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Messages - Dsell

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1
Other Games / Re: Slay the Spire
« on: January 20, 2021, 06:25:17 pm »
I can't believe I was 3 years late to this game.

Been playing it at every opportunity since getting it a couple weeks back. The satisfying deckbuilding feels enough like Dominion that I'm thinking about my Dominion days a lot lately!

2
General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« on: July 22, 2019, 12:59:07 am »
I asked if he was on the forums, and he said his name was DSell.

I had so so so so so much fun this weekend. This was one of my first few cons, and meeting/playing games with Kuildeous and his wife was one of the very best highlights!!

3
General Discussion / Re: RPG Party Puzzles
« on: July 19, 2019, 08:25:22 pm »
Really nice job!! You got them both perfectly. :D

4
Other Games / Re: Escape the Room
« on: June 27, 2019, 12:39:10 pm »
I work for an escape room company doing marketing! Tomorrow's actually my last day. But anyway, I'm an enthusiast. I've done 19 rooms, mostly around Oklahoma where I live. It's not a cheap hobby, and you gotta get friends to do it, but I love it. My favorite rooms are immersive, have good stories, and obviously clever puzzles are a must. Once you've played a lot of rooms (and worked in the industry), you start to see a lot of common puzzles and design elements, but the industry is still young and lots of rooms still manage to surprise me.

If you haven't tried an in-person escape room, it's a really fun experience for most tabletop gamers!

5
General Discussion / Re: Drinking
« on: June 20, 2019, 11:56:29 pm »
Lately I've been really into amaretto + ginger ale + lime. I should really give the drink a name, it's amazing.

6
General Discussion / Re: TV shows
« on: June 20, 2019, 04:44:08 pm »
My boyfriend and I just caught up on Barry and I think it does an incredible job of blending comedy, drama, and action. I've never seen a show do it that well. It has tons of laugh-out-loud moments and almost as many seriously intense action sequences. (And it's impossible not to love a character like NoHo Hank)

7
General Discussion / RPG Party Puzzles
« on: June 20, 2019, 04:39:03 pm »
For the last two years, I've been responsible for creating a "puzzle hunt" for a local board game convention. The hunt consists of various puzzles on posters scattered across the convention area, with a meta-puzzle on a handout given to con attendees. It's been great fun, and last year I came up with a puzzle that uses a party of RPG heroes to defeat a villain. This puzzle format has a lot of potential and I think f.ds folks might really enjoy it! (Puzzles are in attachments.)

Within these puzzles I tried to keep things relatively tame and easy - I don't want to waste hours or even too many minutes of con-goers time working on these puzzles, and I want them to be accessible to kids and people who aren't super into puzzles. But designing these has made me realize that this is a rich and fun medium for puzzles. There are a ton of variables to change - obviously damage & HP values, but also # of heroes, # of rounds, how the villain attacks, not to mention special characteristics of the heroes and villains. There's lots of room for red herrings and tricky interactions.

So if anyone else feels inspired by this and wants to make their own version (text-based, probably? Unless you're feeling fancy), this would be a great place to share them!

Slightly-harder mode for these puzzles is to figure out the full order (though you probably have to do that anyway to confirm your answer)
Solutions:
Dragon: Shiva       
Vampire: Psysmic   

Finally, if you'll be at TokenCon 2019 in OKC, you'll see the vampire puzzle there! :D

Edit: If people are on mobile and it's easier to see this online, here are imgur links:
Dragon puzzle: https://imgur.com/D21ByfI
Vampire puzzle: https://imgur.com/MUkXqMZ

8
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: February 12, 2019, 10:03:40 pm »
Hey! Sorry to interject. I love following this thread and occasionally submitting when I have a good idea, but I am not on the forum all the time and sometimes fall a little behind. With the popularity of this thread, and especially as the number of contests grows, it can get a little unruly to find exactly what the current contest is/where the entries for this week start.

Is it possible to have a mod edit the first post periodically with info about the current contest, and maybe a list of all prior contests, the winning card from each, and ideally a link to the post where the cards were judged? Idk how feasible all that is, especially since the OP wasn't a mod. Perhaps moving this to a child board could help? Not sure of the best way to do this, but I think it could be really helpful!

9
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion for College
« on: January 23, 2019, 11:29:35 am »
Enjoy. I got into Dominion in college and played with 3 friends every single day, several times a day for one semester. We started with just the base set, then got Prosperity and then Intrigue. We started playing on Isotropic that semester too so we could chew through even more games. Over the next couple years I continued gaming with that same group, and while the games we played diversified, Dominion was always at the core.

One of the greatest things about that time is that we all learned the game together so there was a lot of competition and innovation as we all discovered new strategies. It sounds like you'll be coming in as the expert, so unless you meet up with some other experienced gamers, I'd recommend easing people into the game instead of tossing them into the deep end with all of the cards and all of the strats and hoping they can swim.

That was a great time in my life, and I'm still close with all of my Dominion buddies. I wish you all the best!

10
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: January 15, 2019, 03:40:48 pm »
There were a lot of interesting cards in this contest, so I was looking back at them while reading your comments and noticed you said Cardsharp might be too strong. It can't be too strong for $4 because it's almost strictly worse than Militia (unless you consider gaining silver to be an attack). Opponents always have the choice of discarding down to three and gaining a silver.

I never liked Wild Hunt, but I think I like Hunter. It's pretty uncommon to be able to 'fix' a disliked official card by adding an attack... Note, the attack will probably also work like Vault much of the time.

I think my favorites (besides my own) are Criminal's Vault and Dark Acolyte.

You make such a good point about Cardsharp, and I feel dumb because I was trying to compare all of these to the most basic attacks they could possibly compare to, like Militia. I guess having so many options does make it much better for the person being attacked.

11
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: January 14, 2019, 08:49:52 pm »


Kinda miffed that this one is so similar to mine and it already has more upvotes...

Tbh I like the first half of Pawnbroker (upgrading from play) better but the second half of Dark Acolyte (opponents simply gaining a copy of the trashed card) better. While both of your cards would be very interesting to playtest, I would also be very interested in seeing the results of the combined top and bottom halves.

12
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: January 14, 2019, 08:42:42 pm »
Thanks to everyone who submitted! There were a lot of interesting entrants in a category that was pushing at one of the oft-criticized parts of Dominion - low interaction. Good stuff.

Food Eating Contest: Unless I'm missing something here, you would always make the opponent discard their card? Unless the winning card is the only one that's discarded, and you as the active player choose regardless. I feel like there is a really interesting nugget of an idea here, with "contests" and victory tokens as prizes, but this card isn't polished yet.

Rising Tide: I LOVE THIS NAME! A rising tide can raise all ships, but it can also flood your house. Very cool implications there. I can't really think of a card that compares to this, it's a *super* interesting concept of ebb and flow hand-management. However, I think it is too good for $4. With enough of these, some enablers, and some smart hand management, you can make everyone including yourself draw to 6 or more, then discard down to 3 later, pretty consistently. Maybe making the attack portion only happen once per turn, but even that can be abused. If there was any engine potential on the board, I see myself choosing this over militia every time. But there is something here, I would love to see this card iterated or tested.

Whirlwind: So I technically only wanted cards but I'll give some thoughts here too. :) I love the theme of this one as well, it's a turbulent action that leaves things disheveled, but it isn't a major interruption to the game. This seems really strong, I see myself trashing junk early game and cannibalizing good stuff late game all the time. But $1 just might be the right cost to pay for the privilege of doing all that. This seems really fun.

Landlord: I like this twist on the discarding attack. Discard one at max, if it's a victory card you get a nice bonus. That's cool. I'm slightly concerned that next to Militia, +2 Coffers is not strong enough when compared to $2 straight up. I am not the most experienced with coffers to make this judgement, but it seems to me like this falls on the weak side and needs a bonus. Maybe if they discard a victory card you also draw a card?

Night-Shift Counting House: This is such a weird-ass card and I love it! Another one where there are very few cards out there for me to compare it to. Scheme, but for your opponents? I love the implication of the frustrating bureaucratic red tape this Counting House puts the opponents though each turn, but it provides a real service if they can thin. This might end up actually being TOO good for opponents on a lot of boards, but if there's a real engine present on the board I'm not sure the NS Counting House would be the correct choice anyway.

Jailer: Another terrific and unique card. Their best card gets a time-out! Maybe misses the shuffle. Or gives them a really good turn - don't choose wrong. And just like it could give them a pretty great hand the turn after, yours is going to be great to with that delayed +3 cards. This is clean, thematic, and diving into interesting new design space. Great job.

Cardsharp: This is an interesting way to torture the opponent with a really nasty choice. Especially difficult if they know you *could* have more Cardsharps on the way on your turn. A part of me is inclined to say it's too powerful, because if they don't discard, it's only slightly worse than Mountebank. But if they've got junk anyway, they can mitigate the attack. If they've been junked a lot, they can really get a bonus. This card is funky to get my head around, but I think in a good way. The big downside to all this is that I could see it making games very sloggy - especially for newer players who might sacrifice practically their whole turn for that pretty shiny gold.

Cardinal: Feels strong. Slightly weaker on boards with shelters or ruinses or other cheap stuff you don't mind getting rid of. This also does get way weaker after curses run, as opponents can replace that copper with the next card in their deck. Overall, this would intimidate me on the table but I could see the balance working out. Solid card, and definitely fits the challenge well.

Hunter: This is so interesting and interactive. It makes a whole minigame of the pile! That makes it a little hard for me to envision exactly how it would play out, but I love every part of it so I'm guessing that the sum of those parts will be a very cool card. For my own clarification, are we putting literal victory tokens on the pile, and you can gain victory tokens by trashing the Hunter? (If so, that's really cool thematically too - collecting your prize.)

Criminal's Vault: This is simple and great, seems balanced, and is really interactive. I'm almost surprised that mandatory vaulting isn't already an attack in Dominion, it makes so much sense! Great design.

Vagabond: This feels pretty right on at $3. Not stackable, but very likely to either give you a nice bonus or harm the enemy decently. Can't build a deck around it, but as a night card it's not getting in the way of much either. It's a unique mini-payload option and I like it.

Pawnbroker: I like upgrading cards from play, I like upgrading cards from the trash, but I think the combination here does unfortunately make this pretty imbalanced beyond 2P. 2P is my jam tho so I'll look past it for now - I'd love to see this card in action. I can see really fun and punishing engines that involve turning my outdated engine components into tiny crises for my opponent to deal with.

Blackmailer: Another really interesting concept that creates a mini-game. I love these! Really interesting stuff happens as you acquire more of the pile too. If you are the only one with blackmailers, you can mark everything, and then as you stack these on your turn, your opponents are gonna have to discard a lot of actions. I suppose even if you're competing with others, this card is dangerous if the pile is gone and anyone is playing them in an engine.

Gallows: This is really good attack/interaction, but it doesn't feel right on a village to me. And having it cost exactly the same as Village doesn't feel quite right either, though it probably is technically the right cost. Maybe if the top-half was somehow more defensive against the bottom half I'd like it better.

Dark Acolyte: This is so intriguing because it is so obviously a remodel variant but it seems like it would play so differently. This card seems like it could either make games really slow and sloggy or sooo fast and aggressive, and I don't know what the right play would be more often. It doesn't feel quite right to have the same cost as remodel to me, but I recognize that it probably is correct. I'd be very interested to playtest this card, but I worry it would outclass remodel too much if they appeared together.

And the winner is.........JAILER! By Aquila! This card is straightforward but opens up really interesting strategic play, using an attack that's a little bit different than anything else we have out there.

Runners Up:
Rising Tide
Night-Shift Counting House
Hunter
Criminal's Vault
Dark Acolyte


Thanks again to everyone who submitted. I know this wasn't the easiest challenge but you all covered such interesting design space!

13
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: January 14, 2019, 11:23:47 am »
Really loving these submissions so far. I am planning to do judging in 8-ish hours, so get your submissions in! (There's a chance it might have to be more like 24 hours from now depending on how things shake out for me at work today.)

14
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: January 08, 2019, 05:35:32 pm »
I did say in the contest that it should be an attack card, and I was thinking of cards with the subtype attack. I think there is interesting design space for interactive and aggressive events, but for this contest I want to just keep it to cards.

15
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: January 07, 2019, 08:09:03 pm »
Sweet!! And I was up against some interesting competition.

My design challenge will be: Design an interactive attack card that has a meaningful chance of helping the opponent rather than hurting them.

Looking for attacks that could be interesting to play both with and against, or are weaker/riskier (but are still compelling to buy), or that introduce interesting new forms of interactivity into the game. Not so much attacks where you curse your luck if your opponent gets it first.

16
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: January 03, 2019, 11:09:37 am »
changed to witched town:


This is so, so much better than Familiar, for the same price. Workable concept for sure, but the balance needs to be fixed a lot.
[...]

Familiar spends Curses always when played, but Witched Town only when gained (mostly when bought; it is not an attack).
Putting trashed Curses to supply prevents a rush-strategy indeed ;) . In most cases you can use only the vanillas.
The theme ALCHEMY is difficult to expand.
The sense of Witched Town is to buy other poison cards. So it is attractive by itself and eventually other cards from ALCHEMY. You only need one Poison to start with.

I definitely misread that, and didn't realize it was on gain. That definitely makes it better, although a rush strategy would still be possible if there are no trashing cards on the board.

17
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: January 03, 2019, 02:40:54 am »
changed to witched town:


This is so, so much better than Familiar, for the same price. Workable concept for sure, but the balance needs to be fixed a lot.

Also I'm just not a big fan of all curses going from the trash to the supply. Lots more games become slogs as you face a literally never-ending pile of curses. Possibly fun to play, but pretty miserable to play against.

18
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: January 02, 2019, 08:40:57 pm »


I think this one has 3 unique expansion mechanics!

Change to +1 Villager (no s)

Ah, good catch, thank you! (Updated in original post)

19
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: January 02, 2019, 02:43:42 pm »


I think this one has 3 unique expansion mechanics!

Edit: changed 'Villagers' to 'Villager' per MrHiTech

20
General Discussion / Re: Movies: Any movie buffs?
« on: December 19, 2018, 05:27:01 pm »
I watched The Favourite last night and it is my favorite movie of 2018 (and there were a lot of strong contenders this year). It's deeply strange, but the acting, directing, and general aesthetic of the movie were all sublime.

21
Dominion FAQ / Re: Playing with 8P
« on: December 11, 2018, 01:08:28 pm »
If you're looking for a Dominion-like experience with 8 players, 7 Wonders with the Cities expansion is great. It's a different genre of game, but there's a similar level of strategy, no downtime between turns, and can be played in 30-40 minutes. Without Cities it goes up to 7 players.

Also, Cosmic Encounter can be played with 8 players if you have 3 specific expansions. It's amazing and fun and relatively strategic, but it's more complex, there can be more downtime with that many players, and it can take much longer (1-3 hours depending on a lot of factors).

22
Dominion General Discussion / Re: old cards that have gotten better
« on: November 22, 2018, 05:41:28 pm »
Mine got a lot better with Platinum and kingdom treasures, and now it's a pretty terrific combo with Capitalism.

It's almost inevitable that any card will find itself as part of more combos as Dominion continues to expand. But is Mine now better on a greater proportion of boards?

I think with the inclusion of kingdom treasures in several sets but not in base, the answer to this is almost definitely yes. The only reason that might not be true is the fact that base Dominion (1st ed.) had a lot of pretty weak cards.

23
Dominion General Discussion / Re: old cards that have gotten better
« on: November 21, 2018, 10:19:55 am »
Mine got a lot better with Platinum and kingdom treasures, and now it's a pretty terrific combo with Capitalism.

24
Other Games / Keyforge
« on: November 15, 2018, 03:55:44 pm »
The first "Random Deck" game, from Richard Garfield, is being officially launched today. It seems like it could be be really big.

I've been able to play a few games with test decks and have loved it so far. It seems a little strategically light, but I think the dynamic of learning a deck and its nuances will be a fun journey. And when the game actually releases, it'll have all the fun of buying boosters and chasing cards with none of the work of deckbuilding.

Plus, the algorithmically-generated names are interesting, and sometimes pretty hilarious.

Anyone else planning to play?

Edit: Names are generated from an algorithm, not full random. An algorithm that needs a few adjustments.

25
Other Games / Re: Dungeons and Dragons
« on: November 14, 2018, 04:50:56 pm »
I was the DM for a group for a short while before life became too hectic for me and a couple other members of the group. We played a little loose with the rules (partially because I don't have a strong mastery of the D&D rules myself) but it was SO FUN. But also, it was so much work. I was trying to create an interesting narrative structure instead of relying on my own powers of improv, and I was spending several minimum before each bi-weekly session writing out scenarios and creating characters/monsters.

Most likely, my way of DM-ing and prepping for DM-ing was like the least efficient method out there, so I have no tips! Except, use an app to create and track monsters. Holy shit, I did one session with everything on 3x5 cards and it was horrible.

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