if you don't play anything else this turn, at the start of your next turn, you'll trash any one card from your hand, get +1 Card and +⊗⊗ -- in total, you ended your Action phase on the first turn with the same number of cards you started with, with one more action play than you started with, and four more ⊗ than you started with, then trashed one card, drew one card, and got two ⊗ when the following turn started. Some other examples: Merchant, Poacher, and Ironworks become purely vanilla Peddlers; Moneylender becomes terminal Gold; Baron becomes +1 Buy and +[$4]; Conspirator and Mill become Double Peddler; Nobles becomes +3 Cards and +2 Actions; Pawn becomes Market. On top of that, all of those things are automatically Throned. On the other hand, some cards become nothing; here's a list of those nothings from Base and Intrigue: Artisan, Bandit, Bureaucrat, Chapel, Library, Mine, Remodel, Throne Room, Workshop, Replace, Trading Post. A lot of things will become Ruined Village, like Lurker, but some things will lose their downsides, like Council Room, and then get automatically Throned, so even Ruined Village isn't completely terrible. I haven’t done any calculations, but there’s a non-zero chance that this card is an auto-buy in every game; I’d be a bit sad, but this effect is super cool, and I’d like to keep it around even if I have to do some jank stuff or give it a crazy cost.
You might just want Silver over Freewill, but you might just want to trash stuff regardless of what it is; if you're in a slog, both options are probably good, though. The deck might be stacked against you, but you still have the free will to make your own decisions. I think this is a great non-Attack interaction.
Jacob's Ladder is like The Sky's Gift with some acceleration and the other players get to ride your tailwind. I think the text is clear.
Natural Science is some sort of cross between Mill and Tide Pools. The text should be clear.
Red Barchetta works the same way as Werewolf. You get the effect based on when you play it, so there isn't really anything to choose when you play the card, but there are lots of decisions every turn if you have this card in your deck and think you might want a Gold. I think it's a pretty good way to get early Gold, too, by opening with this and just playing either nothing or only one Copper and one Silver, so you get either a guaranteed Gold or a Gold with a [$3] on turn 3/4. I wanted to keep the wording short, but it might be the wrong wording to say "if each card you have in play is the only copy." I think that's clear, even if it's technically improper. Like, how much better is it really if you add "of it you have in play" onto that clause?
YYY seems perfectly clear to me. Reading it now, it probably wants a +1 Buy on there, and it might even want +⊗, as well.
Limelight is one of only two Kingdom piles that don't have the ⊗ on it, which is probably fine. I could easily slap it on the Spotlight, though, if I decided every single pile should have it, and there must be a way to not screw up the only other one by adding it. None of the landscapes have it, though, so I'm thinking it's not worth it. Anyway, I think it's possible that it should have "Either way, take the Spotlight" instead, but I don't think it'll matter if somebody who has the Spotlight is unsure about whether they're supposed to take the Spotlight -- they already have it!
The Camera Eye specifies "each other player" for the middle part and "all players" for the last part, so the person who plays this card also plays with his hand revealed, not just the other players. This also has a bit of Moat tracking built in, because somebody who uses a Moat will not have his hand revealed for the whole round until the start of your next turn when the handsize Attack happens. The hand is also already revealed for you to publicly choose a card if that option happens.
The Enemy Within and The Weapon should require no clarification. I almost want to say the same for Witch Hunt, because it should be obvious that the antecedent of "it" is "Action card" and not "this." Finally, Freeze has the player to your right choose so you can't use this for both storing junk and for payload; maybe that doesn' t matter because this is the bottom card of the split pile, but you can get there relatively early by rotating the pile with The Enemy Within, so it's probably interesting. The really interesting effect is the last bit, where everything is delayed an extra turn -- it's possible I need to reword it to "one additional turn," though, because I don't know whether it will just lead to Duration cards never finishing if two players both play a copy of this. The "until then" effects are still waiting until that thing happens, so this effect would just keep extending the delay turn after turn, right? The conclusion isn't completely forming in my mind; I prefer to have discussions about this type of thing.
Comparing to Way of the Chameleon, Vital Signs can probably leave off the "that many" clarification, but I don't see a problem with this and it seems clear to me. I did think it'd be necessary to include the "from a card" part because it would otherwise completely destroy the purpose of +⊗ by making you never draw cards, and I think you actually wouldn't get to draw a hand during Clean-up, but I'm not totally sure; the first reason is enough to have it, but the second one is a weird idea that might be confusing when people play it.
Another split pile with three cards in it, this one is called "Signals Theory" because it doesn't have an official name, and the three things that comprise it are only speculated to be related. A lore drop for you; I haven't been giving the lore for every card like I did and will resume with the video game IP.
The clause checking for buying could possibly be different. No official card says "didn't buy," and Haggler and Hoard phrase the condition differently, but this wording matches a negation of the wording on Haunted Woods and Swamp Hag. (All four examples considering the current rules updates and errata.) Digital Man is a Laboratory with an Attack and a hefty drawback, but the wording is considerably obscure; when you play this, the other players do one or two things, you do one thing, the other players do one more thing, and you do one more thing before doing the Laboratory effect. The punctuation might need changed, and it may need to be clearer who is choosing what. First, other players reveal. Second, other players check whether they gain a Copper. Third, you choose one of the three cards revealed. Fourth, other players choose one of the three revealed cards that you didn't choose. Fifth, you gain everything chosen by the other players onto your deck. Sixth, you get your +2 Cards and +1 Action. Tell me if I'm wrong about this, but I think you technically get to choose the order that you gain the cards onto your deck when there are multiple players affected by this because all the choosing and gaining happens at the same time, and you get to choose the order of effects that happen at the same time. I think that's different from something like "and put them back in any order" because things that you're putting back haven't moved, but gaining a card moves it; Develop probably specifies "in either order" because it's technically listing two things for you to do, so you would have to do them in the listed order if that clarification weren't there, in the same way you have to do choices from a "choose two" in the order that they're listed, but this says "each other player chooses one for you to gain," clearly not defining an order. It's not borne out in the wording, but each other player should by default be only choosing from the cards he revealed, so it naturally requires you to choose one of that player's revealed cards for him to not choose; it probably could be worded more precisely, but I'm fine with the level of precision here considering the amount of instruction I fit into the text. Finally, New World Man has this strange Attack effect on it. There's a bit of a parallel to Possession, but the controlling player doesn't get to see your hand here, so you might choose not to play cards that he can abuse to your detriment; that's why it specifies "for all card instructions." It may not mechanically matter, but I believe one New World Man overrides the previous New World Man when deciding who is actually making decisions, because it's theoretically going to be the worst decision for that player regardless of which opponent is making the decisions for him. It's possible that there's some kingmaking possible here, but I think it'd be best to define in the theoretical rulebook that only the most recent New World Man gets to make the decisions. For example, if Alice plays NWM, she gets to decide whether Bob returns a card from his hand to its pile when Bob plays a NWM, but Bob gets to make the decisions for Carol on her turn, not Alice. If Bob were to not play his NWM, but Alice did, Alice would be making the decisions for Carol when she plays her NWM, because Alice is making decisions for each other player, even when Carol's NWM says Bob is making her decisions, Alice is making Bob's decisions, so Alice is deciding what Bob is deciding for Carol. I'm sure that was perfectly clear and I expect there to be absolutely no questions about how this works ever. What's not clear was why anybody would choose to return a card to its pile with the huge drawback if they're not forced to. I can't remember if I wanted that decision on there specifically because people are making decisions for each other or if this is just a typo and it should be a Double Laboratory, because I don't think I'd be happy to choose the combination of Laboratory + trash/return a card + relinquish my free will, but I bet I'd do it almost every time for a Double Laboratory; being the bottom card of three cards in this pile and no card to rotate them, I think Double Laboratory with a penalty would be perfectly fine, even with the Attack on top of that. Stables and Forum are both a reasonable Double Laboratory with a penalty, and they both don’t let you keep all of your cards, so I think this is comparable.
The tokens for Distant Early Warning are generic tokens. The tokens don't do anything other than count down this effect. They aren't any of the tokens from Adventures that make the cards do other stuff. I personally would use the coin tokens used for things like Coffers, Villagers, Trade Route, and Pirate Ship, but you can use anything you have handy; you might even use an eight-sided die or a couple of six-sided dice or a twelve-sided die. You probably want to use the same thing you're using for the ⊗, though, because you can just move them from DEW to your ⊗ "mat" and save yourself a step and a component.
Red Sector A should be clear. The letter I used in place of "A" in the card name is just for funsies.
Manhattan Project probably wants to have better line returns. The "if" referred to by the "otherwise" is somewhat obscured by the preceding sentence and the lack of symmetry. If I make any modifications to this one, I'll also want to fix it so that it's obvious that the "otherwise" is referring to the scenario where the trashed card doesn't cost [$2] or less. I think trashing a [$4] as a drawback to a cheap Lost City is reasonable. I like the idea of thinking about burning Gold for +3 Cards and +3 Actions, and even the thought of throwing your Peddlers to work in the secrecy of the desert sands. How many turns in a row can you keep the generators going? Further than that, when you do Exile it, are you willing to double down on the project?
Mystic Rhythms is probably unclear at first, but I think it makes sense that you're not "putting back" the cards from your opponents hand onto your deck. Maybe it's not clear, but I'm here to tell you that it's perfectly clear, and that the player to your left is doing nothing but revealing his hand. Maybe there's a sensible wording that checks for matches.
On Time Stand Still, where it says the cards should be in a random order, you shuffle just the cards that you would discard all together and put that group on top of your deck. You don't add in any cards that were already in your deck or that were in your discard pile. Any Shadow cards get shuffled, too, but you can check your deck after you finish to turn them sideways like the Rising Sun rulebook says.
On Roll the Bones, a natural number is sometimes called a "counting number." I think most people will get it just by the language and the connotation of the word "natural," but it also works on a technical level to exclude things like zero and negative numbers, things that are between the numbers that make mechanical sense in a game like this such as a half or pi or square roots of numbers that aren't squares, and things that don't fall on the number line, analogous as they may be to potions and debt. It's pretty important, though, because what would it mean to receive a negative number of Boons or a half a Boon? (I've seen this mechanic in the game Istanbul. It's cool and feels meaningful in that game. I think I've seen some fan cards that have you roll a six-sided die to see which effect you get, and I considered doing that, but I couldn't find a moment of inspiration and went with this more bid-style gamble.)
For Feedback, there's a slight gamble that your hand ends up being four cards instead of five, but you at least get the best four of five, and you have a decent chance of having split Actions right off the bat. Remember that "playing" a card means following its instructions from top to bottom, so even playing things that you normally can't play are technically accounted for in the rulebook by that rule. Things like Curse and Estate simply have no instructions, so you are done following their instructions as soon as you play them.
Hope should be clear. The wording, that is, not the strategy.
For Candide's Garden, the normal method of spending ⊗ or the special one from Clockwork Angels will activate the Duration effect. I'm not sure if it matters that the +⊗ happens at the end of Clean-up instead of some other time like the beginning of Clean-up.
Well, that's the expansion. I kept most of the secrets and themes as an exercise for the listener. Any feedback is welcome. Did you think any of the ideas were interesting? Did you hate it? Are they too complex for your taste? Have some art for the ones I haven't gotten to yet? Thanks so much for showing some interest.
This expansion has had very little playtesting, unlike Royal Wizardry and Pikmin. Any feedback is welcome. This expansion is a bit more cohesive than the Shantae expansion, because I devised a new mechanic to be used on every card. The goal of this expansion was to use this new mechanism which stockpiles a new resource on moderately simple cards, not necessarily a bunch of vanilla-bonus cards with my new resource tacked on or cards that a new player would be an expert at immediately, but trying to be less complicated than the Pikmin cards, the Shantae cards, and the (spoiler alert) upcoming group of Zelda cards that I'll share next. If I had to compare complexity level, I'd probably put it right around or right below the complexity of Royal Wizardry after the recent update to it. This expansion is 350 cards (I don't use randomizers) with 8 piles out of 33 containing an Attack -- only a slightly higher ratio than most official expansions, but it's right where Adventures is.
Let me briefly explain the theme of this expansion. If you don't know what Rush is, you're dead to me. OK, onto the cards.
Just kidding. Let me actually give a bit of a description. Rush is a progressive rock band from Canada; one of the three things Canada has done to benefit the world. Everything in this expansion is named after an album, piece, or movement created by the band. This includes some split piles which combine some obviously related music. You'll also see that I haven't put art on every card yet because this is audio art, not visual art, and it's not clear what to put as the card art without simply abusing the ability of AI to generate art for me. (I have been attempting to avoid having text in the art, and I've been prioritizing fine art over photography when possible.) I was lucky enough to find a few pieces of fanart. I've also included some references and Easter eggs.
In this expansion, in addition to the new mechanic of building up a resource over multiple turns, I wanted to explore a few effect combos that would be virtually impossible for official cards and try some interesting things with split piles, some strange Attacks, and some far-from-trivial decisions. There is also a sub-theme of Nights and Durations, found in at least 10 piles each. A lot of these cards have a lot of words on them, but I don't think it's particularly complicated except for the split piles, and maybe you just want to choose not to play with them. My goal is always to design cards in a way that they can be used in a completely random Kingdom and will not encourage buying that card in every game. This expansion makes use of the Tavern mat (from Adventures), [$VP]VP tokens (from Prosperity or Empires), the Exile mat (from Menagerie), the Coffers & Villagers mat (from Renaissance), and the Ruins (from Dark Ages), but you can use whatever substitute you have at home. It also requires the Potions (from Alchemy) and the Boons and Will-o'-Wisps (from Nocturne) [and Omens and associated components (from Rising Sun)], or you can exclude the cards [and Prophecies] that utilize them.
In small groups, I'll show the image versions, followed by the text versions, then give a brief explanation if required. Before that, let me explain the main mechanic of this set. There is a unique icon for a new vanilla bonus, discs. When you get +discs, you put that many tokens on a separate mat just for them, just like the Coffers, Villagers, and other things, and you likewise leave them there until you use them. Unlike Coffers and Villagers, however, you don't choose when to use them. At the start of your turn, if you have at least 7 discs, you pay 7 discs and get +1 Card. It's a pretty weak bonus, and I would be open to changing how many you need. The important part is that it happens at the start of your turn, so you don't have to worry about timing it in the middle of your turn by playing cards in a particular tactical order, but also remember to choose what order you do things if you have multiple effects happen at the same time, so if you have a card give you +discs at the start of your turn, you can choose whether you want to draw the card first, just in case it matters. Right now, the way the discs work is that they automatically happen, and you draw as many cards as you have multiple of 7 discs, but it might be meaningful to have it change to be a one-time check at the start of your turn and you only get to draw one card from discs per turn. I'm not convinced that's the right way to do this, but I'd be happy to hear some thoughts. Let's look at an example.
Quote
Working ManHere you can turn in a basic resource for it's stockpiling counterpart. Note that this is after your Buy phase, so you will need a leftover [$] to get the +1 Coffers, you need to have not used all your Actions during your Action phase, and you probably have some leftover cards in your hand for the +⊗, but it is the weakest one. Do note that "lose 1 Action" is not referring to Action cards, but the Action resource you get from +Actions. Official cards sometimes say "Action" or sometimes "Action play" and maybe something else I'm not remembering right now.
Night | [$5]
"You may pay [$1] for +1 Coffers.
You may lose 1 Action for +1 Villager.
You may discard a card for +1⊗.
-
This is gained to your hand.
Quote
By-Tor / The SnowdogBy-Tor is a choice of a once-per-turn Laboratory (with +⊗⊗) or a combo of weak Watchtower and weak Throne Room. It probably doesn't matter that another player will probably play a duplicate card at least every turn, but maybe it could be reworded to just be a regular choice card instead of a Reaction effect, but it's nice when cards depicting a dog are Reactions.
Action-Reaction / Night-Reaction | [$3]/[$4]
[By-Tor:] "Draw until you have 5 cards in hand. Play an Action card from your hand twice (or reveal you can't). Return it to its pile.
-
When any player plays a card he has another copy of in play, you may discard this for +⊗⊗ and draw until you have 6 cards in hand."
[The Snowdog:] "+1[$VP] per 2 copies of the Action card you have the most copies of in play. Exile one.
-
When you draw a card on another player's turn, you may reveal this and put it onto your deck for +1[$VP] and Exile a Gold from the Supply."
Fly by Night
Night | [$2]
"Choose a card you have in play.
+⊗ per copy of it you have in play.
Gain a copy of it onto your deck."
Rivendell
Action-Reserve-Fate | [$2][$P]
"+⊗
Put this on your Tavern mat.
-
When the first card you play on your turn is a Treasure, you may call this to discard 3 Boons, revealed, and receive 2 of them that you choose."
The Snowdog is likewise a Reaction, but the Reaction part is definitely not as likely unless you use By-Tor's Reaction. That's the cool split pile interaction. The top will let you get multiple +[$VP] at a time, but you'll have to get your stuff back somehow, while the bottom is +1[$VP] at a time, but gets you free Gold in the near future.
Fly by Night is all about duplicates, giving you +⊗ for duplicates and enabling itself for the future. The +⊗ probably isn't strong enough for you to choose Copper and junk yourself, so the cost being low doesn't matter since it's not going to be too strong in the opening.
Rivendell waits until you don't have any good cards to play and then gives you some nice stuff as a booby prize. I do wonder if it's worth anything to try big money like this. It's nearly impossible to play a Treasure first and then get around to playing Actions and other good stuff, but I know there are ways.
Quote
Lakeside ParkI wonder if Lakeside Park should also discard your deck to bump up how many +⊗ you get.
Action | [$4]
"Gain a Silver to your hand.
Reveal any number of Silvers from your discard pile for +⊗ each."
The Necromancer
Night-Reserve / Action-Duration-Shadow / Action-Reaction | [$P] / [$1][$P] / [$2][$P]
[I:] "Discard a card to reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Gain a Treasure card costing up to [$3] per Reaction and Reserve card revealed.
Put this on your Tavern mat.
-
When you gain a card on another player's turn, you may call this to put it into your hand."
[II:] "+1 Action
Now and at the start of your next turn:
+⊗. Draw until you have 6 cards in hand. You may trash a card from your hand. Discard down to 4 cards in hand.
-
You can play this from your deck as if in your hand."
[III:] "You may discard 3 cards. If you did, +⊗⊗, play an Action card from your hand 3 times, return it to its pile, and draw until you have one card in hand per [$1] it costs.
-
When another player gains a Province, you may discard this for +3 Cards and +⊗⊗⊗."
The Fountain of Lamneth
Action | [$5]
"+1 Action
+⊗
Choose one per ⊗ you have:
+1 Card,
+1 Action,
+1⊗,
discard a card for +[$2],
trash up to 2 cards from your hand,
Exile a card from your hand costing [$6] or more for +1[$VP]."
The Necromancer is a split pile with 3 different cards in it; that's pretty unique. Into Darkness is a Night card because it wants you to have something left in your hand to discard and do the ability. It may need reworded to be clear that the Reserve effect puts the gained card into your hand and not itself. Under the Shadow definitely wants to be played as a Shadow, otherwise it's guaranteed to miss the shuffle. (Shadows are all virtually guaranteed, but this one is also a Duration, so it bridges that last degree into guaranteed.) I'm sure there's going to be a moment where you have something obvious to trash. There's a subtheme here that's obvious after you read Return of the Prince where the first asks you to discard a card, the second asks you to discard 2, and the third asks you to discard 3. Return of the Prince is a King's Court with a cost, but sometimes it's a triple Laboratory. There's some cool lore connection here if you're familiar with the identity of the prince. Me not coming up with any art yet makes it a bit more obscure.
For The Fountain of Lamneth, remember that you do the choices in the order that they're printed, so you can get +1 Card before you do any of the discarding, trashing, or Exiling, but also remember that you have to make all of your choices before you start doing any of them, so you might be gambling that you draw something you'd like to discard/trash/Exile. This idea is really why I chose the discs to build to 7 before paying off.
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2112I'm thinking this one is a little bit overpriced. I wonder if it should also come bundled with a Gold when you get it like Skulk does to go with the effect that checks for Gold.
Action-Gathering | [$5*]
"Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put 2 of them into your hand and discard the rest. If you...
Revealed any Victory cards, +⊗ each.
Discarded any Golds, take 1[$VP] from the 2112 pile.
Put any Coppers into your hand, add 1[$VP] to the pile.
-
You can't buy this if you have any Coppers in play."
Quote
A Farewell to KingsI don't remember exactly what I was doing with A Farewell to Kings; at the moment, it looks strictly better than Throne Room, so I don't remember what the deal is.
Action | [$4]
"Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal an Action card. Discard the others and play it. Play it again per empty Supply pile. +1⊗ per type it has. When you discard it from play, you may put it onto your deck."
Xanadu
Action-Duration | [$5]
"At the start of your next turn, +1 Buy and +2⊗.
Until then, when you would get any [$], you get +Coffers instead."
Closer to the Heart
Event | [$3]
"This turn, instead of drawing a normal hand, choose one:
+3 Cards per 2 Coppers in play.
+2 Cards per copy of one Action card you have in play.
+1 Card per card you have exactly one copy of in play.
+6 Cards."
Cygnus X-1
Action-Duration / Action-Duration-Attack | [$4] / [$5]
[I:] "+[$3]
The next time you shuffle your deck, pick one of the cards to go on top, +⊗⊗⊗, and return this to its pile."
[II:] "You may trash a Copper from your hand to gain a card costing up to [$4].
At the start of your next turn, each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.
Until then, if you discard any Action cards other than during Clean-up, you may reveal them for +2 Cards each, and when any player trashes a card or returns one to its pile, +1[$VP].
Xanadu should be clear. I tried to match the wording on Way of the Chameleon.
Closer to the Heart is a little bit wordy, and might even be fine without the fourth option, because the fourth option would then be to not buy it.
The Voyage may want to be cheaper; that'd make it easier to get to the bottom half of the split pile. Would it have to be less than +[$3] to be cheaper, or is it fine because it's a one-shot? What would the cost of Spoils be if it weren't a [$0]? Hemispheres may be good enough without the effect of converting Coppers. Hard to say. It’s trying to interact with its own ability and The Voyage.
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CircumstancesI figure counting Copper would just always be more Treasures than Actions in the early game, so the decision would be completely trivial until the late game if I didn't add that to Circumstances.
Event | [$5]
"Excluding Copper, if you have more Treasure cards in play than other cards, gain a Gold.
Otherwise, gain 2 cards each costing up to $4."
The Trees
Action / Treasure | [$2] / [$4]
[I:] "+2 Cards
+1 Buy
+⊗
This turn, +[$1] for every card on top of your deck you look at or reveal."
[II:] "Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Play the Treasures. Discard the rest.
If you have any cards in play costing [$2], trash this and you may gain a Silver."
La Villa Strangiato
Action-Duration | [$5]
"+1 Action
At the start of your next turn, you may trash a card from your hand for +1 Card and +⊗⊗.
Until then, Actions you play are played twice each, but ignore any instruction text on Actions you play except +X texts and symbols."
There may be a wording problem with The Maples, but maybe it's fine. If you look at the same card multiple times, does this wording give you +[$] every time you looked or just the first time for each card? If you rearrange them and look again, is it possible to track that? The correct effect clearly should be each card there and each time you look at it, but I'm not sure the wording reflects that. I'm also wondering if I can change the interaction with [$2]s on The Oaks without losing the theme; actually, maybe it should turn into a Gold instead of a Silver, given that it's the bottom card of a split pile. That might be both good and interesting.
La Villa Strangiato is probably clear as mud. There's probably a wording complaint somewhere about "Actions you play are played twice each." The rest is probably the confusing part, though. Let's use this card as an example: play LVS from your hand the first time, get the +1 Action and you'll get the rest later; play another copy of LVS from your hand, get +1 Action, ignore any words up to +1 Card, ignore "and" and move on to +⊗⊗, then the first LVS makes you play the second LVS a second time, so you get +1 Action, +1 Card, and +⊗⊗ again; if you don't play anything else this turn, at the start of your next turn, you'll trash any one card from your hand, get +1 Card and +⊗⊗ -- in total, you ended your Action phase on the first turn with the same number of cards you started with, with one more action play than you started with, and four more ⊗ than you started with, then trashed one card, drew one card, and got two ⊗ when the following turn started. Some other examples: Merchant, Poacher, and Ironworks become purely vanilla Peddlers; Moneylender becomes terminal Gold; Baron becomes +1 Buy and +[$4]; Conspirator and Mill become Double Peddler; Nobles becomes +3 Cards and +2 Actions; Pawn becomes Market. On top of that, all of those things are automatically Throned. On the other hand, some cards become nothing; here's a list of those nothings from Base and Intrigue: Artisan, Bandit, Bureaucrat, Chapel, Library, Mine, Remodel, Throne Room, Workshop, Replace, Trading Post. A lot of things will become Ruined Village, like Lurker, but some things will lose their downsides, like Council Room, and then get automatically Throned, so even Ruined Village isn't completely terrible. I haven’t done any calculations, but there’s a non-zero chance that this card is an auto-buy in every game; I’d be a bit sad, but this effect is super cool, and I’d like to keep it around even if I have to do some jank stuff or give it a crazy cost.
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The Spirit of RadioThe Spirit of Radio surely doesn't need the Command type and associated shenanigans, because your opponent isn't going to simply choose an infinite turn for you, right? Also, an empty pile doesn't count as a card in the Supply, so you might try emptying the pile of a weaker [$3] to give yourself better options. If the whole Kingdom is [$5]s and this, you might go for this as an opener, but I'm alright with that being the condition that makes this insanely good.
Action-Duration | [$3]
"+⊗⊗
At the start of your next turn, the player to your left chooses 2 non-Duration Action cards in the Supply costing between [$3] and [$6]. Play one of them that you choose, leaving it there."
Freewill
Action | [$3]
"+1 Action
+[$2]
The player to your right looks at the top 4 cards of your deck and puts them back in any order.
Choose one: trash the top card of your deck and +⊗ per [$1] it costs or +1 Card and discard 2 cards."
Jacob's Ladder
Treasure | [$3]
"⊗⊗⊗
+1 Buy
Each player may discard 3 cards. If you did, gain and play a Gold. Each other player who did may gain a card costing up to $4 to his hand."
Natural Science
Action-Duration | [$2][$P]
"+1 Card
+1 Action
Discard 2 cards, revealed.
If they have the same name, +[$2] and +⊗⊗.
At the start of your next turn, +2 Cards."
You might just want Silver over Freewill, but you might just want to trash stuff regardless of what it is; if you're in a slog, both options are probably good, though. The deck might be stacked against you, but you still have the free will to make your own decisions. I think this is a great non-Attack interaction.
Jacob's Ladder is like The Sky's Gift with some acceleration and the other players get to ride your tailwind. I think the text is clear.
Natural Science is some sort of cross between Mill and Tide Pools. The text should be clear.
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Tom SawyerThe first thing that comes to mind when looking at Tom Sawyer is Sage, and maybe there's an argument that this needs to be a [$4], but the lack of +Action on Moat is a significant difference from Laboratory, so getting an extra card is probably offset by that, and the Attack is fairly minor, only being able to interact with the other players' cards if they cost exactly [$3].
Action-Attack | [$3]
"+⊗
Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal one costing [$3]. Put it and one other revealed card into your hand and discard the rest.
Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes a copy of it, and discards the rest."
Red Barchetta
Action-Night | [$4]
"If it's your Action phase, +2 Cards, +1 Action, +⊗, and discard 2 cards.
Otherwise, if you have only one copy in play of every card you have in play, gain a Gold."
-.-- -.-- --.. (YYZ)
Event | [$2]
"The player to your left discards the top 2 cards of his deck, revealed. Gain a copy of a revealed Treasure."
Limelight
Action | [$4]
"If you have the Spotlight, gain a card costing up to [$5]. Otherwise, gain a card costing up to [$4].
Take the Spotlight.
-
When you trash this, +2 Villagers."QuoteSpotlight
Artifact
"At the start of your turn, +1 Action."
The Camera Eye
Night-Duration-Attack | [$5]
"Gain a copy of a card you have in play.
At the start of your next turn, trash a card from your hand per empty Supply pile and +⊗ per [$1] the trashed cards cost, then each other player chooses one: discard 3 cards and draw until he has 3 cards in hand, discard a card that you choose.
Until then all players play with his hand revealed."
Fear
Action-Fear / Action-Duration-Attack-Fear / Action-Reserve-Fear / Night-Duration-Attack-Fear | [$3] / [$4] / [$5] / [$6]
[I:] "+1 Action
You may discard an Action card for +1 Buy and +[$3].
You may rotate the Fear pile."
[II:] "Gain a card costing up to [$4].
Each other player with at least 4 cards in hand discards an Action card (or reveals he can't).
At the start of your next turn, +[$2] and +⊗⊗."
[III:] "+2 Cards
Look at the top 4 cards of your deck. Trash any number of them. Put the rest back on top in any order.
Put this on your Tavern mat.
-
At the start of your turn, you may call this to discard an Action card. +1 Villager per [$1] it costs."
[IV:] "Exile a non-Duration card you have in play.
At the start of your next turn, the player to your right chooses a card you have in Exile. +[$1]⊗ per [$1] it costs.
Until then, each other player cannot call Reserve cards and has any effects that would happen at the start of his turn delayed until his following turn."
Vital Signs
Action-Duration-Attack | [$5]
"At the start of your next turn, +[$3].
Until then, when each other player would get +Cards from a card he plays, he gets +⊗ instead."
Red Barchetta works the same way as Werewolf. You get the effect based on when you play it, so there isn't really anything to choose when you play the card, but there are lots of decisions every turn if you have this card in your deck and think you might want a Gold. I think it's a pretty good way to get early Gold, too, by opening with this and just playing either nothing or only one Copper and one Silver, so you get either a guaranteed Gold or a Gold with a [$3] on turn 3/4. I wanted to keep the wording short, but it might be the wrong wording to say "if each card you have in play is the only copy." I think that's clear, even if it's technically improper. Like, how much better is it really if you add "of it you have in play" onto that clause?
YYY seems perfectly clear to me. Reading it now, it probably wants a +1 Buy on there, and it might even want +⊗, as well.
Limelight is one of only two Kingdom piles that don't have the ⊗ on it, which is probably fine. I could easily slap it on the Spotlight, though, if I decided every single pile should have it, and there must be a way to not screw up the only other one by adding it. None of the landscapes have it, though, so I'm thinking it's not worth it. Anyway, I think it's possible that it should have "Either way, take the Spotlight" instead, but I don't think it'll matter if somebody who has the Spotlight is unsure about whether they're supposed to take the Spotlight -- they already have it!
The Camera Eye specifies "each other player" for the middle part and "all players" for the last part, so the person who plays this card also plays with his hand revealed, not just the other players. This also has a bit of Moat tracking built in, because somebody who uses a Moat will not have his hand revealed for the whole round until the start of your next turn when the handsize Attack happens. The hand is also already revealed for you to publicly choose a card if that option happens.
The Enemy Within and The Weapon should require no clarification. I almost want to say the same for Witch Hunt, because it should be obvious that the antecedent of "it" is "Action card" and not "this." Finally, Freeze has the player to your right choose so you can't use this for both storing junk and for payload; maybe that doesn' t matter because this is the bottom card of the split pile, but you can get there relatively early by rotating the pile with The Enemy Within, so it's probably interesting. The really interesting effect is the last bit, where everything is delayed an extra turn -- it's possible I need to reword it to "one additional turn," though, because I don't know whether it will just lead to Duration cards never finishing if two players both play a copy of this. The "until then" effects are still waiting until that thing happens, so this effect would just keep extending the delay turn after turn, right? The conclusion isn't completely forming in my mind; I prefer to have discussions about this type of thing.
Comparing to Way of the Chameleon, Vital Signs can probably leave off the "that many" clarification, but I don't see a problem with this and it seems clear to me. I did think it'd be necessary to include the "from a card" part because it would otherwise completely destroy the purpose of +⊗ by making you never draw cards, and I think you actually wouldn't get to draw a hand during Clean-up, but I'm not totally sure; the first reason is enough to have it, but the second one is a weird idea that might be confusing when people play it.
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SubdivisionsWhen we look at Subdivisions, it's easy to think that you usually will have [$0] left after buying, but it's not guaranteed, especially after you reach a certain skill level and don't mind not spending all your [$]. With this, you might actually consider turning your [$] into draw instead, like what Storyteller does. Subdivisions gives you a Villager instead of replacing the card you played from your hand like Storyteller, and doesn't cost an Action to play, so doesn't need to replace the Action like Storyteller does. There's a lot of stuff you can do with this, but the wording seems clear to me. The handsize Attack is going to be fairly minor, because there's a decent chance of having a Copper to return, or you might even structure your deck around not getting [$4]s or [$6]s; in the endgame, you might end up putting a Province or Estate on top as though somebody had played a Bureaucrat, but that's certainly not the end of the world.
Night-Attack | [$5]
"+1 Villager
+⊗⊗
If you have an even number of [$], each other player puts a card with an even [$] cost from his hand on to his deck (or reveals he can't).
Otherwise, pay all of your [$] for +1 Card per [$1] you paid and return to your Action phase."
(Signals Theory) The Analog Kid / Digital Man / New World Man
Treasure-Reserve / Action-Attack / Action-Duration-Attack | [$3] / [$4] / [$5]
[I:] "[$2]⊗
+1 Buy
Put this on your Tavern mat.
-
When you gain a card you didn't buy, you may call this for +1 Card."
[II:] "Each other player...+2 Cards
- Reveals the top 3 cards of his deck.
- Gains a Copper if he revealed 4 types or fewer.
- Chooses one revealed card that you don't choose for you to gain onto your deck.
+1 Action"
[III:] "You may return a card from your hand to its pile. If you did, +2 Cards, +1 Action, and the player to your right makes decisions this turn for all card instructions. Either way, at the start of your next turn, +[$3], and until then, you make decisions for all card instructions on each other player's turns."
Another split pile with three cards in it, this one is called "Signals Theory" because it doesn't have an official name, and the three things that comprise it are only speculated to be related. A lore drop for you; I haven't been giving the lore for every card like I did and will resume with the video game IP.
The clause checking for buying could possibly be different. No official card says "didn't buy," and Haggler and Hoard phrase the condition differently, but this wording matches a negation of the wording on Haunted Woods and Swamp Hag. (All four examples considering the current rules updates and errata.) Digital Man is a Laboratory with an Attack and a hefty drawback, but the wording is considerably obscure; when you play this, the other players do one or two things, you do one thing, the other players do one more thing, and you do one more thing before doing the Laboratory effect. The punctuation might need changed, and it may need to be clearer who is choosing what. First, other players reveal. Second, other players check whether they gain a Copper. Third, you choose one of the three cards revealed. Fourth, other players choose one of the three revealed cards that you didn't choose. Fifth, you gain everything chosen by the other players onto your deck. Sixth, you get your +2 Cards and +1 Action. Tell me if I'm wrong about this, but I think you technically get to choose the order that you gain the cards onto your deck when there are multiple players affected by this because all the choosing and gaining happens at the same time, and you get to choose the order of effects that happen at the same time. I think that's different from something like "and put them back in any order" because things that you're putting back haven't moved, but gaining a card moves it; Develop probably specifies "in either order" because it's technically listing two things for you to do, so you would have to do them in the listed order if that clarification weren't there, in the same way you have to do choices from a "choose two" in the order that they're listed, but this says "each other player chooses one for you to gain," clearly not defining an order. It's not borne out in the wording, but each other player should by default be only choosing from the cards he revealed, so it naturally requires you to choose one of that player's revealed cards for him to not choose; it probably could be worded more precisely, but I'm fine with the level of precision here considering the amount of instruction I fit into the text. Finally, New World Man has this strange Attack effect on it. There's a bit of a parallel to Possession, but the controlling player doesn't get to see your hand here, so you might choose not to play cards that he can abuse to your detriment; that's why it specifies "for all card instructions." It may not mechanically matter, but I believe one New World Man overrides the previous New World Man when deciding who is actually making decisions, because it's theoretically going to be the worst decision for that player regardless of which opponent is making the decisions for him. It's possible that there's some kingmaking possible here, but I think it'd be best to define in the theoretical rulebook that only the most recent New World Man gets to make the decisions. For example, if Alice plays NWM, she gets to decide whether Bob returns a card from his hand to its pile when Bob plays a NWM, but Bob gets to make the decisions for Carol on her turn, not Alice. If Bob were to not play his NWM, but Alice did, Alice would be making the decisions for Carol when she plays her NWM, because Alice is making decisions for each other player, even when Carol's NWM says Bob is making her decisions, Alice is making Bob's decisions, so Alice is deciding what Bob is deciding for Carol. I'm sure that was perfectly clear and I expect there to be absolutely no questions about how this works ever. What's not clear was why anybody would choose to return a card to its pile with the huge drawback if they're not forced to. I can't remember if I wanted that decision on there specifically because people are making decisions for each other or if this is just a typo and it should be a Double Laboratory, because I don't think I'd be happy to choose the combination of Laboratory + trash/return a card + relinquish my free will, but I bet I'd do it almost every time for a Double Laboratory; being the bottom card of three cards in this pile and no card to rotate them, I think Double Laboratory with a penalty would be perfectly fine, even with the Attack on top of that. Stables and Forum are both a reasonable Double Laboratory with a penalty, and they both don’t let you keep all of your cards, so I think this is comparable.
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Distant Early WarningI didn't notice until writing this that I split up the effects of Death Cart onto these two cards, giving yourself Ruins and getting +[$5]. Neat.
Action-Duration | [$4]
"Put a token on this card for each card in the Province pile.
While any tokens remain, at the start of your turn, remove a token and +⊗.
When you remove the last token, +[$5]."
Red Sector ℵ (Red Sector A)
Night-Attack-Looter | [$5]
"Gain a Gold and a Ruins.
Each other player reveals cards from the top of his deck until he reveals an Action or Night card. If it's a Night card, he puts it into his hand. Otherwise, he Exiles it.
+⊗⊗⊗ if any Night cards were revealed."
The tokens for Distant Early Warning are generic tokens. The tokens don't do anything other than count down this effect. They aren't any of the tokens from Adventures that make the cards do other stuff. I personally would use the coin tokens used for things like Coffers, Villagers, Trade Route, and Pirate Ship, but you can use anything you have handy; you might even use an eight-sided die or a couple of six-sided dice or a twelve-sided die. You probably want to use the same thing you're using for the ⊗, though, because you can just move them from DEW to your ⊗ "mat" and save yourself a step and a component.
Red Sector A should be clear. The letter I used in place of "A" in the card name is just for funsies.
Quote
The Big MoneyThe Big Money is the second of only two cards that don't have ⊗ on them. It might be a bit weak for [$5], but blah blah can't all be the best [$5]. I do have the luxury of fixing them, though, if somebody has an idea or if I do.
Treasure-Duration | [$5]
"[$1]
You may play a Treasure from your hand twice.
If you do, at the start of your next turn, discard an Action card (or reveal you can't). +1 Card per [$2] it costs."
Manhattan Project
Action-Duration | [$4]
"+⊗
Trash a card from your hand. +1 Card and +1 Action per [$2] it costs. If it costs [$2] or less, Exile this. Otherwise, play this again at the start of your next turn."
Mystic Rhythms
Action | [$2]
"The player to your left reveals his hand. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put the cards your opponent did not reveal back on top in any order and discard the rest. +[$1] and +⊗ per card you put back."
Manhattan Project probably wants to have better line returns. The "if" referred to by the "otherwise" is somewhat obscured by the preceding sentence and the lack of symmetry. If I make any modifications to this one, I'll also want to fix it so that it's obvious that the "otherwise" is referring to the scenario where the trashed card doesn't cost [$2] or less. I think trashing a [$4] as a drawback to a cheap Lost City is reasonable. I like the idea of thinking about burning Gold for +3 Cards and +3 Actions, and even the thought of throwing your Peddlers to work in the secrecy of the desert sands. How many turns in a row can you keep the generators going? Further than that, when you do Exile it, are you willing to double down on the project?
Mystic Rhythms is probably unclear at first, but I think it makes sense that you're not "putting back" the cards from your opponents hand onto your deck. Maybe it's not clear, but I'm here to tell you that it's perfectly clear, and that the player to your left is doing nothing but revealing his hand. Maybe there's a sensible wording that checks for matches.
Quote
Force 10 (Force Ten)Force 10 should be clear.
Prophecy
"At the start of your turn, discard 2 cards, then +1 Card."
Time Stand Still
Event | [$4]
"During Clean-up this turn, if you didn't gain any Victory cards this turn, any cards that you would discard, put onto your deck in a random order instead."
On Time Stand Still, where it says the cards should be in a random order, you shuffle just the cards that you would discard all together and put that group on top of your deck. You don't add in any cards that were already in your deck or that were in your discard pile. Any Shadow cards get shuffled, too, but you can check your deck after you finish to turn them sideways like the Rising Sun rulebook says.
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Roll the BonesI combined three groups with only one card each into one group. Don't tell anyone.
Night-Duration-Fate | [$5]
"+⊗⊗
At the start of your next turn, pick a natural number. Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal an Action card. Put it into your hand and discard the rest. If it costs at least as many [$], receive as many Boons as the number you picked."
Feedback
Project | [$7]
"At the start of your turn, discard a card. If you do, the player to your left discards the top card of his deck. Play it, leaving it there."
Hope
Prophecy
"At the start of your turn, reveal your hand. If you didn't reveal an Attack card, gain a copy of a non-Victory card you revealed."
On Roll the Bones, a natural number is sometimes called a "counting number." I think most people will get it just by the language and the connotation of the word "natural," but it also works on a technical level to exclude things like zero and negative numbers, things that are between the numbers that make mechanical sense in a game like this such as a half or pi or square roots of numbers that aren't squares, and things that don't fall on the number line, analogous as they may be to potions and debt. It's pretty important, though, because what would it mean to receive a negative number of Boons or a half a Boon? (I've seen this mechanic in the game Istanbul. It's cool and feels meaningful in that game. I think I've seen some fan cards that have you roll a six-sided die to see which effect you get, and I considered doing that, but I couldn't find a moment of inspiration and went with this more bid-style gamble.)
For Feedback, there's a slight gamble that your hand ends up being four cards instead of five, but you at least get the best four of five, and you have a decent chance of having split Actions right off the bat. Remember that "playing" a card means following its instructions from top to bottom, so even playing things that you normally can't play are technically accounted for in the rulebook by that rule. Things like Curse and Estate simply have no instructions, so you are done following their instructions as soon as you play them.
Hope should be clear. The wording, that is, not the strategy.
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Clockwork AngelsClockwork Angels includes a different way to use ⊗. In addition to the normal exchange rate of seven for +1 Card, you can also turn in one for a discount when you play this card. Any ⊗ that you spend for one purpose can't also be spent for the other.
Action | [$3]
"Choose one: +1 Card and +1 Action and +⊗⊗, discard a card to gain a card costing up to [$4], or spend ⊗ to have all cards cost [$1] less this turn."
Candide's Garden
Action-Duration-Victory | [$5]
"+1 Action
The next time you spend any ⊗, gain a Gold to your hand.
Until then, +⊗ at the end of your Clean-up phase.
-
Worth 1[$VP] per 3 Golds you have (round down)."
For Candide's Garden, the normal method of spending ⊗ or the special one from Clockwork Angels will activate the Duration effect. I'm not sure if it matters that the +⊗ happens at the end of Clean-up instead of some other time like the beginning of Clean-up.
Well, that's the expansion. I kept most of the secrets and themes as an exercise for the listener. Any feedback is welcome. Did you think any of the ideas were interesting? Did you hate it? Are they too complex for your taste? Have some art for the ones I haven't gotten to yet? Thanks so much for showing some interest.
Debt tokens (from Empires or Rising Sun), Coffers and Villagers tokens and mats (from Guilds or Renaissance), 
VP tokens (from Prosperity or Empires), the Exile mat (from Menagerie), and Project markers (from Renaissance), but you can use whatever substitute you have at home. It also requires Potions (from Alchemy), various officially published Heirlooms and States and Wishes and Will-o'-Wisps (from Nocturne), Loot (from Plunder), [and Liaisons and associated components (from Allies)], or you can exclude the cards [and Ally] that utilize them.
-cost card into account; if I decide I don't want there to be one small and one big effect, they might not be a 
+ like Ranger and Giant, though.
discount should be enough incentive while the good stuff is still there. 
, 
. I tried them all costing 
more each, but they were not that powerful and would be far too complicated to make stronger. They're already so complicated 
or 
, which seems right for a Journey token card costing 
effect and that was easy to figure out.) The rest is pretty clear. I tried to match the wording from Scheme-likes for Sea Frog, but it's surprisingly inconsistent.
. It's thematic and it also might be good to hide non-terminal Curser behind Potion. It's really only a Night card to make that interaction with the Heirloom a little bit more straightforward. Speaking of which, this is the first one that has an Heirloom, and you can see that it's one of the official Heirlooms. There are a couple more, and all of them are official Heirlooms. Do you think Tinkerbats make it easier to get the Wishes or harder, being a Duration?
if not part of a split pile.
/
to a Supply pile. (A player takes the 
or 
