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Messages - Donald X.

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26
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: February 07, 2024, 01:37:36 pm »
What's your view on custom modifications of cards? Such as taking a little black permanent marker, crossing out the +Buy on Wharf and writing a +Buy on Merchant ship? Or perhaps putting a +something on Harvest.
Have the fun you want to have! I personally customized some of my Hinterlands cards, before making Hinterlands 2E.

27
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Marchland
« on: February 05, 2024, 12:57:27 pm »
Any word on general card availability?  I saw mid-march for Spielbox magazine but I don't know how to get that or where...
I expect BoardGameGeek to sell the English version, as they do the other promos.

28
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: February 04, 2024, 01:42:33 pm »
Did you consider making the 2nd editions that came out last year into 400 or 500 card expansions?
I didn't. The second editions are a way of doing new expansions without actually selling new expansions; hiding the new stuff where it can be ignored. For example there's an expansion's-worth of cards between Seaside / Prosperity / Hinterlands 2E; for sure we would have sold more of those cards if they'd been an expansion. Wait, these sound awful; why did I do these? Ah yes, the key thing was to get rid of the cards being replaced. I wanted the products to be better; they didn't need to be larger too.

Similarly did you consider putting Durations into Prosperity or Hinterlands? Or landscapes into any of them?
I considered Duration cards. As you may know, originally Durations were going to be in each set after Seaside. That would have been fine, but didn't happen (story in secret history). There was no special need to put Duration cards into the 2E's though; it could have happened but didn't.

I didn't consider landscapes; they're a lot of work when what I'm really doing is replacing duds.

What's your latest thinking on how you decide how many cards to put in an expansion?
Mostly it's just, how many cards does this expansion seem to want to be? However there is one significant factor, which is tokens; the tokens make the set more expensive, as do more cards, so if it has tokens it's more likely to be smaller card-wise.

And then, there are certain ideal sizes for publishing that a set is bound to stick to - hence a set with 330 cards is unlikely.

29
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: February 03, 2024, 06:52:00 pm »
Base 2e, Intrigue 2e, and Empires, are about as old today as base was when it got a 2nd edition. If you were to do 2es for Cornuguildsia, Dark Ages, Adventures, and Empires (throw in Nocturne if you want), which cards would you take out?
I don't want to put much work into answering this, but for Adventures all I ever want to replace is Warrior, and for Empires, man, there might not be anything. I ban Keep online but I think it was fine to print it.

For Cornucopia the easy highlight is Harvest; for Guilds, Masterpiece. Dark Ages has lots of cards that could go at this point, but the first one out would be Rebuild.

Nocturne wants to be split up into two expansions, one with Night and Spirits, one with Heirlooms, Boons, and Wishes (neither with Hexes). It's not a matter of replacing a few cards.

30
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: January 30, 2024, 02:14:08 pm »
Have you ever answered a rules question wrong on purpose, just to see how many people would believe you? Or is that too evil for someone in your shoes to try and pull?
No; I've left questions unanswered because they were about upcoming products, and I've failed to point out a rules hole that I knew existed but which players hadn't spotted.

Were there any new playtesters for Rising Sun? If so, do you know them online or in-person? (You don't have to name them if you or them don't want it revealed.)
Man, do they want to be revealed, dz? And do I secretly know you in person? That would be creepy. You started on MCB though.

What's more boring: picking cards for recommended sets, or naming them?
Write-in for answering questions about them.

It takes way longer to pick the cards than to name the sets, so that part is worse. Then we have to test them, but that part is fine, it's playing Dominion. For naming, the main issue is just, have I used this name already?

Do you still read Mark Rosewater’s Blogatog, and have you ever asked questions and/or sent him your thoughts on MTG that way? Do you have plans of starting your own version of Blogatog?
I think this is my Blogatog. I don't read it anymore (I've glanced at it once in a great while); I still look at previews for new sets, but it's gotten so that I don't even read all the cards there. Some are so wordy that it's a chore to read them.

I've never sent a question to Blogatog, but I've played games with Mark in person uh several times. I've been to the apartment he had, then the house he had, but not to the house he had after that one. We played my prototypes, back when I was nobody, and also my Magic cards. And two of his prototypes, neither of which has come out. He's talked about one in his column. This all went down from 1997-2003.

Years later I typed up a bunch of comments about how to fix up Magic - templates / rules / design - and email'd it to him. He replied but I don't think ever read all that stuff. They certainly haven't made any of the changes, even the most blatantly correct and easy ones. Once in a while I see how the templates have fallen even further, and think, I could poke him about that.

After finishing a new board game / expansion, do you take some time off, or immediately try to get a new project going?
I try to have multiple projects going at all times. Finishing an expansion isn't such a sharp dividing line; less and less is accomplished, it feels like it's about done, but until it's printed something could still change. Even when we stop playing it, it may come up, someone notices a wording that could be better, or I pull it out for some new players and then oops I should fix this. You can always make the game / expansion better; you just have to be done at some point.

So anyway. There have been periods where I played a bunch of games that weren't mine; just, my current projects weren't ready and well I like playing games. But it wasn't like I wasn't working on new games then; I just didn't have them ready to trot out.

I prefer working on multiple projects, so that when things stall on one I can look at another, or even, I can just take a break from one by working on another. Sometimes one project demands a lot of time though, so I get nothing or very little done on other projects, and this certainly happens with Dominion expansions.

Of course any given day might be time off. There's no real time pressure until the publisher has the game and things are moving forward there.

When you run out of cards / sleeves to use for a prototype, where do you get more? Do you resort to unsleeving your other prototypes?
I do unsleeve other prototypes, and also just buy sleeves online. Clear backs are better than colored backs - the colored-back sleeves tend to bend at the corners immediately, then break eventually - but sometimes a prototype has 3 decks and sure wants different backs, and while I can print out backs (I did for Temporum) it's easier to use colored-back sleeves. I buy heavy-duty awesome sleeves online, but in the past I had tons of cheap ones, and they're still floating around in prototypes, and still get reused.

Dominion's original sleeves went out of print, and while Sir Martin always pushes for resleeving everything, that's never happening. So now it has a mix of sleeves. Which isn't so different really, you could always tell the new cards from the backs due to wear on sleeves, which eventually becomes a thing. Those sleeves were amazing though, most of them are still functioning all these years later.

31
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: January 16, 2024, 12:13:41 pm »
Do the artists get to maintain the rights to their work, or do you or the publisher purchase the rights?  If ownership is not with the artist, any chance of a Dominion Art Book or something similar sometime in the future?  I'd absolutely pay to see high-res versions of the artwork.
I don't own any art; I think the publisher does. I don't imagine there's enough interest in a book; you could mention your interest to the publisher and see if it piles up.

32
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: January 10, 2024, 12:33:05 pm »
I saw that WotC is having problems with some of their artists using AI tools and it's causing quite the commotion in that community. Do you or RGG have any policies around that?
So far just, don't rip off someone else's art or photo.

33
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: December 29, 2023, 12:23:39 pm »
I don't know if this is the right time to ask (maybe you haven't even thought about this) but do you plan on anyone to keep doing Dominion after you are done with it? Maybe give playtesters more "power" while you're still providing ideas etc?


Or will it end after you're done?
It's possible at some point someone else will make an expansion, with me helping out; it's hard to see me not wanting to make sure it's good enough and uh true to the spirit. It's not something I'm pursuing though; I'm happy just slowing down the pace and still being the Dominion expansion guy. They're fun projects; I know they'll work in advance, I know what I'm doing, everyone is happy to playtest them, there's a publisher happy to publish them, and players happy to buy them. For me the reason to not make them is to have time to work on anything else; from time to time I expect it will always be, okay now another Dominion expansion sounds like fun. But I mean it's hard for anyone to predict the future. And it's not just up to me.

Eventually I'll be dead, and who knows what will happen then. Well may the world go, when I'm far away.

34
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: December 26, 2023, 12:29:21 pm »
Do you see next-time Durations as being a thing we can expect in a lot of future expansions like Reactions and Events are, or as a thing that might pop up again once or never?
It's not off the table to do one here and there. The only special pull is, it's a thing a card can do. I do need those.


35
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: December 24, 2023, 11:53:38 am »
What is the process before you reveal the front-page information on new expansions? Like the Rio Grande Games page that says Loot and Traits are in Plunder with 500 cards total.
I write it. Then I don't think about it at all, and one day RGG posts the functionality blurb somewhere, or a distributor does. I don't know their processes.

36
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: December 17, 2023, 02:45:01 pm »
How have you managed to avoid jsh giving you the on notice role in discord? Last I checked...
* you created Chariot Race
* jsh hates Chariot Race
Probably I made some points back in the music tournaments.

What's it like having playtesters that love to argue with you and each other? This could range from things like your commas, or card errata, or if a new card is unfun and/or too strong.
It's like a cool breeze on a summer day. It's like when you trip on a sidewalk crack, and can't believe you tripped on it, and go back, and try to purposefully trip on it, and you just can't.

All the games have to please me first; if I'm not having fun, they're not happening. Then they have to please my playtesters; that also can stop them from being. So the playtesters loom large.

A few of them go way back. I met Sir Martin in 1994, Sir Destry in 1997. Ingix was a fellow Magic rules guru arguing about what they should do in 6E, in the late 90s.

The commas, man, I am just in the right there. Card errata, well it's very helpful to have people weighing in. Unfun, too strong, man I like having as many opinions as I can get, as much evidence.

What kind of Dominion rules questions do you find fun to answer, and which ones are the least fun?
I guess I prefer the ones where I'm confident in the answer, less so the ones where it's a real question which way I should go.

For Band of Misfits/Garrison, why did you decide that it's required that the Garrison be in play for it get any tokens?
It's a physical game first and foremost. So I mean. The tokens have to go somewhere.

Has creating new games gotten harder or easier over time?
The initial step, of convincing myself to put in the work to get a prototype to find out if it's at all worth pursuing, has gotten harder. Probably everything else has gotten easier. I have plenty of ideas waiting for their day. There are lots of problems that I just know solutions to now. I know what I like in terms of phrasings and layout; years have gone into that and it's still never done, but you know.

37
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: December 02, 2023, 12:38:48 pm »
Any news on Rising Sun? Normally we get to see the box art and the small text introducing the mechanics some months before the release, will this change or is it still too early?
I know people helplessly ask, but no new news actually makes it out that way.

The cover isn't done; I guess that's new news. There is no set schedule for releasing that image and that text. When it happens it will get posted.

38
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: December 01, 2023, 01:59:20 pm »
Do you have any resources you'd recommend for a hopeful game designer?
BoardGameGeek probably has some stuff?

Writers write; game designers design games. Make a bunch of games and you will learn things; that's all I had myself.

The biggest lesson I can pithily sum up is: it has to be fun to lose. Mostly people lose; you have say four players, only one winner.

I've read a lot of game theory stuff, but, surprisingly, that is more about econ than fun games.
My introduction to game theory was the William Poundstone book Prisoner's Dilemma. It had some cool stuff, and made me think, I should make a game theory game, since games were not really so related to game theory. And I did, Pirate's Dilemma. It made you read 8 cards a turn and consider a 2x2 grid of payoffs. I later simplified this concept down to 2 cards; still a payoff grid but with a hidden axis. That was still hard for a lot of people but seems usable in an actual game. That particular game, man it had a few hardcore fans but it never felt close to publishable.

I'm struggling to find a way to make sure asymmetrical game play is balanced. Any suggestions on what to research?
Obviously the main things you can do are:

1) make the game as balanced as possible aside from that aspect;
2) playtest a lot

Once in a while you can just do the math on a bunch of things; usually not though. Sometimes you can do computer simulations.

In the world of non-Donald-X. games, politics is frequently used to balance asymmetrical games, but I hate that.

In general games are asymmetrical; an asymmetrical game just pushes this more. In Dominion for example, we have the same options, isn't this super symmetrical? But the idea is that the board is actually a puzzle, that it's not just clear what the best thing to do is. So the different cards are desperately trying to be close in power level. They have more leeway to vary than if we just started with different cards, but this element is still there. In a less symmetrical non-asymmetrical game, it will be like, you draw a hand of random cards at the start; there we go, it's asymmetrical. So it's really not such a big leap to a fully asymmetrical game.

The biggest thing is just, well with say that hand of random cards, even though players figure out, "these are the better cards these are the worse ones," that doesn't cover every possible hand. Whereas with the asymmetrical game, maybe you have five roles, and well, players work out the best and worst ones and so much for that. You could try to mitigate this with the other kinds of asymmetry, e.g. those starting hands. There's also uh general "make the players balance this" things e.g. bidding, but, well for me it would need to feel like a great fit otherwise or I wouldn't be satisfied. I mean if it was a bidding game, with another varying start condition so this wasn't merely "have people figured out the overpowered role yet," then it could be fine. We turn over two Twists to modify the game, they change how good the roles are, we bid on roles, and then go on to bid on other things.

Drafting can actually make it good to have disparity - you don't want highs too high or lows too low, but may actively want cards to not all be just as good. So you could draft roles plus other things at the start. I don't need to first pick a role but can only take one. Instead of "someone is handed the best role" it's "someone has the first option at the best role, but may still value something else over it." You can even make that typical, I mean make the other things you draft at the start tend to be more significant than the roles. Well now I am just designing a game.

39
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: November 28, 2023, 12:52:47 pm »
Since you errata'd Possession with the multi-turn errata, have you considered it giving even more errata? Such as:
a) Treating returning to its pile the same as trashing. (so that Way Of The Horse can no longer nuke decks)
b) Putting the deck on the discard at the end of the turn, so that the normal turn cannot be ruined by topdeck shenanigans, or by triggering nasty shuffles?

Obviously, this'd make Possession even more wordy, and probably still as inpopular, so I'd totally respect it if you actively decided against it.
I have not.

It only got the multi-turn errata because that was a sweeping change. I reached the point eventually where I just decided to ignore Possession; it's that messed up.

I'm not super into those changes otherwise. I try not to errata cards beyond fixing the rules and making text clear.

40
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: November 23, 2023, 12:40:37 pm »
Trait outtake from the secret history of plunder
Quote
Instead of following its instructions, may play cheaper card with restrictions. Way of Band of Misfits. Ways were poor here, and Band of Misfits is awful here. So slow.

Why are ways poor in traitland?
Because they're Ways. We had Ways, they were called Ways, they're in Menagerie.

You also had landmarks but that didn't stop plateau shepherds from making its way into Allies. (not to mention Obelisk and the project-y events, but their mechanics weren't in a set yet.)
That line of reasoning never gets you anywhere. Each example you can find will either be one I would do differently today, or an exception with good reason.

Which category does plateau shepherds fall into?
Plateau Shepherds is fine. No regrets.

41
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: November 22, 2023, 01:30:37 pm »
Trait outtake from the secret history of plunder
Quote
Instead of following its instructions, may play cheaper card with restrictions. Way of Band of Misfits. Ways were poor here, and Band of Misfits is awful here. So slow.

Why are ways poor in traitland?
Because they're Ways. We had Ways, they were called Ways, they're in Menagerie.

You also had landmarks but that didn't stop plateau shepherds from making its way into Allies. (not to mention Obelisk and the project-y events, but their mechanics weren't in a set yet.)
That line of reasoning never gets you anywhere. Each example you can find will either be one I would do differently today, or an exception with good reason.

42
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: November 21, 2023, 01:16:35 pm »
Trait outtake from the secret history of plunder
Quote
Instead of following its instructions, may play cheaper card with restrictions. Way of Band of Misfits. Ways were poor here, and Band of Misfits is awful here. So slow.

Why are ways poor in traitland?
Because they're Ways. We had Ways, they were called Ways, they're in Menagerie.

43
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: November 16, 2023, 02:12:48 pm »
Do you have plans of updating cbtest14? Is this a reference that anyone else will understand?
I stopped updating it in June of 2010. Probably that was right around when we started testing on isotropic.

When you need new playtesters, how do you decide who to invite? Do you narrow down a list of potential candidates and then interview them?
No, nothing like that. There's no one set thing. When I was doing Adventures I looked at what people were posting and who was doing well in league; I wanted some mix of "is good" and "posts a lot." When we were testing on dominion.games I kept inviting more people who were good, hoping they would somehow get in some games, until I'd invited one too many and one leaked information.

One key thing I have learned is, if someone offers themselves up, I can't have that person. So now you know. It's a filter on who they are that makes them a poor candidate.

What do you think of Exploration post-errata? It and Bonfire have been the 2 cards that people are the most sad about.
It hasn't bothered me.

You've called Souk a "problem card" (along with Fortress). In what situations does it break the game? Is the +$7 the problem?
It rewards you in a big way for not having cards in hand, which can be trivial e.g. with Villa.

How do you feel when people hate on Allies for leading to “slow games” when (let's be honest) their complaints are actually about pre-errata Voyage and Warlord?
Allies is a decision-heavy set, that's part of its character. So I mean it's fair to find it slow. It's not something I can do every time out, but there are people who appreciate those kinds of cards.

What tips do you have for brainstorming new cards (Dominion or otherwise)?
It's hardest when you don't have anything yet; you can build on what you've got, once you've got some stuff. At the beginning, it was a real question, would I even manage 20 good cards for Dominion.

Here are some classic tricks.
- Look at all of your data, and see what triggers and effects it produces, then pair them up.
- Look at all of your rules, and see which ones you can make exceptions to.
- Consider different basic forms of program flow and what they get you.
- Look at what you've got so far; see what will work with it.
- Categorize what you've got so far; see what holes there are that you can try cards for.
- Look for classic variations on what you have so far; especially, little, big, and lots.
- Flavor can inspire new ideas.
- Look at your other games, see what ideas from there will port over.
- Look at the world through the lens of rules on cards. Any random time when you have an idea, write it down.
- Look at what didn't work in the past that maybe now you can fix up.
- When you've got 15 expansions, you really want a strong direction to help you get going. You've got a mechanic to try and you put it through its paces.

Here are some examples of those.
- You have $, you have cards in hand; we could let you somehow make $ based on the cards. We can say discard them (Vault), or count them in reverse (Souk).
- The rules have phases going in a particular order. We can mess with the order (Villa); we can add a phase (Night).
- There are so many very basic program flow things. We can give you a choice of costs (Animal Fair), choice of effects (Pawn), just do multiple things (Jack of All Trades), do some things now and some things later (Durations). You can do loops, e.g. repeat-until (Library).
- Let's see there are a bunch of Villages, maybe something can interact with those (Diadem).
- At one point I looked at all the basic pairings of resources, what had I not done yet that was worth doing. Not for e.g. Bazaar and Worker's Village, which had just been saved for later. I don't remember if I got a specific card this way.
- Hamlet is a little village, Bustling Village is a big one, Port is two villages.
- Siren is an example of a card that started with flavor. What would a Siren do?
- I'd had Durations in games for years; Greed for example is from 2003, though it was published after Dominion, and has a few Durations. An idea from Rising Sun ultimately goes back to Nefarious.
- I do write down ideas whenever I have them. I'm looking at a notebook page from work on Adventures; the first thing is the VP card that turned into Wall.
- Horn of Plenty is an example I've talked at length about where the original card ("+$1 per Action you played this turn") failed (turning into Conspirator at the time) but I remembered it and worked on it more.
- Plunder had multiple themes from the start, it had Treasure - Durations and next-time Durations and Loot all on day one. So I could get right to looking at, what could I do with these mechanics.

Of course there are other ways to get card ideas too. Village for example, the idea was to limit Action plays specifically so I could make that card. Cards needed things to do.

44
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: November 09, 2023, 03:40:02 pm »
What's your approach for designing a cardpool? Does it differ between mixes and expansions? Do you do any math to figure out how often you expect Kingdoms to have e.g. an attack? Or do you just playtest a ton to see how a sufficient number of Kingdoms feel?
I worry about the percentage of cards that are: villages, +buy, draw, trashing, attacks/interaction, $5's, other costs, cantrips, $5 cantrips. And how much the set mechanics are used. Sometimes other factors mess with the numbers; especially, the idea that terminals that use an Action from your hand, e.g. Remodel, count less towards how many terminals you have.

For expansions the idea is always, that you might own any mix of expansions, and I want to have a good percentage of everything no matter what.

For mixes (tournaments run on the discord using 75 cards I've picked out from across expansions), well I've specified the entire environment, and sometimes that environment specifically wants to be light on something or heavy on something.

Do you have an opinion on how the full random cardpool currently is? Do you ever wish you could, for example, dump 30 villages into the pot?
Later sets ramp up the percentages slightly to deal with the fact that there are so many cards; it's just a math thing you're stuck with.

I'm happy with how things have gone. I didn't know to value $5's as highly in the very early days, but I caught on and also got to revisit the old sets. Probably more interaction would be good; it's hard to come by interactive cards that work well and aren't identical to things already existing and aren't hated.

Taking a longer view: there're two interesting trends I've seen over the last few years with the full cardpool. One, we've been trending towards faster and faster games turns-wise across all skill levels. Two, individual cards and pairings of cards (from combos such as Donate/MS, to interesting in-set interactions such as Silver Mine/Rope, to card+archetype such as Proc/Horse) become less and less frequent as time goes on. Do either of those matter to you?
The intention isn't to speed up games; I think part of this is, I responded to how players in general were less fond of attacks than I'd expected, and well if you have fewer attacks, the game is faster. But really, what matters is that we had a fun game; I'm happy to make a one-turn game if it's fun.

It's great to have random pairs of cards come up less often; it makes those games more special. Pairs within sets will always come up plenty, because again many people do not own everything. And then there are all the people who mostly play the recommended sets, which will showcase some of that stuff.

Have you played many other deckbuilders? And if so, are you willing to comment on their design decisions or things they've changed? As one example, I've been having a lot of fun playing Astrea, a dice-focused deckbuilder (5 second pitch: StS but with dice instead of cards, so something like a grandkid of Dominion), and find it really funny how it inherited the whole "discard your hand at end of turn" thing from StS, which explicitly chose to follow the Dominion rather than Magic paradigm there.
In general I avoid deckbuilders, because I still might make more, and I don't want any "oh he copied this from someone else." Man, I didn't, let's get that straight. My notes for a Dominion Dice game go back to before Dominion was published.

I have specifically avoided Slay the Spire. Sir Martin always says how great it is and well, glad you're having fun, but, it's not for me, I can play other games.

I have played a few though, I mean like once each. Off the top of my head:
- Eminent Domain - one of my go-to examples from years ago of how you could be inspired by Dominion without copying every decision I'd made. It's got a Puerto Rico aspect to it and I mean from one game it was fine.
- the Knizia one - I was very sad to see how little he innovated here. Bleah.
- the cows one - Your deck is cows, you make circuits on a board and periodically show them off? I Chapel'd down and won, hooray. It was fine and also again not very derivative, hooray.
- the one with a bag of pure vanilla chits that are like Monk and Knight and things? - And the sequel. It had a certain charm. The uh special ability tiles needed tons of work, both the mechanism and then what they were.

I've never played Ascension, but for me it will always be the game I chose not to make. I outline this in that old BoardGameNews article, from when Dominion was first published. I considered a line of cards and you buy one (I think the editor, W. Eric Martin, referred to that as Show Manager style), and thought, it will suck when a good one shows up and someone else gets to buy it. I considered a mix of resources; one seemed better (and when I tried adding a resource, it was the least popular mechanic ever).

People always talk about how other games don't restrict you to one Action per turn. I of course did that specifically so that I could then break that rule; it gave me something to do, a way to vary cards. It's not that you absolutely have to have that; in fact your game doesn't need to be a Dominion rip-off at all, it can be say that you build a set of cows you're showing off once per lap, and then "action limit" is a nonsensical term. I mean really that's it: for people trying to just copy Dominion, well I think the best game there is the one I made, and I mean of course; I didn't intentionally do something I thought was inferior. I've endlessly gone over ways I've blown it, e.g. how Reactions work (should all be played Sheepdogs not revealed Moats), or how the Curse pile scales, or the whole "what if the card is gone" scene (e.g. Procession'd Durations); but these aren't anything people are talking about in this context.

45
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: November 08, 2023, 09:54:29 am »
Are you likely to answer questions of the form "What problems were caused by this obvious-ish card idea I have that I assume you also had years ago and never made into a set because it had non-obvious not-worth-solving problems that you found in playtesting" ?
No, but you could post it in variants and possibly LastFootnote will tell you.

46
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: November 04, 2023, 01:18:49 pm »
Are there cards that haven't been replaced that you think are stronger than you thought they were during playtesting? Any that you now think are weaker than you thought they were?
While I talk more about card power level than I used to, I still try to steer clear of it. It's like a spoiler. It's not my role. And such an open-ended question, man, it's so easy to avoid answering. Ask players instead.

47
Rules Questions / Re: Innovating a Duration during Donate
« on: November 04, 2023, 01:15:22 pm »
If you Donate a Catacombs, gain a Cabin Boy and play it with Innovation, does that Cabin Boy's start-of-next-turn effect happen immediately?

Technically speaking, that start-of-next-turn effect was set up before start-of-next-turn effects are actually resolved. But also it feels weird because it's still the same turn. If you Delayed a Wharf, that doesn't mean you get +4 Cards and +2 Buys.
Cabin Boy doesn't happen immediately, because it's not the next turn. It doesn't say "the next time you're doing start of turn stuff," so that we have to wonder, is that part of the batch with Donate or not. It says "next turn" and this is the same turn.

48
Dominion General Discussion / Halloween Kingdom
« on: October 31, 2023, 02:47:04 pm »
Happy Halloween! Here's a Dominion kingdom for the holiday, from me and LastFootnote. (Costumed goes on the Horde of Kids.)









49
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Rising Sun
« on: October 31, 2023, 01:52:32 am »
IIRC spielbox says the promo is promoting the new expansion
The promo is not promoting the new expansion, except to the not-what-you-meant degree that you can say that any promo promotes nearby expansions.

50
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: October 23, 2023, 06:13:07 pm »
Does Rising Sun have any "Whoops this card is flawed in concept" outtake cards that you can show us yet?
I'm looking at the secret history, thinking, "the secret history needs its fun too."

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