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[AJD]

I would actually consider Pirate Ship a card that passes my 1 and 2, despite LF calling it complex.

I don't think the wording of Pirate Ship is very clear (especially in a post-Guilds world). It's a ton of text; it says "take a Coin token" but doesn't really mean it; it comes with a mat but the card text doesn't tell you what to use the mat for; lots of people read the card and think you spend the coin tokens when you use the card for money and then have to build them up again.

[GendoIkari]

I am always for simple cards. Simple cards (to me) are about one thing communicated clearly (so that's two pieces).

1. One thing
2. Clear

Library passes 1, fails 2. That doesn't make it a bad card, just not my preferred kind of card. I am glad that Library exists and I like it. But if Dominion were mostly Librarys, the game would be less fun.

Fools Gold is an example of a card that, for me, fails 1 and passes 2. Each of Fools Gold's things are simple and clear. But why does the reaction go with the top part? It's just kind of there. I think the secret history even says the top and bottom were from separate cards initially and ended up together. That's fine, but not my preference.

So anyway, future cards should be as "simple" as possible as their expansionary nature allows.

I'm not clear on the "one thing" test. Does this mean that you think less of any cards that have an "or" in them? Or any reaction cards? Both of those types of cards are things that by the literal definition can do more than 1 thing.

[Voltaire]

I would actually consider Pirate Ship a card that passes my 1 and 2, despite LF calling it complex.

I don't think the wording of Pirate Ship is very clear (especially in a post-Guilds world). It's a ton of text; it says "take a Coin token" but doesn't really mean it; it comes with a mat but the card text doesn't tell you what to use the mat for; lots of people read the card and think you spend the coin tokens when you use the card for money and then have to build them up again.

Oh well yes, Pirate Ship 100% needs errata to "Pirate Ship tokens", no argument there.

[Voltaire]

I am always for simple cards. Simple cards (to me) are about one thing communicated clearly (so that's two pieces).

1. One thing
2. Clear

Library passes 1, fails 2. That doesn't make it a bad card, just not my preferred kind of card. I am glad that Library exists and I like it. But if Dominion were mostly Librarys, the game would be less fun.

Fools Gold is an example of a card that, for me, fails 1 and passes 2. Each of Fools Gold's things are simple and clear. But why does the reaction go with the top part? It's just kind of there. I think the secret history even says the top and bottom were from separate cards initially and ended up together. That's fine, but not my preference.

So anyway, future cards should be as "simple" as possible as their expansionary nature allows.

I'm not clear on the "one thing" test. Does this mean that you think less of any cards that have an "or" in them? Or any reaction cards? Both of those types of cards are things that by the literal definition can do more than 1 thing.

I am obviously not talking about literally "one thing". Intrigue is not my least favorite expansion. But if there is a choice, the options should have some thematic or strategic pairing. Torturer is fine because you get to choose which punishment you take, for example, and as such it passes.

We're talking about gradients here - pick something on the extremes and you can make any stance look silly.

[JacquesTheBard]

I genuinely do not know. Adventures is incredible: between Travelers, Reserves, Events and Tokens we had enough innovation for multiple expansions. I really just hope that if Donald does more, he keeps the overall quality of the cards high.

And although "greatest hits" / "treasure chest" expansions are fun to speculate about, and fun for fanmade cards, I suspect that such an expansion would be VERY impractical to actually make. Too much stuff for Rio Grande to include in the box.

Knowing Donald, he'll consider an expansion if and when he has incredible ideas for new mechanics. That could take some time, but given how much awesome Dominion he's made already, he can take as much time as he wants.

[iguanaiguana]

I am always for simple cards. Simple cards (to me) are about one thing communicated clearly (so that's two pieces).

1. One thing
2. Clear

Library passes 1, fails 2. That doesn't make it a bad card, just not my preferred kind of card. I am glad that Library exists and I like it. But if Dominion were mostly Librarys, the game would be less fun.

Fools Gold is an example of a card that, for me, fails 1 and passes 2. Each of Fools Gold's things are simple and clear. But why does the reaction go with the top part? It's just kind of there. I think the secret history even says the top and bottom were from separate cards initially and ended up together. That's fine, but not my preference.

So anyway, future cards should be as "simple" as possible as their expansionary nature allows.

I'm not clear on the "one thing" test. Does this mean that you think less of any cards that have an "or" in them? Or any reaction cards? Both of those types of cards are things that by the literal definition can do more than 1 thing.

I am obviously not talking about literally "one thing". Intrigue is not my least favorite expansion. But if there is a choice, the options should have some thematic or strategic pairing. Torturer is fine because you get to choose which punishment you take, for example, and as such it passes.

We're talking about gradients here - pick something on the extremes and you can make any stance look silly.

Both fool's gold's top and bottom half present ways for you to make enough money to get a province. Once you are greening, it is harder to connect fool's golds, so the bottom half helps it stay relevant late game in some cases.

I think the two halves complement eachother nicely and they are certainly flavorful.

[LastFootnote]

I agree that cards should have one concept when possible, but for Reactions I'm willing to be very lenient. Some Reaction cards do just have one concept; "+2 Cards" is not part of Moat's concept. But the line is a bit blurred. Does Horse Traders have one concept or two? What about Beggar? I think ideally the non-Reaction part of a Reaction card is a simple thing that's just not interesting enough to be its own card.

[Voltaire]

I agree that cards should have one concept when possible, but for Reactions I'm willing to be very lenient. Some Reaction cards do just have one concept; "+2 Cards" is not part of Moat's concept. But the line is a bit blurred. Does Horse Traders have one concept or two? What about Beggar? I think ideally the non-Reaction part of a Reaction card is a simple thing that's just not interesting enough to be its own card.

This is a good point.

For me, Horse Traders is one concept because its top part makes it easy to do something with that bigger hand it gives you. Beggar feels like it does two different things, which is bizarre, since it's basically a card that gives you free money, more efficiently if you're "asked". Perhaps I should like Beggar more!

[Voltaire]

Both fool's gold's top and bottom half present ways for you to make enough money to get a province. Once you are greening, it is harder to connect fool's golds, so the bottom half helps it stay relevant late game in some cases.

This is precisely what I'm getting at - by adding the bottom part, Fools Gold becomes a better/more even card. I would rather Fools Gold be more narrow, and just a weak late-game card, for the sake of what I call simplicity. Though Fools Gold certainly is not a problem, it represents an early step on the path of making every card just kind of okay all the time by adding layers, which is what I call "complexity" and what I don't want.

[LibraryAdventurer]

I genuinely do not know. Adventures is incredible: between Travelers, Reserves, Events and Tokens we had enough innovation for multiple expansions. I really just hope that if Donald does more, he keeps the overall quality of the cards high.

And although "greatest hits" / "treasure chest" expansions are fun to speculate about, and fun for fanmade cards, I suspect that such an expansion would be VERY impractical to actually make. Too much stuff for Rio Grande to include in the box.

Knowing Donald, he'll consider an expansion if and when he has incredible ideas for new mechanics. That could take some time, but given how much awesome Dominion he's made already, he can take as much time as he wants.

totally agree.  My first choice would be to see a treasure chest with more cards that use coin tokens, VP tokens, ruins/spoils, reserves, the journey token, etc.  But I know that stuff would be too impractical to publish.  There are some cool mechanics from previous expansions whch are less combersome to publish. Donald already reprised durations, but we could see more multi-type VP/treasure cards, reserves, trash-interactions (I wouldn't mind seeing another card that could pull cards out of the trash), on-trash effects, etc.

[werothegreat]

Remember that Adventures started off as a treasure chest expansion, and Donald X realized that was impractical, except for the case of Durations.

[A Drowned Kernel]

I really just hope that if Donald does more, he keeps the overall quality of the cards high.

This is the one thing I'm certain of. I highly doubt that DXV would ever just crank out an expansion, he cares about Dominion way too much for that.

[Wrclass]

An entire set that focuses on cards that combo with bad cards from earlier sets.

[werothegreat]

An entire set that focuses on cards that combo with bad cards from earlier sets.

Unexplored Territory

- Victory

Worth 1 for every Scout in your deck.

[sc0UT]

curse hybrids

[popsofctown]

-more complex cards in general

- More simple cards

I'm very interested in hearing people's opinions on what makes a card "simple" or "complex". Is there any middle ground between the two, or is each card one or the other? Obviously opinions will differ, and that's fine.

In my opinion, Dominion has very few truly complex cards. I would nominate Library, Pirate Ship, Scrying Pool, Possession, Tournament, Jack of all Trades, Noble Brigand, Hermit, Knights, Count, Rebuild, Butcher, Messenger, Bridge Troll, Giant, Teacher, Warrior, Governor, and Prince.  Some cards—like Outpost and Band of Misfits—can have complex interactions but are simple conceptually and simple to use in most games.

But Library was selected for the base set! And I have never had a single new player ask me to explain the text or explain why they would ever want to set aside cards they bought specifically for their deck!

[NoMoreFun]

Treasure box that still stands on its own:
* New looters, with brand new Ruins (new effects, possibly on cards referencing expansions)
* A different "spoils" that's added to the spoils pile. Mix the 2 together if playing with a Dark Ages spoils gainer.
* Cards and events that involve potion costs,  and a new stack of cards that give potion (that isn't a treasure costing 4 that does nothing else). Some clever way to add to alchemy without doubling it or requiring it.
* 5 new prize cards with new cards/events to earn them. Mix with the tournament prizes when playing with both.
* Coin and VP tokens, with new uses for them (eg putting then on top of supply piles)
* Cards that stand on their own, but refer to mats with the same name as existing cards (eg Haven, Trade Route) with special interactions.

Basically an expansion that rewards and modifies previous expansions,  but doesn't require them.

Lots of ideas for mechanics out there but the old ones still have a lot of potential.

[NoMoreFun]

"Same name, different card" could be an interesting mechanic in general, or blurring the lines between name and type (eg a card that's "Action/Silver" or "Victory/Madman")

[Seprix]

I like the idea for more Prize Cards, but that should be a promo card. Everything else is something Donald can't do because Rio Grande probably won't let him/Donald won't do it because it requires owning other sets beyond the base cards.

[Donald X.]

I'm very interested in hearing people's opinions on what makes a card "simple" or "complex". Is there any middle ground between the two, or is each card one or the other? Obviously opinions will differ, and that's fine.

Originally the cards were all just one concept. And man they were one concept. I felt like +$2 and +2 Cards were things for a card to do when the card concept was giving you $2 or 2 cards. So they didn't even do that extra.

It turned out they had to have those +'s. An effect like Militia just isn't good enough by itself; it needs resources. So the Dominion you know has +'s piled onto whatever other things.

There are different ways to measure complexity. Mark Rosewater has a good essay on this somewhere. Wait I have the internet right here. http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/172. He talks about some Magic-specific stuff; Dominion doesn't so much have board complexity, I mean cards could hypothetically stack up "while in play" abilities that affected decisions in tricky ways but there sure isn't much of that. Anyway there's an article you can read if you want.

So looking at that and just remembering what I tend to say, we can point at some different things that make a Dominion card complex, aside from strategic complexity which we are just generally happy to have.

- It has a lot of words.
- It's hard to understand what it does.
- It does something counterintuitive.
- It does multiple things.

These are all separate. Golem is wordy, Chancellor counterintuitive (which is to say, hard to understand why you want to do that), but neither has the other quality. I guess being hard to understand probably tends to mean having lots of words. Anyway you know. There are these different issues. And they all matter.

- You sit down to play, here read 10 cards. Having lots of words is intimidating, anti-fun. It's fine once you learn the cards but starts out bad.
- If you can't figure out how a card works you will get into rules arguments and have less fun. There's the rulebook but who has time for it. Maybe you will end up playing it wrong in a way that breaks the game; Ferry was an example when it said "kingdom card" instead of "action."
- People will just sit there staring at counterintuitive cards, trying to see what they're missing. They don't like it.
- You can only keep so much in your head. You already can't keep 10 cards in your head. Cards that do multiple things are harder to learn and then harder to remember.

There are obv. cards I've blown it on all these ways. And there are cards where it was intentional because I thought the card was worth it.

[Asper]

As someone who hoped for Adventures having simple cards, i think i'm happy. Most Reserves have a single concept, plus the Reserve aspect (which you learn once), and are therefore fine to me. Travellers are complex, but don't have a condition like Hermit or Urchin, which simplifies the individual cards. Other complex cards (in my book) are Storyteller and Artificer, the last of which is a Peddler, a discard-for-benefit, a gainer and - easy to forget - a topdecker. I always forget when a gainer topdecks cards. It happens with Develop, Graverobber... somehow i feel it should count as an additional "thing" a card does simply because it's so easy to forget. Messenger is also a bit complex, with the Chancellor, the gain and the "first buy" restriction. But that's iall for me. None of the events i remember feel actually complex to me. They shake up the game, but that alone doesn't make them complex.

I think Dark Ages, and even some cards in Guilds (Doctor, Herald) were worse.

[werothegreat]

- You can only keep so much in your head. You already can't keep 10 cards in your head.

<.<

I may or may not have every Dominion card memorized and sorted mentally into appropriate categories...

[Witherweaver]

- You can only keep so much in your head. You already can't keep 10 cards in your head.

<.<

I may or may not have every Dominion card memorized and sorted mentally into appropriate categories...

But newly sitting down and reading cards for the first time, you don't. 

[mameluke]

I'd like to see another card or two that can gain things from the trash. Rogue and Graverobber are fine and all, but with more and more expansions it's pretty rare to see them in a game, yet there are more and more trashers.

Maybe something like: Trash a card from your hand. If you do, gain a card costing up to the cost in coins of the trashed card. The card comes from either the supply or the trash.